OK ... spent all last night squashing bugs ... now it's here for prime time!!
Please go into your member profile and select the option to receive mailing list-style notifications. It will give you the ability to read and contribute posts via email ... a la listserv.
Sorry newbies, though ... You need at least 5 posts and over 5 days of being a member, since there's a degree of security risk involved in allowing members to post via email.
Jump to PostDid I miss something in how this works?
Assumption was that it would be like the usual notification emails but allows you to reply to the thread via the email.
Instead I seem to be getting emails allowing me to reply to new threads in the community center than I …
Jump to PostI've indeed noticed the same issue about trying to reply through my gmail address.
it's indeed a nice feature, but so is disabling it: by just visiting the forum I can estimate based on the title whether I'll be able to help, so won't get notices from each thread created.
Jump to PostAt leat it gives you an easy way to read content and, you might not be able to evaluate long code snippets, but you can still consume the majority of content and follow along
Assuming you have set aside a separate email account for Daniweb because given the …
Jump to PostSince emails include all of the posts in the thread
Can you limit that to just the last 3 or 4 posts in the thread? I don't want an email with all 1,000 replies each time someone replys to one of the Geek's Lounge threads.
Jump to PostGreat! I was hoping you did that already :)
>
This is reply from desktop Thunderbird client.
LOL you tripped me up there for a second posting in a different thread!! :)
Oh, I didn't realize there were two threads with the same title. But it appears to have worked ok when replying from desktop.
Yes, except for the fact your email client added quote characters in front of each line and you left them, so that screwed up the formatting a bit.
Test reply.
Yay!
Turning it off. It doesn't work through web (using google mail) and it just sends me so many emails. :( Good idea tho.
It doesn't work through web (
It worked ok for me the first time I tried it with my PCs Chrome browser. Maybe google mail is just wierd :)
Did I miss something in how this works?
Assumption was that it would be like the usual notification emails but allows you to reply to the thread via the email.
Instead I seem to be getting emails allowing me to reply to new threads in the community center than I am not even watching (as email received when they are made)
If the latter is correct and not a bug, I think I will go back to the old fashion method, I prefer not to have too much flooding on my inbox :)
Do this work with html emails or does it have to be plaintext email?
I'm totally in agreeance with Mike here, I've been waiting on an important email all day only to be flooded with emails from DaniWeb about questions I have no interest in.
This is designed to be a very separate system that operates like a traditional listserv mailing list. It's plaintext because I was having a LOT of rendering issues between email clients as HTML-based mail, and all the different email clients were making it impossible to post code snippets, etc. It was just a nightmare, and all other newsgroups are text based for probably much the same reason.
This is not meant to replace the standard notifications you always get. You'll still get those. The reason it is a separate opt-in feature is because it's EXPECTED to flood your email inbox. The subject lines are setup to make it really conducive to sort and filter based on Rules (i.e. where your email client categorizes your email into subfolders).
Basically the system is not designed to replace the notifications you get -- but it IS designed to replace visiting the website in the first place. It's designed to present you with an assortment of new articles we think you would be interested in along with updates to articles you're watching, and allow you to fully interact with the site without leaving your email client.
I belong to a handful of mailing lists, and I have Outlook filter each one into a separate subfolder in my Inbox. Each one gives me 100+ emails a day. However, this would be the only one that actually has bidirectional integration with a forum as well. The others are simply mailing list-based communities.
Follow up => The concept behind it is that you no longer even need to fire up a web browser. You can get your daily fill of DaniWeb entirely within your email client where there's much more ability to filter, sort, and participate in threads with as much ease as you would any other email.
However, the concept only works if you set up Rules in your email client to filter all incoming email messages that begin with [DaniWeb] into a separate subfolder in your inbox. You can then take this a step further to filter all incoming email messages that start with 'Re:' into a sub-subfolder that says "Updates to articles I'm following". You can also have your email client sort into subfolders based on forum. Then, of course, if you want to find something quickly, you can use your email client's search feature.
It's basically just an entirely different way of consuming information and interacting with the community outside of the website.
I don't see how one could possibly post code from smartphone -- How could you do copy from a compiler so thatt it can be pasted within email?? For software forums it's just a lot easier to us PC browser. Your mailing list will probably work in places that do not require copy/paste.
Of course if you're posting large code snippets from your IDE, you're going to be using the web-based interface. But this simply offers an alternative to participate on-the-go with follow up messages or in all of our non-development related forums. Plus, you can easily post short code snippets. For example
function foo()
{
echo 'hello world!';
}
And, yes, I've basically been doing all of my posting for the past day from my email client. I am active in a few mailing lists which each have their own subfolders in my email client, and I simply added DaniWeb to my daily routine of when I check my mailing lists.
OK, I think the issue is the wording. People are confused by the fact that the edit profile feature says you're opting into 'Mailing list-style Notifications' when really you're opting into an email-based newsgroup that has bidirectional support with the website. I think the word notifications throws you off because it confuses this with all the other updates you normally get from the site.
I see. So it's like Google groups where you can reply by email or if you want you can read and post via the web interface.
Can you start a new thread by email also?
I also worried about this sentence "present you with an assortment of new articles we think you would be interested in along with updates to articles you're watching"
So you are sending people a bunch of emails and saying "I know you want these"
I think there is a problem with this assumption.
