Document read/opened flag

[davidpro]

Hello,

We'd like to add a new functionality to our Alfresco. We'd like to have some kind of flag that would tell whether document was already read/opened.
For example I see two solutions:
1. [Automatic] When user opens, clicks on link, document we mark document as read/opened, and when he comes back to the list of documents, document's title of read one is in a different color or have some icon next to it.
2. [Manual] Before user opens document he checks a checkbox near to document, and when he comes back to the list of documents, the checkboxes near to read documents are checked.

Which option will be easier to achieve? Have you got any suggestions how to implement it?
Is there out-of-the-box solution for this kind of requirement?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

David

[mrogers]

The easiest is a boolean in an aspect.   Rather like the read flag in an email system.     One difficulty is distinguishing a read from a user rather than a read from the system to say index or transform the document.   But the transformation will typically be executing as "system".

The manual checkbox is trivial.

Another factor is whether each user should have their own "read flag" for each document.    For a small number of users and a small number of documents its possible to have a list of who has read each document (rather like governments do with secret documents) but that approach will not scale. 

In alfresco I've used the attribute service for the user unsubscribe to a mailbox.    That seems to work.
 
But for large numbers of docs and large numbers of users then you need a database solution.     I'd use the alfresco reporting server but is it released yet?