[RFC] Improved Subscription Options

[DavidIQ]

MODs will not exist for 3.1 and an extension would not likely be rendered obsolete with a mere update so your argument against an extension is invalid. For 3.1 this will be your only option.

[Pony99CA]

MODs will not exist for 3.1 and an extension would not likely be rendered obsolete with a mere update so your argument against an extension is invalid. For 3.1 this will be your only option.

True, but extensions can go stale if the developer doesn't update them.

These features are reasonable for a bulletin board system and have fairly high demand, so they should either be in the core or an officially-supported extension. It's probably too late to get them into the 3.1 core, so that leaves an officially-supported extension.

Steve

[DavidIQ]

MODs will not exist for 3.1 and an extension would not likely be rendered obsolete with a mere update so your argument against an extension is invalid. For 3.1 this will be your only option.

True, but extensions can go stale if the developer doesn't update them.

These features are reasonable for a bulletin board system and have fairly high demand, so they should either be in the core or an officially-supported extension. It's probably too late to get them into the 3.1 core, so that leaves an officially-supported extension.

Steve

I don't know what "going stale" means but I can't imagine that an extension for what is being discussed here would be updated much if at all once it gets released. I've submitted the idea for review though.

[shawnc]

New phpBB admin here. I am currently working on a project where we are trying to use phpBB as a stopgap measure to keep a ~100 user discussion forum active. The functionality of auto-subscribing users to a forum was described earlier here using template files (thanks for that hint).

The ability to include a post body in the notification email is a definite must-have feature on this project. Many of our users will be reading and responding to forum posts solely via email. This seems like the freshest thread on that topic. Has anybody done this before, has any progress been made towards this.

I've worked heavily in PHP before, specifically Drupal 5-7. If I wanted to hack this functionality into phpBB, where should I start? How difficult would it be?

[brunoais]

Hum... Maybe I can work on this but it will have to be for 3.2 and I still have to finish what I'm working at the moment first.

[DGDanforth]

I also need to have the contents of a post included in the notification email sent to a user.
In addition the user should be able to reply and have the reply added to the forum discussion
in the Topic whose name is equal to the Subject of the reply message.

Can you do that and tell me how to include that functionality in our phpBB?

Best regards,
Douglas G Danforth, Ph.D.

[Pony99CA]

I also need to have the contents of a post included in the notification email sent to a user.

That's already part of the RFC. If you want this in phpBB 3.0.x, look at the BoardWatch MOD and read the Author's Notes in the FAQs.

In addition the user should be able to reply and have the reply added to the forum discussion
in the Topic whose name is equal to the Subject of the reply message.

That is off-topic here as that isn't a "subscription option". You basically want mailing list functionality added to phpBB. This has been requested numerous times before (look at phpBB.com) or you can read the Post/Reply by Email - Integration With Email Lists topic here. If you have something further to add about that, I suggest posting there.

Steve

[DavidIQ]

There is an event request being processed for 3.1 that should allow for that last part.