I see. So it's like Google groups where you can reply by email or if you want you can read and post via the web interface.
Yes, that would be a more accurate description. Have you ever participated in any of the old listserv-style mailing lists that have been around since the '90s? Basically, they function as email-only based communities. Like I said, this is the first one that I personally participate in that has bidirectional support with a website. So, in that respect, yes, it's like Google Groups.
Can you start a new thread by email also?
Not currently, no. The main reason for this is the security concern involved. Currently the reply via email feature works because you're replying to an existing email that happens to include a security token string at the very bottom.
The only way that I could think that starting a new thread would work would be the convoluted process in which you would send an email to the system, and the system would instantly reply back with an email that includes a security string, and then you would have to reply back to that email.
That's the only method that would ensure we'd be filtering out autoresponders and doing all of the necessary security checks that we need to do. Of course, we also check to make sure that the emails being sent are the same email address set up in your member profile, but email address is so easily spoofed nowadays.
So you are sending people a bunch of emails and saying "I know you want these"
I think there is a problem with this assumption.
Firstly, you get an email each time that someone has posted in an article you're watching. We can agree that makes sense. But, then, keep in mind that this system is designed to suffice as a replacement to visiting the site at all. The idea is that you can get an ongoing community experience via email alone.
That means there needs to be a way to feed more information to you other than just articles you're already watching, because you wouldn't know to be watching them in the first place if you hadn't visited the website. Therefore, we also feed you newly created articles from within your favorite forums. Combined, we're sending you a subset of the information you might see if you visit the Recommended Articles toolbar link on the website.
So basically the flow goes like this: Because of security concerns, newbies aren't allowed to use this feature. You start using the site via the web. Once you accumulate a small handful of posts, this option becomes available to you (at the same time as the option to disable advertising, send PMs, and chat in the chat room does).
By that point, we'll already know what forums you're interested in, and you may already be watching one or two of them. So now you opt yourself into this feature, and you'll start subscribing (for all intents and purposes) to a mailing list that already filters out the information on topics we already know you definitely aren't interested in. You'll begin by just receiving email about new articles in forums you have expressed interest in. However, if you have enabled to automatically watch articles you post in, then once you reply via email to anything that happens to catch your eye, you'll start receiving updates to each one of them as well. Just like you would with traditional email, delete the ones that don't catch your eye and you'll never be updated about their status.
You can then take it a step further and set up mail rules from within your email client to sort and filter based on whether they are new articles in certain forums, vs new articles in other forums, vs updates about articles you're watching. The entire system is designed to be very conducive to fully working from within an email client and never having to visit the website.
Yet another usage is that I can opt-in to the feature and then set up a mail rule to email me about new articles ONLY in the Community Feedback forum, and automatically delete all other email that begins with [DaniWeb] upon arrival in my inbox.
Essentially, it's just an alternative way of participating in the DaniWeb community, and email subjects are designed to allow you to set up mail rules where you can specify and filter how you want your email client to handle each individual email based on which forum it's coming from and why you're receiving it. If anything, this allows you to consume information on YOUR terms MUCH MORE SO than clicking on the 'Recommended Articles' link in the toolbar footer or even visiting a forum on the site.
Incidentally, what I'm really loving about this is the ease in which I can reply via my email client. I much prefer replying this way to a web-based Javascript widget, and of course there's both spelling and grammar autocorrect here, aside from the more robust feeling overall. :)
I think alot of web based email clients like gmail or hotmail are sending in html format by default.
Ok so we just got the concept wrong :)
I'll turn it off again then, the idea would have been nice if implemented in the same way the current notifications worked also
Do you mean you're going to turn it on again then? :)
Essentially it has the capability of functioning the same way as current notifications. Simply set up a rule in your email client to only accept emails that begin with [DaniWeb] Re: and delete upon arrival all other emails that begin with [DaniWeb]. You'll then ONLY receive emails about articles you're already watching, and you'll have the ability to reply to them. That should not bombard or flood your email inbox unless you're watching like 5000 active threads.
When it comes to HTML format, very few (if any) mailing list discussion groups use HTML email. I tried for an entire day to get it to work, but the reality is that it just creates very unpredictable results when trying to reply from different email clients, and it was a sub-par overall experience.
Are these email replies processed in real-time as they come in or is there some type of cron job running that scans received emails?
Email clients process incoming emails in real time. Pretty much every email client I've ever worked with has some type of Rules feature in place.
Basically email clients let you set up rules based on the email headers, and they apply the rules before the message even gets downloaded to your computer.
I mean your script - does it process incoming replies and updates the database in real time as soon as email with reply arrives at your server?
Oh, no, it runs off of a cron job that runs once a minute and processes emails in batches to prevent flooding and as another layer of security.
That's what I was curious about. So you have a script that checks your catch-all inbox and parses received emails one by one and then figures out if the email was a reply to some thread and then inserts into database the same way as if it was an actual forum reply. Is that about right?
Yes except that every email we send out have a reply-to email address of noreply@daniwebmail.com EXCEPT for our mailing list emails that are designed to be replied to, which have a reply-to email address of replies@daniwebmail.com
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