Forum OpenACS Q&A: Proposal for Notifications

Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 02/05/08 03:39 PM

I receive complaints especially for file-storage and xowiki that users receive tons of email even for stuff they don't really want to know. For instance:

- folder/file moved
- folder/file deleted
- wiki page updates

Has anyone an idea how to control what is sent out? Folks don't want to be bothered if a missing comma was added.

So far I see two options:
- A package parameter that controls notification

For instance file-storage could contain:
new_file,new_url,delete_file,delete_url,delete_folder
And only for those a notification is sent out.

Alternatively we could extend ad_form with a flag if notification is available for the item and display a checkbox "Notify?" and leave it to the user whether the change taking place is worth to be notified.

Any ideas?

2: Re: Proposal for Notifications (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 02/05/08 03:47 PM

Seems like a package parameter makes sense since the semantics is specific to each package.

It seems wrong to allow uses to not send notifications, if someone has subscribed. What makes more sense is to create a specific notification type for each type of notification.

For example. For forums you can subscribe to one thread or an entire forum.

For bugtracker you can subscribe to tickets you created, all tickets you are involved in, or all tickets.

File storage just needs to provide the correct options.

Not sure what to do with xowiki. As its a wiki, its hard to tell. Perhaps what people would want is a batched notification for that instead of instant.

3: Re: Proposal for Notifications (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 02/05/08 03:47 PM

In other words, there isn't a problem with the notifications package, but with the way its used by file-storage, in particular.