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watching a whole board.

Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:52 pm
by andy_t_roo
is it possible to just be alerted to new topics within a forum, rather than receiving an alert after a new message is posted to any existing thread? (eg watching the chapter announcements board, and only being alerted when a new chapter is posted, as there are always new posts being posted in there, but rarely new threads.)

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:17 am
by Weresmilodon
You can try to subscribe to the sub-forum itself. I use the RSS feed, so I’m not sure how it is set up here, but usually, you only get notices for new topics when you subscribe to a sub-forum.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:13 pm
by Spec8472
I'm subscribed to the whole board... and to the Chapters forum... but it doesn't usually send me emails until some time after the chapter goes up, and typically after I've already read the chapter.

Not sure the logic behind it - perhaps the emails are getting dropped.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:19 pm
by andy_t_roo
that's because it only sends you one message for each watch -- if you watch the chapter announcement forum, you get 1 message next time *any* message is posted, then nothing more until you visit the site -- i was wondering if it was possible to only get a notice when a new topic was posted, unless you are watching a specific thread, in which case you would get notices of new posts to that thread.

at the moment a watch on a board is like a watch on every individual thread simultaneously

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:22 pm
by Spec8472
andy_t_roo wrote:if you watch the chapter announcement forum, you get 1 message next time *any* message is posted, then nothing more until you visit the site
It's not even doing that for me - if it were, I'd be getting 4-5 emails/day. I get, maybe, one a week.

I'm not aware of any way to alter this behaviour, sorry.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:23 am
by Greymist
I've just been looking at the code for this and I'm not 100% sure, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to alter the behaviour. I'm going to set up phpBB on my hosting to play with it and I might get around to sending Spec a diff if he wants to implement it (Ah, the spare time you have when job hunting).

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:57 am
by Spec8472
Greymist wrote:I've just been looking at the code for this and I'm not 100% sure, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to alter the behaviour. I'm going to set up phpBB on my hosting to play with it and I might get around to sending Spec a diff if he wants to implement it (Ah, the spare time you have when job hunting).
...or you could just log into the server and implement it yourself, if you have so much time :P

Be aware, though, that any upgrades done will wipe out your changes.

And because there's no actual plugin system (it's all managed through diffs) - there's no way to manage this properly.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:07 pm
by Greymist
Spec8472 wrote:...or you could just log into the server and implement it yourself, if you have so much time :P

Be aware, though, that any upgrades done will wipe out your changes.

And because there's no actual plugin system (it's all managed through diffs) - there's no way to manage this properly.
I don't have the login details. I know you gave me some many years ago but those, if I still have them, would be on my computer in NZ. Anyway, I feel way more comfortable playing around with a test board first.

I remember the rant session you had with the phpBB developers on irc about the fact everything was done by diff now instead of a plugin system, I guess it make it easier for them but still, they came across as very arrogant.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:51 am
by Greymist
Okay so it works like this, I think:
* You will receive one notification of activity in a thread until you post again.
* You will receive one notification of activity in a forum until you refresh the forum page.

It's an easy fix, for the forum one at least which is the annoying one, in includes/functions_posting.php you just need to remove the below block of code. I haven't tested it yet but I will tomorrow and confirm.

Code: Select all

1287:	if (!empty($update_notification['forum']))
1288:	{
1289:		$sql = 'UPDATE ' . FORUMS_WATCH_TABLE . "
1290:			SET notify_status = 1
1291:			WHERE forum_id = $forum_id
1292:			AND " . $db->sql_in_set('user_id', $update_notification['forum']);
1293:		$db->sql_query($sql);
1294:	}

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:48 pm
by Greymist
It looks to work from a database standpoint, for some reason though emails from my phpBB take ages to arrive so I can't confirm yet, argh.

Spec: Have you set a SMTP server on this board or do you let it use the local mail function?

Edit: It works, just received the emails.

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:50 pm
by Spec8472
Greymist wrote:It looks to work from a database standpoint, for some reason though emails from my phpBB take ages to arrive so I can't confirm yet, argh.

Spec: Have you set a SMTP server on this board or do you let it use the local mail function?
It's using local mail :)

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:55 pm
by Greymist
So are you going to implement the change? Huh huh? Go on! :D

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 1:04 pm
by Spec8472
Greymist wrote:So are you going to implement the change? Huh huh? Go on! :D
No, but I sent you the login details again :)

Re: watching a whole board.

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:22 pm
by Greymist
Done and tested. The emails often take awhile to come through (even before the change I put in place), though I'm not sure if that is a phpBB or a Dreamhost issue.

Btw, my account got moved to another server so I don't have the snapshots folder :(