Suggestion: Blog Notification

[Demolition]

My suggestion is that we should have a blog reply notification. So when you get a reply to your blog, it will show you have a notification just like the VM notification works. You won't get a pop-up like a PM. I think that this would be quite a good idea as the blog owner wouldn't have to keep checking for blog replys.

I don't mean E-mail notifications, but PC notifications...

[.Seth]

I'd like that, seeing as once a blog post I make leaves the recent blog posts page, it's pretty much forgotten about, and I'm too lazy to click "Your Blog".

[my name's ???]

Yeah, I'd like that too.

This would mostly be useful 'cause when people view blogs, they only view the "last 24 hours" and then it is let off into oblivion. Also, an extension to the "subscribe to blogs" would be cool e.g. you subscribe, and then get a notification when they make a new post.

It'd be nice to see if someone actually comments like, a month later, because then you'd know they care about all your hard work. *sniff*

[Ausaudriel]

I'll check the appropriate files and see if it's something we could easily do. :] I agree that it'd be a nice feature to have.

[.Seth]

Just wondering, are notifications stored in a database and then accessed and display by a php file, or is it just a php file?

I know cookies might be involved as well.

[Suijho]

I thought subscribing to blogs gives you notifications? Or are they just email notifications?

[.Seth]

Originally Posted by Suijho

I thought subscribing to blogs gives you notifications? Or are they just email notifications?

They are just email notifications, which is fine if you have an active email program that notifies you when you received new mail when it is sent, such as Windows Live Mail. But, as you know, not everyone has such an email program. And besides, a PC notification would be better, in my honest opinion.

[Demolition]

Thank you for the positive feedback guys! I hope that this idea will work out!

[Amu]

I second this. Comments are a vital part in my blogs, so I have to check my blog all the time to see if anyone has replied.

[Ausaudriel]

Originally Posted by .Seth

Just wondering, are notifications stored in a database and then accessed and display by a php file, or is it just a php file?

I know cookies might be involved as well.

Cookies are too volatile, notifications could be lost too easily that way. They're stored entirely in the database, with PHP used to actually grab and display the notifications (like everything else on the board.)

The thing I have to look for when I check to see if this is something we can do is to look at the blog files, find where the new comments are handled, and look for hooks in the surrounding code that could be used to run a query every time a comment is added, adding a notification at the same time.

Parsing the fact that there's a new notification and displaying it is the easy part, we've already added plugins that do that for other features (most of it still in development though). The tough part is just making sure the code has the right hooks to add the notification.

[Demolition]

How about the PM system, that must of been quite a wild process. Because you would of had to make it show the pop-up and the notification at the same time. But here you would only need it to show the notification like the VM works. But you would need it to hyperlink to the blog that was replied to. So overall, it might not be such a hard process, right?

[Apophenia]

Originally Posted by lucaslucario

How about the PM system, that must of been quite a wild process. Because you would of had to make it show the pop-up and the notification at the same time. But here you would only need it to show the notification like the VM works. But you would need it to hyperlink to the blog that was replied to. So overall, it might not be such a hard process, right?

Notifications for PMs are preinstalled in vBulletin systems - the techies won't have had to do anything to alter it.

[Demolition]

That's true. I guess it would be sorta hard as there ar quite alot of blogs that would get replies and that would need a code to display it.