Will there be some kind of alerts for the notification system? Similar to what Vanilla and xenForo has? I think it really increases user engagement with the forum community, when a user get's an alert when there is a reply to a topic that the user participated in, or new PM.
Aren't notifications the same thing as alerts?
I would assume it would similar to how Facebook alerts you when you have a new message or wallpost while you're still browsing (without refreshing) the page.
Whether it's in real-time or not, it's just a modest convenience. And probably a very nice convenience to have.
Would need an off switch. ;D
Would probably need multiple switches, as those kinds of things can really bog down resources.
I'm going to guess you could have two separate switches (on to disable it entirely from the board) and by user preference, and then have flood controls (how many alerts you can get at a time) and how often they can appear.
Yup, and disable by board/topic user pref. Could get quite complicated.
I don't think it should prompt without a refresh though. Loading without refreshing is just too harsh on resources, but just loading on page refresh is ok.
Elk has the SMF-ish PM notifications. Why aren't they ok, or in what could they act or look differently? Since they're even in the main menu, I don't see how to make them more handy.
Re: notifications on replies
Notifications set with the user settings in profile/notifications are computed when the event happens. But their number and type (new topic posted in, new reply to) is not displayed to the logged in user. And, in fact, I don't think that area in profile is much used as it is.
How about this: we can redo those last two sections from there. New topic notifications and subscribed topic notifications could go as an extra section along 'unread posts'/'updated topics'. I think it's what we've been looking for to add to TE's tabs:
http://www.elkarte.net/index.php?topic=413.0
Profile menu would be another option. Display number on profile menu item, and a link to topic notifications.
Or... Notifications as in Wedge?
(Of course, you need an account at wedge.org, and for someone to @mention you or like one of your posts, to see what it's all about...)
I did it à la Facebook, though, but it's still one of our best features.
Please don't do it the same way. O:-)
The basics are there.
There is still some a lot of work to do, but there is also time. :P
What's it with everyone getting interested in notifications all of a sudden? I don't think it interested anyone before Dragooon wrote a plugin for a certain fork that did just that. ;)
Me thinks you need a bigger horn to toot Nao. ;) Alerts has been a big part of social media long before that. Everyone is just playing catch-up with what people wanting forums to be more social.
Alert's not to make it more social, alerts make it more engaging for the user. I find it to be XenForo's greatest feature, and they have been doing it for 2 years. As far as social media, not so much because it's usually spam related alerts.