Forum notification improvements?

[Nocturnal]

Hi,

I would like to subscribe to forums so I get an email when a new message has been posted. I would also like to be able to subscribe to threads that interest me. Now I can only do that by posting a reply but sometimes I have nothing to say about the subject but am interested in follow-ups.

If I can already do these things please let me know how If not, would it be possible perhaps to upgrade the forum software?

Thanks!

[Andres.Pozo]

Hi!

At the bottom left corner of the page there is a link "Watch this topic for replies".

Hope this helps.

[David Serrano]

Would RSS fit the bill? There are a couple of mod's available, of course they require action by the admins though (both in installation and further upgrades).

Some time ago a made a quick phpbb-to-rss program in Perl. Haven't tested it against this forum but, if the admins agree to its usage, I could set up a dedicated user account for it and publish the URL of the feed.

[Nocturnal]

Hi!

At the bottom left corner of the page there is a link "Watch this topic for replies".

Hope this helps.

Thanks! Not sure how I missed that one Excellent!

David: RSS would be fine.

[Nocturnal]

Hi,

I'd like to raise awareness of this issue again. It's really quite archaic that you can't subscribe to a forum to get notified of new posts. Isn't there a flag to enable this functionality on this forum? It would help to stay informed.

Thanks!

[Nocturnal]

Ahem! How about it? Can the forum software be updated? I mean surely phpBB didn't get stuck in 2005?

[David Serrano]

I mean surely phpBB didn't get stuck in 2005?

Of course it didn't. It got stuck back in the dark era, when the notion of "threads" didn't even exist :twisted:.

Let's see if I can clear the dust off my phpbb-to-rss and obtain permission from Juan to use it against this forum.

[Nocturnal]

that would be great David, thanks. RSS would work just fine to be notified of new topics. I know these forums are supposed to be the only ones we monitor but there are other things I keep track of as well

[Niall Saunders]

Hi all,

I'll be honest here - the way that the Yahoo Groups notifications works suits me very well.

I end up with an email copy of EVERY post made to each Hroup that I subscribe to - which is great, because I can then work through them at my liesure.

At the moment, I have to be very careful about even visiting the PI forum.

I have to remember to log-off at the end of even the most brief of visits, otherwise I get concerned that the forum 'cookie' will have no real idea of when I <really> 'last visited'.

And that then becomes even more complicated if I log-on from a different PC

Yet, at the same time, I really like the <<quotes>> facility here on the Forum. I also like the fact that the overall Forum is split into 'sub-categories'

I wonder whether a Yahoo Group, running in parallel with the Forum, might just show the PI Team where users find themselves 'happiest' ?

Certainly, in the past - when I was the sole moderator of a very popular 'GPS' forum, I was able to receive an e-mail feed of EVERY message posted on that forum (also run on phpBB). Maybe this is an option available here as well?

Food for thought, once we have 1.5 up and running  

Cheers,

[Juan Conejero]

Hi,

I understand your complains. I plan on transporting the forum to Simple Machines (see http://www.simplemachines.org/), which is more powerful (IMO) and easier to maintain than phpBB. This however will have to wait since I have other high priorities right now, as you know well

PixInsight Forum will never go to Yahoo! Groups. There are many reasons for this; here are three important ones:

- I *hate* advertising. It's too high a price for me. For me, Yahoo! advertising = spam.

- I want to stay independent. If PI Forum is on Yahoo! (or other similar service), then we depend on it, and we implicitly agree with it. Again, this is too high a price.

- I don't like the unstructured approach that Yahoo! offers. This is a complex forum that demands a strong structuration, far beyond the Files/Photos/Database facilities on Yahoo! Groups.

[Astrocava]

Hi,

- I don't like the unstructured approach that Yahoo! offers. This is a complex forum that demands a strong structuration, far beyond the Files/Photos/Database facilities on Yahoo! Groups.

Same opinion here

Sergio

[Nocturnal]

Sure, forums have a better structure but email lists encourage more participation. I mean it can't be *that* bad an idea when it works so well for other projects. Clearly it doesn't have to be yahoo either, it could be a simple mailman install on the pixinsight server. I'm not saying this should be done but the arguments against it don't hold much water IMO.

We'll wait for the 1.5 release to happen and then maybe this forum will be dragged into 2009, kicking and screaming

[Niall Saunders]

Well,

The new SMF forum environment  seems to offer much more than the last one - let's see how it 'settles in'

Now Juan, get back to v1.5. No more 'playing around' with new toys 

Cheers,

[Juan Conejero]

Hi everybody,

After a few months of 18/7 hard work on 1.5 my brain needed a small break so I decided to change the subject radically 

So here is PixInsight Forum on Simple Machines, at last. Everything went amazingly well: installation, conversion of the database from phpBB, adjustment of board settings... only a few problems customizing some things but all seems to work well now. I still have to make a few tweaks.

This forum has many things that all of you will love for sure. Among them, you can upload images and files, and the forum fully supports XML feeds. Here is the location of the RSS feed:

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2

You can use RSS easily with your favorite email client. Now we have the best of all worlds: a fully-featured forum board with mailing list functionality.

I hope You'll like it. I look forward to your suggestions/comments if you think something can be improved.

OK, back to 1.5...!

[Jack Harvey]

Hey  Works as advertised.  I posted a Tarantula in the Gallery and it uploaded the image with no fuss.  Great job!