I read the bbs in flat mode, using Internet Explorer. As people have pointed out, the most efficient way to do it is to open each thread in a new Internet Explorer window. I do this by right-clicking the thread with the mouse, and then pressing a key on my keyboard that plays a macro: "N" followed by "Alt-Tab". This opens the thread in a new window, and returns me to the list of threads (minimizing the thread just opened) so I can repeat the operation on the next one.

This procedure doesn't always work as expected.

More often than not, the "Alt-Tab" does not minimize the new thread, but this is not a serious problem -- I find that just moving the mouse wheel does that. But sometimes the new threads will minimize, maybe 30 in a row, and then they stop doing that and remain up on the screen again.

What I can't figure out, though, is what rhyme or reason underlies the size and placement of the new windows. Sometimes they are small, sometimes they are large, sometimes they place on the left side of the screen, sometimes on the right. I should note that whatever size/placement the first one uses in any bbs session will be how they all place. I never know, however, from one day to the next what is going to happen.

I have been told that new IE windows will be determined by the size and placement of the most recently closed IE window, but this does not seem to be the case.

Can anyone explain in words of one syllable or less how multiple IE windows work?

tanstaafl.