One unwanted side effect of launching so many awesome new Stack Exchange network sites is that the more you participated in, the harder it became to keep track of all your questions, answers, and comments across every site you participated on. That's kind of a bummer.
Well, I'm pleased to announce we've added a new global inbox to every site in our network. On the genuinetm Stack Exchange logo in the upper left hand corner, the one you already know and love -- you may see a new, small red numeric indicator light up:
That small red number tells you how many new replies you have across the entire Stack Exchange network of websites. And by replies, I mean:
- New answers to your questions
- New comments on your posts
- @replies to you in comments
Click the number to go directly to the global inbox.
At any given time, the inbox will contain a list of the last 30 global messages for your account, along with:
- The site icon, so you know which site the message is from
- The title of the question the message is associated with
- A preview excerpt of the first few characters of the message
- The relative age of the message (in a tooltip, so hover your mouse to see it)
Clicking through on any global inbox item will of course take you directly to the specific question on the target site.
Hopefully the new global inbox will make it easier to keep track of your questions, answers, and comments across the entire network!
(and yes, we're looking at ways for chat to discreetly insert @reply mentions in the global inbox as well.)