I know some other forum packages allow users to create there own folder names for messages. I don't see much value in that. I'm not trying to emulate an email client. I don't plan to allow users to create their own folders. There will be the equivalent of three folders: inbox, sent items and deleted items with deleted items just being an alternate view combining the contents of inbox and sent items. I assume this will be OK?
To me deleted items is just a bit in the database. It's a way to do a confirmation "Are you sure you want to delete these messages?" type of thing. I don't actually store them any differently.
BTW, when this goes live we'll simply be replacing the function of the mail member icon. We'll be removing that feature. Users will no longer be able to send email through the forum.
Yes, here's a screenshot of the page in your profile area that controls your private message settings. There will also be an "address book" and an ignored users list. The address book will be used for two things: 1) a quick way to sent a note to someone and 2) your list of approved senders if you choose to use it for that purpose. We won't display the PM icon along with your posts if you don't want PMs from everyone OR if you only want them from people in your address book. If you're using the address book mechanism then only those members will see the PM icon along with your posts. If someone is on your ignored users list they will still see the icon and think they are sending you a message but we'll silently drop it in the background with no notification to them or to you. Edited to fix the image Edited by - Drew Black on 6/9/2008 3:39:56 PM
May I ask why? I think this is a useful feature, especially if you want to get in touch with people who may not post here any more (or post infrequently), but who may still check their e-mails. I don't think that everyone will set the PMs to be forwarded to e-mail, so essentially, there will be no way to contact somebody if they don't visit ADT any more.
When we switch to the new system I will pre-set a user's Private Message settings based on their current accept/don't accept email. If someone currently accepts emails from the forum I will automatically set their PM preferences to be 'Accept Private Messages AND Notify on New PMs'. The my.adt email accounts will not be going away. Only the ability to directly send an email to the user through the forum will be changing. One of the primary reasons for making the switch to no email is because of the way that spam filtering and reputation monitoring services have progressed. It's getting harder and harder for legitimate adult sites to get their emails delivered. It's problematic for us to allow users to send stuff through our system. Our domain's reputation gets dinged when users send crap that gets caught in spam filters or the recipient clicks "This is Spam" in their email client. It's part of the reason we no longer send out the Weekly Fix. Our delivery rates were dropping to the point that it just wasn't worth it. I feel we need to have better controls over the content of our outbound emails and this is just one step in that direction.
It's going to be at least another week. My desktop died along with a network switch and the telco's MUX for our two T1s here at the the house. Lightning is an amazing thing.
Not much recently. I haven't gotten back in to the development groove since my computer got fried by lightning. I hope to work on it some tonight after I finish up some other high priority issues.
Drew.... I was wondering if you're still considering this? a PM system would be super awesome for ADT. I don't generally use my email box so I never check it unless I'm expecting something. It would be great to be able to talk to some ADT members privately. Edited by - randomprecision on 6/30/2011 7:06:35 PM
Yes, still considering it. I've spent some time on it recently. It's going to work well before I put it out there. Possibly a group chat feature along the lines of what Facebook has for chatting with your friends. basically your own private chat room with controlled access lists.
My web page is Joomla based and I've seen some cool chatting software for it. So I'm sure what Drew implements will be AWESOME! In the mean time, since it is all free, why not create an anonymous Skype name and use an anonymous group name to text and nut out. And you can also use audio if desired, and for the really adventurous you can go one on one video to nut out. I found a cool audio server that I was able to use for free. I think those online gamers use something like this. Your bandwidth doesn't hurt as much since it's just one connection--you to the server.
Will there still be the option to just send a single PM to one individual? The group thing will be nice, I'm sure, for those who like chat but I'm mainly anticipating just being able to communicate privately with people. I know we can already do it with email but PMs are just more convenient.
Yes, there will be a regular PM system too. It all uses the same data tables. A PM to an individual is just a message with a single recipient. A group message has multiple recipients. There will be a traditional web-mail like interface for PMs like posting to the forum but it's a post for a specific user. But there will also be a chat-mode interface for PMs so you can have an actual real-time conversation with someone instead of sending notes back and forth.
We should have something to start testing publicly early next week. I'm putting the finishing touches on the new PM system this weekend. The first version will be more of a KISS release with more features to be added down the road. I know most forums limit the number of private messages that can be saved per user. What is a reasonable limit?
Will instant messages pop up if you are logged in but don't have an active ADT window open. Oh God that would be horrifying if my wife was online shopping and got a pop up from, well, insert any name here. I guess there will just be a little flag or tag that says you have a IM waiting?
In the first (simple) version the # of new messages will appear in the top right of the page near the My Topics link. I don't have any plans to do popup-like notifications. I find them annoying. I do plan to write a Facebook-like web worker script that will check for new messages in the background and update the page header and browser title bar without needing a page refresh. So there will be an automatic "new message" type of feature but it will only be a small blurb of text on the page.
The first version will be very bare-bones. It's kinda fun to be back to coding stuff. It's like cleaning cobwebs out of my head or something. I have a whole slew of features in mind to make it a modern messaging interface. But that will need to wait. The next project is a universal login system that will work site-wide. I'll be tying together all of the various profiles we have here (forum, comparison cart, alerts, etc.) This will be necessary for the private message system to function on any page of ADT.
Just trying to finish up a few little things on this PM stuff tonight. I need to write the auto-notification by email routine. Other than that it's pretty much ready.