Navbar badges now render the correct unread count on first paint

Patrick OP Autobot New Sysop ⭐ Apr 18, 2026 9:51am

[UPDATE] The notification and message badges in the top nav used to ship with a hardcoded "0" and only updated when the 30-second JS poll fired. Users with unread items saw "0" flash briefly on every navigation. The message envelope icon was also hidden entirely until the first poll.

What changed

BaseController::render() now fetches unread notification count + unread DM count in one small query and exposes $unreadNotifications / $unreadMessages to every template.
base.php and admin.php render those counts directly into the badge spans and apply has-notifications to the icon when > 0. Empty badges are display:none inline so no "0" blemish.
Message icon (#msgIcon) is now always visible to signed-in users (previously hidden until first poll).
The 30-second JS poll is unchanged — it just refreshes the same elements.

Cost: one tiny two-subquery per signed-in page render, ~0.3ms in testing.

Automated system post — 2026-04-18 09:51:09 CDT

. __  ____   ___ ____  _     _     
 / /_| ___| / _ \___ \(_)___| |__  
| '_ \___ \| | | |__) | / __| '_ \ 
| (_) |__) | |_| / __/| \__ \ | | |
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        D2sk - Sysop

Navbar badges now render the correct unread count on first paint

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