Email notification of update to thread

matt

I'd like to see this so I don't have to check the forum just to see if somebody has replied to a post I might make. Sort of like phpBB does it, in that it will only send one email about an updated thread until you visit that thread again.

NAG

try this discussion for the moment

my guess is that this sort of email thing is plugin material

jonezy

this would totally be an extension

moe

hum. i'd actually like that feat in the core (just my opinion).
also i'd like a preferences option that says "notify when anyone responds to a post of mine" so i don't miss, for example, when someone replies to this.

omfg

Why would you want it in the core? When you enable an extension it basically becomes part of the core.. so what's the diff?

matt

Can somebody point me to the extensions API, please?

jonezy

the extension API doesn't exist yet... look for it in the next couple of days

moe

@omfg well, i'd like it in the core because that'd mean any forum running vanilla vanilla will have it. nothing worse than stumbling across a nice vanilla-forum that lacks some of the most useful feats. i consider mail-notify the one really basic thing any forum should have because i don't have the time to frequent all the forums that i'm registered on. often i'll just fire off a question on some obscure support-forum for my nvidia dforce 4711 gfx-card and never look back unless i get a mail that lets me know that someone responded...

omfg

Yea but a forum administrator can turn that on and off anyways... so... again.. it doesn't much matter.

dom

I would rather not have it as part of the core, since it weighs the core down. And on community type forums that feature is pretty useless (IMHO), since people will be checking back frequently to chat, rather than to get an answer to a problem.

moe

@omfg

well, but at least it's on by default and most administrators won't bother to turn it off unless they have a reason to not want it.

@dom

sure it adds a bit to the core but i don't think a lot of code would be needed.
in fact, the hook could probably be co-used to update the RSS-feed which could then be a static file. that way RSS-requests don't have to hit the database all the time which could cause problems for large sites with lots of RSS-users in the long run.

just my 2,5 cents

brady

i actually hope nothing else is added to the core. simplicity for once, please.

at the same time, i'm betting mark doesn't add much to the core. especially fringe functionality such as this.

vinay

I agree with the majority here. Don't add it to the core. The only things I think he should be adding to the core, are hooks for extensions where they might be needed.

It would be really nice to see the core be that. core. and then features such as this can be added via extensions.

Interestingly enough, this is pretty much how adium (if any of you use a mac) is written. It makes it much easier to pair down what you have on the webserver, and allows easy customizability without having to wade through a huge number of lines of code, by anyone who wants to tinker.

Scottish

I like the enabling things by extension concept... but this is hardly "fringe functionality." Not everyone coming to a forum is going to bookmark it and check it every day for the community aspects. As has been pointed out by others before me, sometimes you just want to post a question and see if anyone responds.

moe

hum. ok, i guess it boils down to the point what is considered core functionality and what's considered "fringe". i do agree with all you people who say that the core should be kept as small as possible. how about a compromise: create the feats in question (e-mail notify, post preview so far?) as extensions but ship them with the app and enable them by default. that way the core doesn't get bloated but we still get a sane baseline-install. the latter is really my main-concern because, as said, i would really hate to run into numerous vanilla-forums over the next year and be annoyed time after time because the admin didn't bother to install the mailnotify extension... even when implemented the really clean way (queue the notifies so you don't hammer on rapid changes and combine multiple notifications into single mail) the code shouldn't amount to more than maybe about 200 lines.

vinay

moe. agreed. i like the compromise. That's what I was thinking as well.

Minisweeper

I think we should cut the core down to just the extensions management page. And have everything else (users, discussions, posts, etc) as extensions. but no really, moe's idea is best.

brady

that's a good suggestion, moe.

ichigo

i dont like the idea of adding email notification to the core either. email notification is so like 1996 there is rss and atom... email notification and newsletters are bad bad bad bad

Scottish

/me chants Moe! Moe! Moe! Moe! Let's all go to Flaming Moe's!

moe

@ichigo
we could start a whole new thread on that subject, i have a pretty strong opinion on that. i don't want to get too far offtopic, so let me just make a few short points (further discussion maybe really in another thread or by e-mail?):

• rss/atom, despite being "the best we have now" is broken by design.
  "push" is not supposed to work that way. everytime you query the feed a
  little forum server suffers.
  
• less tech-savvy users don't even know what rss or atom is and will just *shrug*
  
• all feed-aggregators work differently. many will not let you comfortably monitor
  individual threads inside one big feed by design (i use rawdog and i like it).
  
• i don't want to pull up $rssreader and subscribe/setup a filter-rule everytime
  i post to a thread on forum x or y. a simple "notify me"-checkbox is less hassle.
  
• e-mail is really convenient
  (i can just file all notifies into a folder and process later)
  

ok, this got longer than i wanted. apologize

@scottish

singing along!! )))