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Anders M
Junior Member
Sweden
117 Posts |
 Posted - 22 May 2001 : 02:25:26
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Hi Rob,
Excellent idea (colour coding). If I do a general solution for version 5, I will use some of the colours that the user has setup for use in his forum.
-Anders M
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Rob Poretti
Junior Member
Canada
435 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2001 : 13:28:12
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Cool...
I'm working on a "Subscriptions" page, that lets a member view in one place, all of their various e-mail subscriptions (sort of like the bookmarks page from the bookmarks mod).
If you're not familiar with it, it gives a list of your various bookmarks (in a table format) where you can check off the ones you want to delete (using a checkbox). A basic management tool.
To make this easier, I would suggest a couple of things. The first is a "Subscription ID" field. This could be simply called ID or more explicitly Subscription_ID and should be indexed. This is normal procedure for most relational databases -- a primary field, usually an indexed ID field (often auto-incrementing), is the norm.
It makes it much easier to use ADO tools to manage the recordset and there are performance issue when the table gets larger. (Indexing is faster.) Just a suggestion...
Secondly, a boolean field called something like "Safe". If "Safe" is true, then it is a subscription that the member cannot delete (except for moderators and adminsitrators), using a members subscription page like I'm working on...
For example... there has been some feedback on having some subscriptions set by administrators or even setting a subscription by simply registering, that this feature might be useful.
Rob Poretti 
Sascom Marketing Group ~ Toronto
vox.905.825.5373 fax.905.825.5960
Edited by - Rob Poretti on 22 May 2001 20:14:09
Edited by - Rob Poretti on 23 May 2001 08:24:14 |
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2001 : 09:50:07
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Hi Anders,
This is exactly what I have been looking for and after testing it, I am just about to implement this MOD on my company's intranet forums. But before I do, is there a version 5 about to be released, or any new bugfixes since version 4? If it's coming soon, then I could wait. Otherwise, I'll just go with version 4.
Regards
Steve
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Anders M
Junior Member
Sweden
117 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2001 : 17:28:30
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quote:
is there a version 5 about to be released, or any new bugfixes since version 4?
The bugs discussed in this thread are all fixed in the zip file of version 4:
http://www.paddla.space2u.com/subscription_mod_4.zip
I haven't received any more bug reports, so version 4 seems to be very stable.
I haven't started working on version 5 yet and I don't know when I will get some spare time for further development of this mod. So I suggest you go for version 4.
Anders
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 12:05:25
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OK, I already had the latest zip file, and it is now live on our intranet. I've customised the text of the emails that get sent out slightly, but it sounds like everyone is doing that.
I have a suggestion for version 5. Apologies if it is already doing so and I haven't noticed, but whenever it sends subscription emails out, I would like it to increase the topic's Read count at the same time. In other words, if 20 people are subscribed by email then a new message should cause the count to increase by 20. Otherwise, when a large percentage of members use subscriptions rather than visiting, each topic's read count doesn't represent the real number of people reading the posts.
Thanks again for this. It is exactly what we needed.
Regards
Steve
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MazY
Starting Member
United Kingdom
13 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 12:37:34
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quote:
Otherwise, when a large percentage of members use subscriptions rather than visiting, each topic's read count doesn't represent the real number of people reading the posts.
But can you not sort of get around that limitation by just providing the link to the message as opposed to putting the message body within the email. That is certainly what I do to ensure that the forum itself gets used.
Though I appreciate that an Intranet environment is slightly different to an Internet environment.
M.
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 12:39:03
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I have just implemented my own suggestion to increase the topic's read count by the number of subscription emails sent out whenever a new post is made. In case anyone else wants to do this, here's what I did.
In post_info.asp, I inserted a new function just before the start of function SendSubscribeEmail at about line 1293:
function UpdateTopicReadCount(topicId)
'## Forum_SQL
strSql = "UPDATE " & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS "
strSql = strSql & " SET " & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.T_VIEW_COUNT = (" & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.T_VIEW_COUNT + 1) "
strSql = strSql & " WHERE (" & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.TOPIC_ID = " & topicId & ");"
my_conn.Execute (strSql)
end function
In post_info.asp, inside the function SendSubscribeEmail, I added the code in red:
For i = 1 To maxNoOfMembers
if emailAddr(i) <> "" then
UpdateTopicReadCount(topicId)
if strRecipients <> "" then
strRecipients = strRecipients & ";"
end if
It seems to work for me (NT Server 4, MS Access)
Regards
Steve
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 12:47:11
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quote:
Though I appreciate that an Intranet environment is slightly different to an Internet environment.
