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Full text instant email notification

rconn

Administrator
May
12,988
192
Staff member
Email notifications with the full text of new threads (and optionally replies) should now be working for anyone who has selected "Watch Forum / Email" (or "Email and Alert").

If you were previously watching the forum, you may need to "Unwatch Forum" and then "Watch Forum" again, since some of the parameters changed and some new ones were added.
 
Email notifications with the full text of new threads (and optionally replies) should now be working for anyone who has selected "Watch Forum / Email" (or "Email and Alert").

If you were previously watching the forum, you may need to "Unwatch Forum" and then "Watch Forum" again, since some of the parameters changed and some new ones were added.

Rex, can you do anything about when those things are mailed? I got Steve's reply (6:12 P.M.) to your _b34_uploaded_ announcement and none of the other 6-7 subsequent replies (now it's 7:45 P.M.).
 
Rex, can you do anything about when those things are mailed? I got Steve's reply (6:12 P.M.) to your _b34_uploaded_ announcement and none of the other 6-7 subsequent replies (now it's 7:45 P.M.).

I dug into it a little more. The emails are send immediately (not queued) -- however, if you haven't viewed the thread since the last email, you will not get any more email notifications for that thread. That's normal XenForo behavior for watched threads, and IMO it seems reasonable not to bombard people with emails about threads they're not interested in.
 
I dug into it a little more. The emails are send immediately (not queued) -- however, if you haven't viewed the thread since the last email, you will not get any more email notifications for that thread. That's normal XenForo behavior for watched threads, and IMO it seems reasonable not to bombard people with emails about threads they're not interested in.
I am interested in **all** the emails ... every post made to every forum to which I subscribe. If a subject tells me I'm not interested, I don't read the post. When I close my reader I never see them again. Posting on the web interface isn't bad; it even has some nice features. Reading the forums on the web interface is a nightmare.
 
I am interested in **all** the emails ... every post made to every forum to which I subscribe. If a subject tells me I'm not interested, I don't read the post. When I close my reader I never see them again.

Exactly what I do (read EVERYTHING), and I suspect the same goes for a few more your most vociferous email requesters.

Posting on the web interface isn't bad; it even has some nice features. Reading the forums on the web interface is a nightmare.
This is also my opinion.

Furthermore, how can Xenforo claim we did not read further posts in the threads? We did read it, in the email! Does this mean that in any thread only ONE post will be emailed if we don't read it in a browser? Horrible perversion!
 
I don't think that hysterical overreaction does anything to further your viewpoints.

I think there are a couple of flaws in your desired approach:

1) It presupposes the volume of forum traffic will always be low. The support forums have more than doubled their traffic just in the last month, and traffic is continuing to climb at an increasing rate. (This is mostly due to finally figuring out how to get Google to index the forums.) At what point do you really not want to read every message? 50 a day? 500 a day?

2) There's a blind assumption that because you read forum traffic via email for the last 10 years, that it is the only way you can possibly do it. I used to use the email notification, but I've abandoned that with the new forum software as it's much easier to keep the forums in a browser tab than to constantly switch back and forth between Outlook and the browser. It's pretty much impossible to follow a thread via email (even if you did get every message), because they tend to come in hours or days (sometimes weeks) apart. I find Alerts far more useful to keep track of new messages than emails.
 
I don't think that hysterical overreaction does anything to further your viewpoints.
What are you referring to? My interpretation of a previous post about when the email system does or does not send me further posts in a thread?
I think there are a couple of flaws in your desired approach:

1) It presupposes the volume of forum traffic will always be low. The support forums have more than doubled their traffic just in the last month, and traffic is continuing to climb at an increasing rate. (This is mostly due to finally figuring out how to get Google to index the forums.) At what point do you really not want to read every message? 50 a day? 500 a day?

There is often a major difference between the subject/heading of a post and its content. Ignoring content because heading does not interest me is shooting myself in the foot. If posts are easy to read, I can skim them quickly to know whether or not I want to mark to be saved, or want to answer or ignore it. I see all of the current post at the top of the screen. In a browser I need to scroll through all previous posts of a thread to get to the new one(s), but I still must remember what I've read before, the new POSTS are not marked.

2) There's a blind assumption that because you read forum traffic via email for the last 10 years, that it is the only way you can possibly do it. I used to use the email notification, but I've abandoned that with the new forum software as it's much easier to keep the forums in a browser tab than to constantly switch back and forth between Outlook and the browser. It's pretty much impossible to follow a thread via email (even if you did get every message), because they tend to come in hours or days (sometimes weeks) apart. I find Alerts far more useful to keep track of new messages than emails.

"Newer" is not always (actually RARELY) BETTER. For example, I have less than 10% of the screen / window available to type my answer, I cannot see anything but the last 5 lines of what I am quoting or writing. In email I have almost the whole screen available. Remember the old days when "structured coding" required no more than 50 lines per module? Now I have 4 lines at a time! I would be better off using wordpad to write my message, and paste it here...

