Skip to main content
Topic: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards? (Read 12530 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #15

I'm continuing to play a bit with this and I actually now have basic web push working ... I know that is not very exciting but to get it to work seemed like a lot of effort, or at least a lot of library dependencies.  Lets see, phpasn1, guzzle, webpush, sodium, http-message, getallheaders, base64url, and web-token with a variety of signature algos.   I've culled this to 340 files in 67 directories LOL.   All made a bit more difficult on 1.1 as our autoloader is not really PSR compliant like it is on 2.0, meaning I've probably missed a few namespaces etc.

You need php7.1+ with the following extensions mbsrting, curl, openssl, and gmp.  I had not heard of gmp before but you need it to have this all work.   Probably not an issue if you are have your own VPN but probably an issue for a shared hosting setup.  Like i said, to get it to work requires a few libs/dependencies to be installed (all tucked away under ElkArte's sources/ext directory)

The test is just a simple webpage with a button, press the button and you get a notification, not yet tied in with Elk other than it is running under ElkArte as a webpage.  To actually make it useful is a bunch more work and actual integration.

Next I think I may look at Firebase Cloud Messaging, a google API solution which should be easier to setup, well maybe, I guess I'll see. 

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #16

I checked how xf does handle push notifications, you need php 7.1 or superior and GMP extension. The forum does not need to be opened in browser, nor the browser needs to be opened. If could be useful here is explained how it works.
sorry for my bad english

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #17

Thanks, I'll give that a read.  I'm sure that since they have the same GMP requirement, and issues with Apple, its the setup I now have working.  

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #18

All this on a simple question about Tapatalk  ;)

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #19

Questions are always simple, its the answers that are hard :D

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #20


Quote from: Allan – All this on a simple question about Tapatalk  ;)
 I think I'll ask something about a gallery... lol
sorry for my bad english

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #21

Quote from: radu81 –
Quote from: Allan – All this on a simple question about Tapatalk  ;)
  I think I'll ask something about a gallery... lol

 there you go, that works. 


Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #23

@Spuds‍ how do you plan to release this? As add-on for 1.1 and core for 2.0? Or both core?
sorry for my bad english

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #24

That's a really great question.

Looking at whats involved (which is still a large work in progress) and where things need to be changed, I'm not really seeing this as a 1.1 addon as it would require lots of source edits to make the changes.  For 2.0 I would think it would be part of the core, simply updating the polling notifications to true push notifications.   It could be done in 1.1.7 but I don't think that level of feature change is appropriate for a  dot x release.

I've was able to play a bit with the google firebased api today, and I think that could be done as a 1.1 addon, but first I actually have to get it working :P  This could possibly be done in 1.1.7 as its should be less problematic/invasive, but since it requires 3rd party signup I'm not sure that is really core appropriate.

So thats why its a great question.

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #25

I should probably break the push notifications thing out to its own thread.

Anyway just a quick update, I played around with the google firebase service and decided it was a generally a PITA.

 I did get it working on chrome but Fx seemed to have some issues.  The documentation just stinks, half of it is for the old version, 1/2 for the new so figuring out what to do was needlessly difficult.  Plus its google so either the service would become successful and they would start charging for it or it would not take off and they would drop it.

For 1.1.7 I made a PR that should address some issues, it updates to a newer version of the notification script, adds a service worker which in my testing worked well with android / chrome, tried to make the ajax polling more persistent, plus a couple of other minor things.

For 2.0 we can consider doing the change over to full "push" like xenforo has and I do have that working but have not spent any time integrating that into the core, hoping that the 1.1.7 updates get us close enough to what is needed.

So thats kind of it for now or at least until 1.1.7 gets finalized.
Last Edit: December 22, 2019, 07:53:14 pm by Spuds

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #26

@Spuds‍ would it be at all easier if elk were operating as a progressive web app, i.e. a service worker already existing? 

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #27

I had to read up on just what google was defining as a progressive web app :D

From what I could work through I do think that is an approach that can work for the notifications, it seems like that instead of using the browser as the "app" you define your own container/app to receive the notifications.  It seems like the push action is still the same, you need all of the same resources to do the push but the service worker is in this "app" and not the browser.  Seems like the app would just be a feature limited browser view unless I'm missing something.  Anyway interesting reading for sue.

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #28

I'm playing right now with telegram (writing something to capture messages sent to a bot and some stuff), I wonder... what about "supporting" (i.e. take advantage of) the API of some chat app? Could be Telegram, could be Discord, whatever works better, I guess.
With telegram, at the moment, it could be something like this:
ElkAdmin => sets bot and set webhook
ElkUser => starts chat with bot <= Elk => stores the id of the telegram user
* When ElkUser should receive a notification Elk => uses the stored id to send a message to the chat open with the user that receives a notification (it may contain the link to the post, for example).

Should actually be pretty easy, I followed this tutorial:
https://medium.com/@panjeh/telegram-bot-get-webhook-updates-send-message-49156ac02375
the actual sending is a 3/4 lines and should be easy to hook into the current notification system. Probably it's more complex the UI to setup the webhook, store the ids (the only interaction required to the user is to actually follow a link), let them remove the interactions, etc.
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: Tapatalk alternative for Elkarte boards?

Reply #29

While trying to implement the above, I realized the "notifications" code was only half-done, so I'm in the process of finish what I started a while ago. :D
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.