The difference for us is that the server with the intranet on it is not accessible from outside our network for security reasons. The email server is accessible from anywhere on the internet, so our employees can use a local POP wherever they are in the world to pick up email at very low cost or for free. For that reason, I want to include the text of the message in the email, so they only have to connect via an expensive dialup if they want to reply. It's true that the read count would go up again when they clicked on the link to go to the topic to reply, but nothing's perfect!
Regards
Steve
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Anders M
Junior Member
Sweden
117 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 13:03:39
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You will speed up your forum if you call the function UpdateTopicReadCount once only. Do something like this (the red code is added):
function UpdateTopicReadCount(topicId, count)
'## Forum_SQL
strSql = "UPDATE " & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS "
strSql = strSql & " SET " & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.T_VIEW_COUNT = (" & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.T_VIEW_COUNT + " & count & ") "
strSql = strSql & " WHERE (" & strTablePrefix & "TOPICS.TOPIC_ID = " & topicId & ");"
my_conn.Execute (strSql)
end function
And in post_info.asp, inside the function SendSubscribeEmail, do like this:
strRecipients = ""
counter = 0
totalCounter = 0
For i = 1 To maxNoOfMembers
if emailAddr(i) <> "" then
if strRecipients <> "" then
strRecipients = strRecipients & ";"
end if
strRecipients = strRecipients & emailAddr(i)
counter = counter + 1
totalCounter = totalCounter + 1
if counter=noOfEmailAddr and strRecipients<>"" then
%>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="inc_mail.asp" -->
<%
strRecipients = ""
counter = 0
end if
end if
Next
if strRecipients <> "" then
%>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="inc_mail.asp" -->
<%
end if
if totalCounter > 0 then
UpdateTopicReadCount topicId, totalCounter
end if
end function
Edited by - Anders M on 31 May 2001 13:06:45 |
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MazY
Starting Member
United Kingdom
13 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 13:04:07
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Ah ha. I see your motive now. Though one could also say that you are over-inflating the read count as just receiving the mail does not mean that are going to or have read it?
As you rightly say - nothing's perfect. Well, apart from Pepsi Cola that is but I digress... 
Edited by - MazY on 31 May 2001 13:06:05 |
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 13:20:12
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quote:
You will speed up your forum if you call the function UpdateTopicReadCount once only
Good idea. I originally thought I would do it incrementally in case something went wrong sending out the emails (one at a time), but I think your way is better.
Regards
Steve
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2001 : 13:27:34
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quote:
Ah ha. I see your motive now. Though one could also say that you are over-inflating the read count as just receiving the mail does not mean that are going to or have read it?
Overstating the read count is better than understating it for my purposes. If people think others are reading their posts, they are more likely to keep contributing. I've only got a target audience of a couple of hundred technical people, so it's important that contributions are regular or the traffic could die away.
It looks as though the standard forum software increases the read count too often anyway. If you go and read a topic, it increments it. If you reply, then afterwards it sends you back to the topic, and increments the read count again. So every time someone replies to a topic, it increases it by one too many. Not really a problem though.
Regards
Steve
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 01 June 2001 : 05:34:05
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What is the practical limit for the number of addresses per email (using CDONTS)?
I set it to 1 initially, but it seems that the bursts of emails are causing problems with our SMTP server so I need to increase it to as big a number as realistically possible.
Regards
Steve
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ecclesia
Starting Member
12 Posts |
Posted - 07 June 2001 : 10:31:22
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After installing Subscription MOD4, the following now occurs whenever anyone posts to a forum:
"There has been a problem!
There was an error = The message was undeliverable. All servers failed to receive the message.
Go back to correct the problem."
The above shows in Post_Info.asp and then when the poster clicks "Go back to correct the problem" it goes to the post editor again. If he clicks to post again, it posts the message twice. This creates and endless loop of the same post everytime they go back due to the "error" and post again!
What could be causing this error?
We're using the latest Snitz Version SR4.
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chimaera
Starting Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 11 June 2001 : 12:19:49
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I've found my own answer to the limits for CDONTS.
This is working really well now on my intranet. The only minor drawbacks are that if the user posts with formatting then the formatting appears as tags in the plain text email, and if a word is used which is in the bad words list, it is getting through into the emails rather than being censored. I am being asked about daily/weekly digests too, but that can wait.
Regards
Steve
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Topic Locked
