Hi guys.

May I pick your brain on the following parameter please?

COM_COMMUNITY_CONFIGURATION_MESSAGING_ENABLE_READ_STATUS="Enable read status"
COM_COMMUNITY_CONFIGURATION_MESSAGING_ENABLE_READ_STATUS_TIPS="When enabled, private messages will show read status when receiver sees the message"

How exactly does the "Read status" work?

Imo, when someone receives a private message he just received, then as far as this receiver is concerned, he obviously has not read this newly arrived into his private inbox message yet and so, accordingly, the status he can see for the message he just received can be only "Unread", just like it works in our conventional email inboxes.

Obviously, once he opened up this private message and read it, then its status should change for him to "Read", "Opened" or "Already read". That makes sense.

So the only scenario where the "Read status" would make sense to me is when a user is browsing all of his private messages, that is looking through his whole private inbox, as opposite to reviewing a single message, "the message", per your current tip "When enabled, private messages will show read status when receiver sees the message".

If this is what the "Enable read status" parameter entails, then I'd work on the "when receiver sees the message" bit and edit the tip string to "When enabled, user browsing his private messages will see which of them he has already read". You be the judge.

Please advise,

Cheers,

Alex

Hi Alex,

Simply, the read status will show when the user open the detail message.

Now, we are creating the new features to improve this matter so it will more make sense, which will be integrated with chat system.. the UX will be like Facebook message and chat :)


Did you know that we also provide Private Support Tickets?
Just use this form: www.jomsocial.com/submit-support
Support provided that way is much faster and all your license details are added to the ticket so you don't need to send them :)


thank you

Hi Dimas,

>>> Simply, the read status will show when the user open the detail message.

Ah, I see, Thanks for that.

I suggest you guys, consider replacing the "receiver" in COM_COMMUNITY_CONFIGURATION_MESSAGING_ENABLE_READ_STATUS_TIPS="When enabled, private messages will show read status when receiver sees the message" with something else.

"Receiver" implies a person who just received a private message and opens it up, whereas, if understood you correctly (please correct me if I am wrong on that), the "Read status" parameter displays if a message was read or not for any opened up message, not just for newly received one. :)

So the word "receiver" is a bit misleading here. It would be more appropriate to put in "user" instead.

Cheers,

Alex

P S Thanks a ton for reminding about the ticketing system. I will make use of it.

Hi Alex

Actually the description is accurate because you as a receiver never get the read status displayed on the messages you get.
It makes absolutely no sense to get the seen status for a message you just saw :) It's redundant.

How this feature works, i s when i send you the private message, and you see it, I will be the one who gets the read status, not you :)
So, the description is 100% correct

Hi Sinisa, :)

Thank you for joining in. I do appreciate it.

Mmm, I did not realise the "Read status" parameter actually works for the sender, not for the receiver. Now it makes full sense :) Thanks for sorting it out for me.

I still feel that this parameter description text should also be a wee bet more exact and point out that the read status will be seen by the sender. For example:

COM_COMMUNITY_CONFIGURATION_MESSAGING_ENABLE_READ_STATUS_TIPS="When enabled, private messages will show to their senders whether the message recipients have seen them."

Another question: what does JomSocial system consider to be a "have seen" read status for a message:

1) the receiver opened up his private messages inbox with the message in question?
or
2) the receiver opened up his private messages inbox with the message in question and opened up the given message for reading?

Technically, we have two user scenarios here.
1) A user opens up his private inbox and can see a newly arrived message. He sees that there is this new message arrived and that's it. He didn't open it yet but he has seen that it is there. So, technically, the message has been seen.
2) The above but this time the user opens this newly arrived message for reading. He has seen it and opened it up. Here the message technically also has been seen but it also has been opened.

Cheers,

Alex

Hi Alex

The suggested change in language string is okay and it will be added to the v4.3.1
As for what is considered to be seen, it is your scenario #2.

Now some little background to this feature.
I'm sure we can all agree that JomSocial's private message system is outdated and to some extend obsolete.
The year 2004. when everyone were sending private messages similar to email with subjects and single receiver was long gone. If you remember, SMS messages on our phones were working like that as well.

We delayed updating to modern chat-like system for few years now (literally), it was in planning for a while, but there was always something else, more pressing to work on.
With introduction of file attaching and now the message "seen" status, the only thing left to update is the inbox and message system itself.
I'm gonna show you the early scaffold structure of the new private message system without inbox and sent messages pages, where "seen" status is going to shine as it's supposed to.

As you can see here, we get rid of "threaded" system and unify everything to a single conversations like all modern chats do without redundant inbox :) So "seen" status in this scenario makes a lot of sense.

Hi Sinisa,

Cheers for sorting this string out for me.

I am now all set to properly translate it for your JS Russian customers. Sinisastic-fantastic! :) And thanks as well for the little scaffolding tour of the PM system.

Please feel free to close this thread now.

Have a smashing Friday and superb weekend.

Regards,

Alex