Subscribe to a Forum?

In Ning, members of Groups could receive notification emails any time any update was made to the Group.

On my Jamroom site, I have moved an important bit of functionality out of a Group and into a Forum. However, this means - as far as I can tell - that members only receive notifications of updates to Forum posts that they have either created or that they have commented on.

Looking through the various config options it's not apparent that it's possible to "subscribe" to a forum.

Is it? If not, I think it would be a great new feature that I know many of my members - especially those interested in my Classifieds Forum - would be interested in. I also happen to think that it would be useful generally, not just to me.

TIA,
:: Clay
updated by @claygordon: 06/28/16 07:26:41AM

You can follow certain forum topics by clicking the topic notification button at the top right of the topic, as far as I know, there isn't a way to subscribe to a forum.


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Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos

Douglas -

It is as I thought - a manual process.

What would be involved in adding the capability at the Forum level? A worthwhile/doable addition to add to the Features wishlist?

:: Clay

Clay, I'm curious- do you mean subscribe to a Forum 'Category' (which contains various discussions), or to a whole entire forum that contains various categories (and the discussions within each category)?
On Ning, we could not subscribe to a Forum Category either. Though yes we could subscribe to a whole Group without having to 'follow' individual discussions within a group...which my members do miss now.

P.S. nice to see you pop in!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Strumelia:

I do mean subscribing to a Forum category. The one that everyone seems to want on my site is Classifieds. They want to be notified when a new post is added or an existing post is updated. They don't want to manually subscribe, and they don't want to visit if there's nothing new.

P.S. - I've been letting the site stew for a couple of months to see how people respond to it. Going to start addressing the changes people want to make ... starting now!

That seams like a good feature option. Like an auto-follow to any newly created discussions in the group. So users following the group would be alerted when there was a new discussion just started.

So the same as above, but for forum categories. Gotcha.
updated by @michael: 09/11/15 12:30:26AM

Yes, it would be fabulous if members could follow a whole Forum Category, AND fabulous if members could 'Follow" a whole Group- so in either case members would be notified if there were New Discussions in the forum category OR in the Group. They would be auto-following such discussions until they turned OFF Follow for individual discussions if they chose. But when a new discussion was created, again they would be notified that a new discussion was created and they'd be auto-following it.

My members have been asking to 'follow/subscribe' to a Group ever since day 1...since we had that on Ning. Especially important since Group discussion posts do not show on the Main Page Activity Feed.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Yes - follow all new additions/updates to a Forum category.

While we're at it ... can we make the ' Category Note ' field full text with the ability to insert an image? I see that it accepts HTML now. I suppose I could add an img src= tag? I am offering up sponsorships of Forum categories and it would nice to be able to put logos at the top of the page.

Better to keep one thread to one topic. Put the "while were at it" into the 'suggestions' thread clay. Its not related to forum watching stuff. Im not good at multi tasking

--edit--
So if there was a button on each of the forum categories to watch it. when a user clicks that does that mean that:
* each of the threads in that category all automatically get set to 'watching'

or does it just mean
* when clicked on any new threads get set to 'watching'

or does it mean
* when clicked on and set to watching any new thread that gets started in that category sends out a notification to people watching, but the thread itself is not watched. (meaning that they get 1 notification of the new thread, but not a notification of any replies to that thread.)
updated by @michael: 09/12/15 02:01:26AM

On first thought the idea is that clicking on a "watch this forum category button" means that any future update - new threads and comments - trigger an email off to whoever is watching the forum category. However, that could result in a lot of emails that I will have to pay for and members potentially get a lot of emails they don't care about.

A better implementation would have the "watch this category" trigger off an email each time a new thread has been created (your last suggestion) and then the member can choose to watch the thread manually if it's interesting to them.

:: Clay

PS - and I will post the formatting feature request to the suggestions forum.

I agree- watch/follow this forum category= trigger an email notification each time a new thread is created....but NOT set people to be auto-following every new thread. Otherwise, members will be turning off all notifications because they'd be swamped with them. They still need to CHOOSE to follow any discussion purposely, on their own.

