Notifications

We've added a notifications feature, for when there's a message for you that's short and simple, and therefore not really suited to the full messaging system.

At present there are two notifications:
* When you get new recommendations
* When new members join groups of which you are an administrator

Here's what it looks like:


Click to drag it down and you get:


As you can see, "Messages" is under the same menu. Messages work just like before.

If you click the ">" symbol, you'll get a page with all notifications, including old ones that are no longer shown:
https://www.librarything.com/notifications

There's also a page in LibraryThing's settings, so you can turn notifications off and on by type:
https://www.librarything.com/settings/notifications

Planned future notifications:
* When your import is done
* New Early Reviewer batches (if an ER member)
* @-mentions in Talk

We're going to be going through other automatic LT messages, changing some to notifications.

As we build out more "explore" features, we may add notifications for new books in your series, etc. These are likely to be default-off.

What do you think?

Fine, as long as I can turn them all off. But please warn us before starting a new type.

@-mentions in Talk is good; what about >1 timspalding:-style direct replies?

>1 timspalding: I like the way it looks up there in the corner, and I like separating actual messages from notifications. And I'm excited that the ER new-batch messages will now just be notifications. I always archive them to keep my messages less cluttered, so to be able to just look at them and then they go away is perfect for me.

I'll have to have a think about other possibilities for notifications instead of messages — new badges would be an obvious one.

It's a feature? I thought it was a bug. *shrugs* I turned it off since I really don't need a notification every time someone joins Name That Book.

"You have 5,812 new recommendations."

I'm not sure whether that's good news or simply depressing!

Translation bug. The string You have <SUB1> new message<SUB2>. inserts no instead of 0 for zero and an English plural s for <SUB2>.

>7 anglemark:

You should not get a zero-recs message. I'll check into that.

>8 timspalding: Not zero recs, zero new messages.

>7 anglemark: Looking at this

>7 anglemark: This should be fixed.

>11 knerd.knitter: As far as I can see, it is. At least the zero case now uses a dedicated string. Thanks!

(But if <SUB2> in the original string still inserts a plural s, that string is still broken for other all languages.)

>12 anglemark: It does not; I changed that.

>13 knerd.knitter: Excellent.

Make it go away.

Once I've moused over it to see the notification I have no further interest. I'm not clicking on the group notification if I'm not interested in it, and I certainly don't want to see it again. I really don't want to have to click on it to clear it.

Having a history of notifications that's not bold but viewable from home/somewhere might be useful

>15 reading_fox: If you click the bell to the right of the notification you want to dismiss, it will be marked as read. I realize it's still a click, but at least you don't have to leave the page you're on. Hope this helps.

>1 timspalding: Whether I have a message or a notification, the whole lozenge will be yellow? I had 0 new messages but 1,000+ new recommendations. There's a dividing line, so it seems odd that both sides change colour.

Generally speaking, I think the function is a good one and well-needed. I was glad to see how easy it was to turn off notifications as I have no interest in being notified every time someone joins a group I administer.

Just one thing, and it's not a big one but aesthetically annoying: when I'm on my laptop and click on the envelope for the notification/message menu, the text for "Notifications" is massive and bolded (even though there are no new notifications) and the text for "No new messages" is normal.

How often are new recommendations generated? That is, how often can we expect a "you have X new recommendations" notification?

Things are looking weird on the "Combine works" confirmation page:

>20 norabelle414: Ah, I found that on another page (an internal one) recently. Can you paste a sample URL for us?

>21 kristilabrie: It's the same URL every time: https://www.librarything.com/work_combineworks.php

Appreciate it!

UI point : Intuitively I'd expect to be able to access the notification page by clicking on Notifications, not just on the small arrow button beside it.

Especially as mouse cursor turns into a hand over Notifications line, the near-universal signal for "this is a thing on which you can click."

Doubt I'm the only one.

>24 Kuiperdolin:
>Doubt I'm the only one.

Guilty :-)

>24 Kuiperdolin:

Agreed.

>21 kristilabrie: Also on https://www.librarything.com/addnew.php

And on author split eg https://www.librarything.com/author_split.php?author=lewisedwin&page=assign

And on alias https://www.librarything.com/author_split.php?author=lewisedwin&page=alias

For future pony consideration, I'd like to mark a thread for notifications, i.e. anytime (or once a day?) I'd be notified that someone had posted on that thread.

Nevermind. I was thinking emails.

I like it.

I'd also like to be notified when someone "likes" a review I've posted. I recall there is a discussion somewhere about whether or not to de-anonymize those, but whether or not that happens, I'd like to be notified when someone likes a review (and please point me to which review).

Obviously, there are plenty of people who don't want to be notified, so like the rest of the notifications, it would be good to be able to turn those off.