Just because YOU like browser more does not mean EVERYONE does! Remember what Microsoft does not - what the P in PC stands for! It is PERSONAL computer - so I can do thing they way I like to.

As for following threads, IMHO all you need is reasonable quotations - if the poster in not superverbose, and quotes just what is being responded to, whether the quotation is minutes or years old, anyone reading my post would know what I am agreeing or disagreeing with. In this forum quoting parts is difficult, you cannot mark it as in some previous incarnations. Also, no spell-checking... BTW, I very rarely displayed email by thread - always depended on my memory to sort them out. This forum does not handle subthreads, so if I respond to a post that is not the last it still puts it at the end. Can you change the "message time" reporting from "5 min ago" to TOD? Since I spent way more than 5min on replying, that display is plain WRONG!
 
What are you referring to? My interpretation of a previous post about when the email system does or does not send me further posts in a thread?

Your "horrible perversion" and Vince's "Reading the forums on the web interface is a nightmare." Both move the argument from rational discussion of alternatives to "I've already made up my mind without actually trying any of the new features."
There is often a major difference between the subject/heading of a post and its content. Ignoring content because heading does not interest me is shooting myself in the foot. If posts are easy to read, I can skim them quickly to know whether or not I want to mark to be saved, or want to answer or ignore it. I see all of the current post at the top of the screen. In a browser I need to scroll through all previous posts of a thread to get to the new one(s), but I still must remember what I've read before, the new POSTS are not marked.

The new posts ARE marked -- look on the right side of the post.

"Newer" is not always (actually RARELY) BETTER. For example, I have less than 10% of the screen / window available to type my answer, I cannot see anything but the last 5 lines of what I am quoting or writing. In email I have almost the whole screen available. Remember the old days when "structured coding" required no more than 50 lines per module? Now I have 4 lines at a time! I would be better off using wordpad to write my message, and paste it here...

Not true -- the editor window resizes itself as you enter more text. (At least, if you're using the default wysywig editor.)

Can you change the "message time" reporting from "5 min ago" to TOD?

No.
 
I don't think that hysterical overreaction does anything to further your viewpoints.

I think there are a couple of flaws in your desired approach:

1) It presupposes the volume of forum traffic will always be low. The support forums have more than doubled their traffic just in the last month, and traffic is continuing to climb at an increasing rate. (This is mostly due to finally figuring out how to get Google to index the forums.) At what point do you really not want to read every message? 50 a day? 500 a day?

2) There's a blind assumption that because you read forum traffic via email for the last 10 years, that it is the only way you can possibly do it. I used to use the email notification, but I've abandoned that with the new forum software as it's much easier to keep the forums in a browser tab than to constantly switch back and forth between Outlook and the browser. It's pretty much impossible to follow a thread via email (even if you did get every message), because they tend to come in hours or days (sometimes weeks) apart. I find Alerts far more useful to keep track of new messages than emails.
I don't think I'm being hysterical. And it has been considerably longer than ten years ... ever since comp.os.msdos.4dos (or whatever it was called) I have read the forum(s) with the reader of my choice. The messages came to me. Unless I said "keep", messages went away when I was done and I never had to see them again (unlike the current forums where old stuff hangs around forever and I always have to navigate to the end of a thread ... then back to the forum page before I could get to a different thread. I could see three times as many threads in the same space as I can on your web forum. And I could see the text of a post at the same time (not to mention the list of forums in another pane).

As for volume, I don't see that it's any more than it has been in the past. 100 a day would be absolutely impossible on the web forum ... easy using Agent to view emails or NNTP (it has never been at that level and I doubt it will ever get there).

I must go to work ... more later.
 
Have you tried using Alerts? They solve all of your complaints about tracking new threads & messages. I spend FAR more time on the forums than any 10 other users combined, and I would never be able to handle it without alerts (trying to use email would be utterly hopeless).

As for volume, I'm talking about the number of users (including guests) online at any given time & unique users per day. It's currently running 4-5 times higher than a month or two ago. The message traffic will follow as the users increase.

And give up on NNTP already -- it is dead, and it is never coming back.
 
Your "horrible perversion" and Vince's "Reading the forums on the web interface is a nightmare." Both move the argument from rational discussion of alternatives to "I've already made up my mind without actually trying any of the new features."

Not quite. I tried the new features (at least when they have words describing them, instead of reverting to hieroglyphics). They are not worth the extra work. Describing personal impressions of what it takes to use the new newsgroup (FORUM is place where you can make your view HEARD, not seen) is not irrational. I happen to agree with Vince in every excruciating detail (except that he appears to have been a JPsoft customer longer than I).

The new posts ARE marked -- look on the right side of the post.

