Private Messages Notification

Evic

I am currently using Private Messages 1.1 and it functions perfectly but I would like to add some functionality to it and need a bit of a push in the right direction. I would like users to see some sort of visual identifier saying they have unread PMs when they visit the site - probably just a box at the top, I have yet to decide. What would be the proper way to query the database and return the number of unread PMs for that user?

Evic

I've done some digging through the Private Message extension and found the a class entitled 'PrivateMessages' and a function called 'GetNewmessageCount' which returns the number of new messages (obviously).

I have also found a line that reads
$NoticeCollector->AddNotice($Context->GetDefinition('SelectPrivateMessagesCategory'));

So, this AddNotice function gets my attention - it seems to be an effective way of notifying the user's they have unread Private Messages. But, I'm not well-versed in OOP PHP. How would I call the GetNewMessageCount() function within the PrivateMessages class from ./index.php (I am thinking in the same area where it builds page controls).

labelnoir

http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/4578/2/private-messages-11/ use bshultz version or at least it might be helpful for your work. He created a side panel notification

circuit

i agree that a box in the header would be good, and possibly more useful than the sidebar notification (although i'm not complaining - it seems to be working fine).
a similar notification box is included in the extension that notifies users of new whispers. i forget the name of it now... maybe it's just called notify?

Evic

I made a rather weak attempt at this yesterday - I'm not quite used to Vanilla's extension system. Here's what I tried that did not work:

In index.php, line 58 (after the if ($ShowUpdateMessage) block):

$PrivateMessages = $Context->ObjectFactory->NewContextObject($Context, 'PrivateMessages'); if ($PrivateMessages->GetNewMessagesCount() > 0) { $NoticeCollector->AddNotice('You have unread private messages.'); }

Honestly, I wasn't really expecting this to work - it was a shot in the dark. I'm going to take a look over the work that bshultz did and see if I can devise something.