And exact same thing for Groups- "Watch/follow a Group" = group members will then get an email telling them of any new discussion started in the group. But do not set them to 'follow' that new discussion automatically. This would be a HUGE thing for my members- to finally be able to get notices for new group discussions!
And actually, if new Comments from the Group's Comment Wall could be included in notifications, along with emails for new group discussions, it would be fabulous!
Forums don't have comment walls, so no need there....just for groups.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Good to hear you're both talking about the same thing.

This seams different though:

Seams unconnected to me.

"A new discussion has been started in xxxxxxxx group"
"a new discussion: 'what are we doing on the weekend' has been created in GROUP-SOMETHING, login to check it out, and here are the latest comments from that group:
* xxxx xx xxx x xxxxxx,
* xxxx xx xxx x xxxxxx,
* xxxx xx xxx x xxxxxx,
"

Seams like the topic is the focus of the email and the newst comments on the group are un-related?

Im working on the forum system now and will see if I can feel what your saying when I get to the groups part.

Ok, I do understand that it's related yet different.
Just to clarify- one would not get notified with a whole list of latest group comments, they'd get a notice for "A new comment has been posted in this group you are following..." just as they'd get a notice for "A new discussion has been created in this group you are following..."

BUT- Michael, I would be totally thrilled JUST to get this part:
"A new discussion titled ____ has been started in xxxxxxxx group"
...when someone 'follows' a whole group. One notification to simply point out the new discussion has been created...with the discussion title.
-and then they can still choose what discussions within the group to 'follow' and get notified on every new post in ONLY the discussion(s) they are following.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

ah, gotcha. so your thinking the button does:
* notify me once whenever a new thread is created in this group and also whenever a new comment is posted to the group.

That's different than I was understanding.

That makes it so that if there is a discussion going on in the comments for the group a lot of emails are sent out. Seams like the behaviour is different. Since your only getting 1 notification for the whole topic, but a notification for each comment post.

Not trying to be difficult or confusing, just trying to understand to build the right thing.

Concern is that someone might want to be notified for new topics but not for each comment added to the group. (slightly worried that the comments section gets thought of as a way to communicate to all the watchers of every topic.)

Thoughts?

Yes, you know i agree with what you are saying here- after thinking more about it- it could easily get annoying for people to get an email for every new Comment Wall comment in a group they were following. And they'd wind up unfollowing the whole group because of too many emails for every comment on the group's comment wall. You're right.

Tell you what- I now think the Comment wall comments part should be eliminated. And just have the part that: When a member 'Follows' the entire group, it sends ONE notif email when a New Discussion is created in a Group. And again- then the members would have to decide on their own whether/which group discussions they want to Follow. Following individual group discussions would be an additional separate thing from following the overall Group.
Same basic thing for overall Forum Categories and forum threads within the categories, like Clay is asking for.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 09/13/15 04:58:51PM

Thanks for the clarification. I'm clear now.

Did anything happen with this yet? Thanks...


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

I can say that something is in the works, not sure what the outcome will be though.


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Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos

Work on this has actually been done - we're in the "tweaking" stage right now and should have something shortly.


--
Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

I just applied the new "subscribe to a Group" feature, and it seems to have created some screwiness in group displaying on my site.
(UPDATE- a full integrity check and also a browser cache dump fixed the issues. Leaving this here in case others have the issue, so they know what to do to fix it)

BUT...here's my real question:
For the new "subscribe to a Group" feature (which will be FANTASTIC by the way! don't get me wrong)... I do see where the member can check/uncheck in their account's Notifications TAB whether they want to be notified of new discussions created in Groups they Follow (called "Group Watch").
But... is it all or nothing? They cannot choose WHICH of their joined groups they want to be notified about when a new discussion is created? -Sure would be nice to be able to choose your favorite group(s) for setting this feature.
I was looking in vain for a button on the individual group page for "Notify when New Discussion created"

?





