Email Notification Enhancements (index page)

I propose that we keep this page as a central gateway page for all the current efforts (and hopefully available patches and plugins) on the email notification system in TWiki. Please do not put discussions in this page, but in (sub) pages pointed to by this page.

Try to maintain the status of the effort: wish, design, code, patch, done (i.e. in TWikiAlphaRelease)...

Feel free to keep this page up to date!

• General issues and requirements
  • ConversationTracking
  • TopicsThatDie - a big problem in the Support web, in particular
  • ConsolidateNotifications* - spec and code of multiple systems replacement
  • NewEmailNotificationSystem - a proposal to start develop something adressing current issues - design
• Notification interval
  • CustomizableEmailNotification - design
  • CustomizableEmailNotificationInterval - dead?
• Immediate notification
  • NotifyOnChange - code
  • Notification method in PhotonSkin - code
  • ImmediateWebNotifyPerTopic
  • See also InstantNotification, below
• Selective notification scope (e.g. list of topics only)
  • AutomaticEmailNotification - wish
  • RegexBasedTopicSelection - wish
  • PerTopicWebNotifyReports - patch available
  • WebNotifyExclusionSetting - a Set or metadata item in a topic to exclude it from WebNotify entirely
• Selective notification recipients (to certain users only)
  • CopyToEmail - 'CC updated TWiki page to email addresses', similar to PerTopicWebNotifyReports - wish
  • PhotonSkin - patch
    • enables notification of selected recipients with additional 'change comment' text
• What to send in notifications
  • DiffsInNotifyEmail, WebNotifyToSendActualChanges - the diffs? - wish
    • MailNotifyOnlyDiffs - link to diffs - patch
  • MailNotifyInPlainTextFormat - text-only mails - wish
• Misc enhancements
  • OmittingEmailInWebNotify - no need to include email adress in WebNotify pages - done in BeijingRelease
    • fix/enhancement discussed in OmittingEmailInWebNotifyV2
  • UseBccForNotificationEmail - Use Bcc instead of To header for WebNotify recipients - patch
  • MailNotifyScanOnlyOnOneWeb - support different notify schedules per web - patch
  • AutomatedWebNotifyRegistration - button on WebNotify page to add a user
  • SingleTopicSingleInstanceNotification - for questions waiting on answers
  • ForwardMailToTWiki - archiving feature description

Other email-related TWiki enhancements

• EmailThisPageLink - makes it easier for user to email link to a TWiki page - done in BeijingRelease

• Email interface for updating TWiki sites
  • Create topics by email:
    • BringingUsersInFromAnEmailSystem - wish
    • ForwardMailToTWiki - wish
    • SubmitTopicByEmail - mail archive in a wiki - wish
    • MailInAddOn - plugin - patch

Other notification mechanisms:

• InstantNotification - using InstantMessaging to notify changes - wish
• TWikiSyndication using RichSiteSummary (RSS) feeds - done

Related pages:

• SpamProofing is important for any email addresses included on public TWiki sites
• SendmailPerlSmtpSwitch - note on changes to mail mechanism.

-- ColasNahaboo - 09 Mar 2002
-- RichardDonkin - 23 May 2002

Factored a couple subtopics out of OmittingEmailInWebNotify into here. -- WalterMundt - 08 Jan 2003

Boy, if a topic from 2001 is marked as here (I removed it and made it bold), I hate to think of what's considered old!

-- GrantBow - 16 Jan 2003

There apppears to be a cross-product of notification techniques that applies to email, RSS, etc. - I attempt to taxonomize them on the linked to page.

A meta-comment: TWiiki seems to have a lot more "stale" topics than any other wiki I am familiar with. It may just be that TWiki has a smaller user community than Ward's original wiki or MeatBallWiiki, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

TWiki's mail notification technology seems to be clumsier than some of these other wikis, notably ZWiki. But that's not all, since on some wikis there is no mail notification.

-- AndyGlew - 24 Jun 2003

Sorry to add another comment - I'll refactor soon - but SamHasler showed me hiis search command that gives a list of pages I have worked on that have been recently modified. He and I have placed this in our homepages.

I think this could be the basis of a much more useful mailnotify. E.g. I think that I will just run a cron job on my own machine that snarfs that search. I.e. use my own schedule, not the twiki servers.

It needs a bit of an extension, e.g. to grep the RCS log for user name, but overall I find it much better than mailnotify.

What should I refactor this to: MailnotifyAlternativeUsingHeuristicToFindParticularPagesUserMayBeInterestedIn? Nah, that's too long a name.

-- AndyGlew - 11 Aug 2003