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New comments upgrade

Hi guys-

Just a little bit of background on a problem that I think we've solved as of today. Jill was asking me how she could keep up with what is new on this discussion blog, without having to go and subscribe to every topic (including older ones). She spoke of the ability of other blogs to bing topics with recent comments to the top of the blog, so she knows. As you know this blogging doesn't have that option. If an older topic has a comment and you are not subscribed to it, you will not know. She is right about this. So after some thought I came up with an answer for this. It seems to have worked like a charm, and has fixed a problem I had as admin at the same time. I won't go into any real details other than to say we are using a combination of the googlegroups, and the F-Jam server php scripts.

Here is a more detailed listing of what this change has brought about. On this blog under "Discussion" on the menu, and then under "View Latest", you get a new window that opens and shows you the "Last 10 Topics Posted". Under that is "Recent Comments". This is the new part. This will show you the last comments made to any discussion blog topic, both old and new, wether you are subscribed to it or not. The newest topics will be at the top of this list too, just as Jill asked for. You will be reading from newest to oldest. So you if you read backwards, you will know when you get to the comments you've already seen, and can stop and consider yourself up to date. Another added bonus is that you can now click into that googlegroup that is linked at the top of the comments and subscribe to that group and have these very same comments delivered to you via e-mail if you wanted. You'd effectively get e-mail for ALL new comments by subscribing to this google group. This lists the last 50 comments on this page, and is automatically updated.

Likewise the same thing is true of "View Latest Project Activity", under "Music Projects". it doesn't show any in there just yet, because we just finished setting this up, but you'll soon be able to monitor project activity from this page, wether you are subscribed to it or not. You can still subscribe as you have been doing. This is something I've setup on the side, for those of you who feel they want to keep up more with what's going on.

I'm going to be setting up yet another one to monitor comments made on the jukebox. You can either read this page or subscribe to the group that is linked on the page and get e-mails. I have a little more in store too but that can wait for now. This is exactly what Jill was wanting. I'll be refining this as we go along...

2 comments:

The Admin said...

I am not sure how this new system will act where duplicates are concerned. I think I'm going to have to stop subscribing to topics as F-Jam Alert, since all e-mails are delivered to that address anyhow. So it might take just a littlewhile to stop seeing a duplicate or two as I unsubscribe to topics. That may well be the case for you all too if you are subscribing to the ALL e-mails.

Keeper said...

I've unsubscribed a few topics already as F-Jam Alert. If you get duplicates in your e-mail, check the googlegroup and see if I removed one of the posts. If I did, then you know I've also unsubscribed. Eventually you'll not see any more duplicates..

Also, just so you know:

I have my e-mail client setup to automatically forward these e-mails to the googlegroup, so you might see some delay in it showing up on the googlegroups. It will not happen until I check my e-mail.

Still if I see the notifications you all can too. You'll eventually get to see them so don't sweat it if there is some delay. Just means I haven't checked my e-mail yet.

I could probably set it to auto check every 5 minutes which would forward them, but it could cause problems with my recordings.

Down the road I'll set this up on the server machine to auto forward. Every time it reads my mail it'll forward to the googlegroup.