Sorry, I read left to right. My eyes are on the beginning of each post line. No wonder I did not observe the "past the end of line" notification. BTW, when I quote your answer to my earlier post, why is only the answer quoted here? You have to scroll up and down to be able to follow the polemics!

Not true -- the editor window resizes itself as you enter more text. (At least, if you're using the default wysywig editor.)

I do use the default editor, or, to be more accurate, I did not consciously change it. Its reply window has indeed increased when I replied to a longer post (this one), but it definitely remained 5 lines high when I responded to a short one previously, no matter how many lines I wrote.
 
I loved Usenet too. Graphical smileys are damn poor recompense.

But from a business, not a technical, standpoint, would Rex be better off pursuing new (i.e. younger) customers, or just relying on the same old crowd of curmudgeons until we die? (When was the last time you mailed him a check? I haven't sent one in a while.) Younger customers will not have Free Agent installed on their computers, any more than they'll have Trumpet WinSock; and would doubtless resent having to install and configure an unfamiliar, archaic app to get support.

comp.os.msdos.4dos is still available, if you can find a free NNTP server. Failing that, there is http://www.deja.com/ -- the old DejaNews, now Google; but of course you're back to using a browser. The last post, if I'm not mistaken, was on August 4th.
 
I do use the default editor, or, to be more accurate, I did not consciously change it. Its reply window has indeed increased when I replied to a longer post (this one), but it definitely remained 5 lines high when I responded to a short one previously, no matter how many lines I wrote.

Have you disabled Javascript in your browser?
 
I see all of the current post at the top of the screen. In a browser I need to scroll through all previous posts of a thread to get to the new one(s)...
If you use the "What's New?" button and then click on a particular thread, when it opens that thread, it jumps down past all the old messages to the first unread message.
 
Your "horrible perversion" and Vince's "Reading the forums on the web interface is a nightmare."

I'll temper my statement. It is much more difficult to read what's going on in the various forums using the web interface than it is using than to do it with software made for the purpose. I said before, if the forums had the three-pane interface that Agent has, I'd be happy.

Steve's remark doesn't need tempering. The whole modern paradigm is a perversion of the way it was and the way it ought to be.
I have to go to you. I have to use a generic tool to do something very specific. I'm stuck with an interface that is far from efficient. All I want to see is the posts. You control the other 80% of what I must look at. I work harder; your hit counters keep ticking; and Google indexes you.
 
If you use the "What's New?" button and then click on a particular thread, when it opens that thread, it jumps down past all the old messages to the first unread message.
Or click on the little blue button to the left of the thread title in the normal view (ideal for those that read left to right {gd&r}) and it does the same.
 
There is a link that takes you to the first message you haven't read. I usually click the "What's New?", then click the icon to take me to the first message I haven't read, then read to the end, then click "Top", then click "What's New?" and repeat. As for the editor, overall, it isn't that much better or worse than the editor in my old NNTP reader. If I want to compose a long reply, I'll switch to my text editor.
 
I'll temper my statement. It is much more difficult to read what's going on in the various forums using the web interface than it is using than to do it with software made for the purpose. I said before, if the forums had the three-pane interface that Agent has, I'd be happy.

Steve's remark doesn't need tempering. The whole modern paradigm is a perversion of the way it was and the way it ought to be.
I have to go to you. I have to use a generic tool to do something very specific. I'm stuck with an interface that is far from efficient. All I want to see is the posts. You control the other 80% of what I must look at. I work harder; your hit counters keep ticking; and Google indexes you.

The email notification feature has been a *lot* of work, for a grand total of (much) less than 10 users. The other 900 registered users on the forum don't seem to feel the need for it.

Since it apparently does not meet the needs of the email only users, I will remove it from the forums. I'll revisit it in the future if someone writes an NNTP addon.
 
The default behavior is to automatically scroll down to the new messages.
What default behavior? I've clicked of the "
Full text instant email notification" thread

many times and I'm always taken to Rex's original post. Pasting into this editor is not very predictable.
 
I just clicked on the link in the email and went directly to your post. The URL ends with #post-19532, which is what tells the browser where to go on the page.
I'm clicking on the link on the "Support" page. For some threads I go to the beginning, others to the unread stuff.
 
For some threads I go to the beginning, others to the unread stuff.
You might want to click "Mark Forums Read" at the top to update all forums and threads to the current time.
 
There is a link that takes you to the first message you haven't read. I usually click the "What's New?", then click the icon to take me to the first message I haven't read, then read to the end, then click "Top", then click "What's New?" and repeat. As for the editor, overall, it isn't that much better or worse than the editor in my old NNTP reader. If I want to compose a long reply, I'll switch to my text editor.
This doesn't work for me and I suspect that it may have something to do with my screen reader, JAWS. I'm using IE8 in Windows XP.

Rex, I know I'm a really small minority but I'd appreciate it if you would check to see whether the forum software has any special accessibility options and that you have enabled them. Thanks.
 

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