00772: Group.NotifyList (to work like Site.NotifyList) and per-page notifications

Summary: Group.NotifyList (to work like Site.NotifyList) and per-page notifications
Created: 2006-07-05 10:33
Status: Open
Category: Feature
From: Henning
Assigned:
Priority: 55444 4
Version: 2.1.7
OS: XP/Apache 2

Description: I'd like to suggest the addition of a Group.NotifyList that works just like the Site.NotifyList, except for a more limited scope: the group in question.

Motivation: Our intranet distributes hundreds of documents from dozens of sources to hundreds of recipients who'd like to be notified of changes. Obviously, de-central notification management is the easiest and safest way to do that (because no-one can mess up someone else's notify lists since all groups are individually password-protected). --Henning July 05, 2006, at 10:33 AM


I agree with the advantage of the decentralization. Considering that it is probably easy to implement, the feature should be added the next time the notification mechanism is dealt with again. ThomasP January 16, 2007, at 10:53 PM]]


Just also wanted to vote for this capability but also extend it to the next logical step. You have site notification. Group notification makes sense as stated above. I would suggest page notification as well. For example, I have a cookbook page on pmwiki.org. I would love to be notified any time it is changed, but I definitely would not want to be notified for the Cookbook group.

I propose in addition to a Group.NotifyList that a featyre be added that allows an interested persons to subscribe to the content of that page. This could be done with markup (although i don't think this would be a good way), something like:

(:notifylist foo@bar.com, bla@bla.com:)

This lets anyone edit the page and add their email to the notify list. But this presents a couple of problems. One is that the notify script doesn't just need to read a couple of pages to get the lists of names, but it needs to read every page on the site. Another big disadvantage is that emails are shown to the world if the page is edited.

I think a better method would be to add a field to the edit form that says "Notification address" where a person can enter an email address with two radio buttons next to it - one to add the notification address, and one to remove it. Then, once the edit is made, if that field is enabled, that email address can be written to/removed from a cache file or a seperate wiki page which an administrator can edit. Then, the notify script can use that page to figure out who to notify any time a page is edited and saved. Also, emails would not be visible to the world or in the article. Clicking the link in the email and hitting edit would let a person easily remove themselves from the notification as well.

-- lordmundi July 05, 2007, at 03:52 PM

actually, now that i think about it, you don't want people saving pages just to subscribe or unsubscribe to notifications... it should probably be a form under another page action... view, edit, history, subscribe.

-- lordmundi July 05, 2007, at 08:13 PM


See also

other Notify PITS entries:

  • PITS.00867 (exclude originator of the event from being notified)
  • PITS.00785 (Notify when uploads take place)
  • PITS.00870 (notification mechanism should take page permissions into account)