Forum OpenACS Development: Notifications on Content Repository Items

1: Notifications on Content Repository Items

Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 11/21/03 07:51 AM

We currently support notifications on File-Storage, Forums, Wimpy-Point, Bug-Tracker most likely some other places as well.

Would it make sense to move the integration away from the individual package and offer this as a service to all packages using the content repository.

How would you add a "Notify me of changes" on each level of display of content repository items and folders ?

I think one of the strengthes of the toolkit are definitly it's alerts to keep people coming back to the website. It would be nice if we could support this in a consistent manner (after fixing the performance of the notification package....)

2: Re: Notifications on Content Repository Items (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 11/21/03 02:55 PM

Malte,

I would think the content of a notification would depend on the content type, so a general content repository implementation wouldn't really work.

Besides this, I think the notification stuff is implemented backwards. Right now the notification text is rendered when an object is created or updated. I think the search model, where an entry is made into the search queue, and the search data is entered into the index in a scheduled procedure, is better.

This way rendering of the notificaitont text can occur in the background.

3: Re: Notifications on Content Repository Items (response to 1)

Posted by Mark Aufflick on 11/21/03 04:06 PM

I can imagine it working like this:

the CR could support notifications as Malte suggests, using the :best available method".

If a content type desginer doesn't provide the correct service contract definition, the fallback would be a plain text email in the language of the user, saying something like "The item named Foo of type Bar was modified at this time/date by this user. Click here to view the changed item."

A service contract could be written for any types desiring special handling (for example an image might include a thumbnail in the email, or the type "bug" would be handled in the way it is now).

The output of the SC would be a chunk of text or html in a form suitable for joining together with each other, for the case that a user has requiested digested notification.

4: Re: Notifications on Content Repository Items (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 11/21/03 04:23 PM

Right to do this we need either a trigger on cr_items, or a CR tcl api to create content items.

Otherwise there really isn't any way to the content repository to "know" when a notification should be done.

I still think its application specific whether or not a object even supports notification. I have no problem supplying a default implmentation that can be easily added to an application, but the kind of basic information Mark suggests would work equally well for any generic object.