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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/21/15 06:51:17AM

OK yes I am having problems with this new group follow update.
I experienced this myself, but now I have other members reporting this problem since the update. Here is the message from members:

"This morning all was good. This afternoon, every group I looked at that I'm a member of has a "Join This Group To Follow Discussions" button. When I try to see postings I see only the initial post. When I click the "Join..." button, it tells me I'm already a member; but I still can't see any posts..."
and
"I have tried to get to the discussions of topic's of groups I am a member of and it just doesn't work.
It says that I need to join the group "Help me learn a song", when I click on join tab, it still will not let me into discussions. I don't know what is wrong and what I need to do."

My members are going to panic soon. =8-o They are obviously going to groups they are members of but are being seen by the system as NOT being a member yet, so they cant' get to the discussions...but clicking on JOIN just tells them they are already a member. So they can't get in.

I've done 3 integrity checks and cleared cache and icons several times.
I'm telling them to clear their browser cache and log out and then back in, but I don't know if that will help the situation- and I can't really expect my several thousand members to see my advice and do that....

The problem went away for me, but I'm not sure how it went away...maybe after I cleared my browser cache? I don't know what to do right now.

Help please...


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/21/15 02:05:50PM

This is what it should look like. (screenshot)

The notifications tab for the user account can be thought of as the "breaker switch" for the system, like you have in a house. You use the light switches to turn on/off the lights for the room when you want to use them, but there is the breaker switch just incase you want to turn them all off for some reason.

The issue was you have template over-rides in your skin at: jrGroup_item_detail.tpl so the new changes aren't coming out on your site.

I'm adding the new code in now.
updated by @michael: 10/21/15 06:35:42PM

Looks like its working right on your site now. Just added in the buttons.

Let me know if there are still issues and what each of the issues are.

Not sure how to recreate this or see it happening. I'll look but im not sure what im looking for.

Sorry- was out for a bit. To see the issue, you may need to be logged in as a regular member maybe? But the issue is not happening for me now, so I'll have to wait to see if other members still have the problem tomorrow. Most of us have all gone to bed now.

BUT- I do still have this problem with the group members not showing in the members' module of all group main pages, like this:


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/21/15 07:39:40PM

"Not sure how to recreate this or see it happening. I'll look but im not sure what im looking for."
I guess to recreate it, you'd have to log in as a regular member and then go to groups you are already a member of and see if it treats you like you aren't a member while still telling you you are a member, and refusing entry...lol.
Michael, I will go back in on my site to check on this again in the morning.

I see the new buttons, will be cool for my members once I explain.

But I do still have the group member avatar list not showing, as in my previous post with screenshot. Thanks!

Hey how'd you get ol' Bill to be site admin for you? hehehe


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

That one needed all the checkboxes to be checked, then the integrity check run. That fixed it.

Thanks, that avatar thing is now fixed Michael.

But I'm still having my members telling me they cannot access groups they belong to, as per the messages I describe above. This is still happening, getting new complaints from various members.

I will post some details in my support ticket in about an hour, right after I do some more testing so i can give you more details you may need. Thanks!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

After a lot of searching for what could be going wrong (I setup a duplicat of fotmd here on a dev site but could not recreate the issue.)

I think I found the way to fix it.
ACP -> CORE -> SYSTEM CORE -> TOOLS -> RESET CACHES -> RESET SELECTED CACHES.

That seams to sort out the issue.

Actually, nope, its not this simple. Its got something to do with the caches, just not sure what yet. Still looking.

Haven't been able to nail down the source of the issue. The issue is that the group_member are not being expanded and stored correctly in the cache.

If you find this happening to you, try setting the cache to 0 for a couple of hours (or if you know the url's of the not working groups, then visit them while the cache is off and it should come right, then turn the cache back on.).
ACP -> -> CORE -> SYSTEM CORE -> GLOBAL CONFIG -> "default cache seconds" = 0

Will keep looking for how that non-expanded entry is finding its way into the cache. Sorry for the hassle.

Thanks for fixing this up, Michael and Brian. It's great to have a new button for members to 'follow' a Group and thus be notified when a new discussion is created in the group.

Clay- sorry to have sidetracked your original Forum question into a groups issue.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015