scriptygoddess

April 30th, 2002 at 10:36 pm

This is a good project! I'm not sure if I'll be much help, but I thought I'd add a few comments to start with The way it sounds, you are wanting to do a subscription on a post-by-post basis, not a subscription to receive a copy of all comments, right?

A thought. . . . I wonder if there would be a way to make a scaled down version of the notify list that would work on a post-by-post basis. I don't know, that might be totally off the wall.

Here's a thread on the mt boards where Girlie asked for something similar, but expanded a bit on a side need to go along with it.

2 | Lynda

April 30th, 2002 at 10:56 pm

Hmmmm. Would you subscribe to comments for one post only or for ALL comments?

Because it seems the easiest thing to do would be to create a mailing list and use that e-mail address as your own so all comments go there.

In fact, it seems MUCH easier than trying to fiddle with the mt-comments.cgi

Comments by post seem a little more difficult. It would probably be easier to create a login/password for everyone that sets a cookie for them and 'highlights' new information (including comments) when they load the site or a special page containing all new information since their last visit.

But registration required for comments is in the MT to-do list, so I assume something like this will follow not too far afterwards. I think I would check with Ben/Mena to see if something like this is in the works, because if so (unless a quick solution can be made) this might not be worth it the effort it takes to work on it.

3 | Christine

May 1st, 2002 at 12:46 am

My thought when I suggested it was to allow you to subscribe on a post-by-post basis. So there would be a "Subscribe to comments for this post" checkbox right there next to the "remember info" box. I wouldn't want to subscribe to all of the Scriptygoddess comments for example, but if there was a post here that I was *really* interested in (like this one!) I wanted to be e-mailed a notification that other comments were left behind after mine. Receiving the comment itself would be WONDERFUL.

Basically, we should blame it all on the fact that I have had to use message boards more in the past month, and since things are so whirly busy here on Scriptygoddess I keep thinking how I wish I was notified on the posts here that I had left comments on!

4 | Row

May 1st, 2002 at 4:03 am

Christine brought up something there… maybe a nice idea would be to look in the guts of a message board and see how they do a 'subscribe to this post' feature.

Unfortunately I can't be more help than that!

5 | Lynda

May 1st, 2002 at 6:53 am

I'm pretty sure doing a subscribe-by-post feature wouldn't be difficult at all if there was a way for the reader to log in. That's why I think this would be easier when the version of MT comes out that lets people register to post comments (if that isn't already going to be part of it).

I'm all for this project as it sounds ultra cool and I will help anyway I can, but if this is something planned for, say, the next version of MT (if it's free) then I don't want to reinvent the wheel, you know? I don't want us to spend months on this trying to figure it out only to have a version of MT come out that already does it.

And if the version of MT that comes out with this is the pay-version, I'm not sure Ben and Mena would appreciate us fiddling with the code to create something for free that they've designated for pay-users only.

(Of course, if the solution doesn't touch the code at all, that's something a little different)

Yes, I am the ultimate devil's advocate.

6 | Lynda

May 1st, 2002 at 8:05 am

I was thinking about this and you know what might be easier? Setting it up so that people can subscribe to a particular page and then be notified when that page changes.

I'm sure something like that can be done fairly easily. I'll look into that..

7 | Jennifer

May 1st, 2002 at 8:58 am

I think this line in the FAQ would mean that it's okay to do whatever we want. (They're coming out with a pay version of this or not):

Q. May I modify the Movable Type source code?
A. Yes, as long as you do not redistribute the modified code without permission. In addition, if you modify any
of the code and feel that your changes would be useful to all MT users, we would appreciate it if you would
send us your changes, so as to make them available to the community of MT users

As for whether it's worthwhile or not – if they're going to come out with something similar… I was looking at it more as like a self-imposed learning/challenge. Can I do this? No need to try if you'd rather wait to see if it'll come out with the next MT release. I just thought it'd be fun (even if it was re-inventing the (possible future) wheel)… that, and I"m EXTREMELY impatient! LOL!!

So look at this more like a fun learning project… anyone and everyone is welcome to play along at home (or not). Like I said, I'm being overwhelmed with crazy Java Enterprise stuff this week, so I probably won't get to play until this weekend.

8 | Lynda

May 1st, 2002 at 9:43 am

I'm just trying to play the argumentative role, is all.

I recently worked out a really nifty PHP solution for a friend who lost her journal archives and only had text files with them. Turns out as soon as I was done, her host was able to restore her archives. But all my effort wasn't lost as I learned a TON TON TON of PHP in the process.

So I do know exactly where you're coming from with this.

You're coming from a different angle – I think setting a login/password per user would be best. That part is simple, there are already a million of scripts to do it. This could be used to build upon with future scripts, etc as there are tons of things you can let the user customize if they're set with a login/password.

At that point, perhaps a way to subscribe to a page – they could have a separate page where they could manage all their subscriptions.

But as I have no idea how to do my solution, it would probably take a while and you already seem to know what you're going to do, sort of.

I'm not at all good at hacking MT because there are modules ALL over the place. Opening mt-comments.cgi won't get you anywhere as there are dozens of modules it requires to make mt-comments.cgi work. And all those modules require different modules. It's a mess (not for them I'm sure, but it's the most difficult thing to hack I've ever seen. I've never been able to go in and change something without first asking ben WHERE it might be located)

So I'm all for PHP add-on solutions. And the advantage to that is non-MT people would be able to use it as well.

9 | Christine

May 1st, 2002 at 12:13 pm

I think the "subscribe to this page – let me know if it's modified" would work pretty well for people who have set their sites up like I have – my Comment pop-up is really the individual archive page. Does that help? (Do I feel like I'm in a room where Lynda & Jennifer are talking and I only get 1/10th of what they say?)

10 | kristine

May 1st, 2002 at 5:44 pm

(nodding to Christine. yep, I feel that way too mosta the time!!)

I do like the idea of using some sort of a "subscribe to this page" type solution.

BTW, since I'm the girl who hangs out in the MT forums too much, the next version of MT (2.1) is coming out sometime in the next few days I think I heard Ben say

11 | Christoph C. Cemper

December 25th, 2003 at 7:50 pm