While Drupal specializes in simplicity, competing with forum software like phpBB or Invision requires more depth in terms of individual pieces. One of the most underdeveloped modules is, without a doubt, the private messaging module. Compared to other types of PMing, this module can certainly be expanded. What do you think could make PM-ing more interesting for users on a site?
My ideas:
Folders: Letting users create folders for their PMs would certainly add a needed feature. On some sites (no Drupal ones I use, but certainly on forums), I receive a ton of messages, so letting me sort them is certainly a convenience.
CC, BCC: This is definitely something that would aid private messaging. Carbon copying is useful in quite a few situations.
Read Receipt: A read receipt basically lets the person sending the message who has and hasn't read his message yet. It's a handy little thing.
None of these are absolutely essential to any sort of system. However, as any forum-user will tell you, God is in the details.
Comments
um, done
privatemsg already lets users messages into folders. i think this module lacks UI, not functionality.
It can?
I think a UI is needed when I couldn't find it upon installation. It's not really emphasized: most people would miss it.
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This lives here: http://drupal.org/project/privatemsg
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems / Follow me on Twitter! @NikLP
privatemsg project
Apparently there's a security issue which has led to the privatemsg module being abandoned. Click on the link for the very scary warning.
Mistake
It was a mistake. Only the 5.x version is abandoned, not the entire module.
Michelle
I would be interested in
I would be interested in seeing a private message module allow me to categorize messages, much like Gmail, Del.icio.us, Flikr, or.. well, Drupal content.
The catch might be making the categories customizable per user, while still keeping within the 'drupal' way of doing things.
Assuming that limitation could be overcome (don't know enough about the workings of drupal to know if thats a real issue or not), the next step that I would see the private message module taking is making the private message a node type, and handling it as a node. Presently, the PM text is stored in its own table
If you could make it so that User A creates categories A B and C for their PMs, and User B can't see those categories, then you could easily enable all the other neat-o things you can do (such as views, private messages on blocks, etc).
Node type might be interesting...
...because then a custom View could be created to display certain PMs rather than others.
How about size limits of
How about size limits of stored PMs?
Yeah either size limits or a
Yeah either size limits or a quota on the number pms stored would be good.
Feature request here: http://drupal.org/node/87817
Check out
Check out http://groups.drupal.org/node/2418#comment-11454
Ubercart is sponsoring a total revamp of the user interface. I've got my work in progress hosted at my site linked in that comment above. It's much more intuitive now, and I'm totally up for further suggestions. I definitely want multiple recipients and file attachments, so expect those to come eventually. Folder management is an actual tab now, and read receipt has always worked. ; )
Ciao.
It's good you're working on
It's good you're working on this, but are you submitting those as patches to the privatemsg issue queue as you go along? It's much easier for the community to tracker/review/help with progress that way.
Sorry, that's impossible
Sorry, that's impossible given the scale of the changes. As soon as it's done I'll submit it in one lump patch, but we're practically looking at a module rewrite here. I can't promise it will please everyone, but I can promise it will be better than it currently is.
Feel free to track the UI changes at http://www.bywombats.com and offer up feedback, though. I still don't know what to do about the new message link! : P
(I've tried to get maintainer status on this module in the past, but TDobes is AWOL and I don't want to bother mindless with a ton of patches.)
It definitively needs to be
It definitively needs to be themed, if possible the way forums are ;-)
Cool. That all sounds fair
Cool. That all sounds fair enough. I registered and it all lookes pretty good, I noticed the order of "with selected" and agree it doesn't look quite right, but it might just be having a big "delete" button there instead of an icon, rather than the order itself, which is a very minor thing to change.
Working that in right now...
Working that in right now... I'll see about making the order of the buttons configurable. ;)
Also, I'm thinking of leaving the local task "New message" there since it really is just a link... but I'm thinking of changing it to Compose. Do you guys think that given the context of the Private message menu "Compose" will be sufficient or should it stay "New message"?
:)
I say "horses for courses"! My webmail client uses compose just fine. It depends how friendly you want it to be. If the context means it couldn't mean anything else, use the shortest, I think?
$.02
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems / Follow me on Twitter! @NikLP
I don't think it matters
I don't think it matters between "new message" and "compose" (although I personally prefer compose) - because you can always customise that with localisation like any other string.
(For any who come across
(For any who come across this post, I accidentally wiped my By Wombats site, so you'll have to test out the changes on the Ubercart site: http://www.ubercart.org)
Does anybody really use the
Does anybody really use the Contact select box? It seems a little redundant when the field has autocomplete. Should I perhaps disable the contact select box if Javascript is enabled? Well, it doesn't make sense since the both the contact box and autocomplete field rely on JS... what was the coder thinking?
It seems like the standard way of doing things is with an actual contact manager. This may be out of the scope of my current work, but it seems like at the bare minimum there should be a tab that lets you manage your contacts. I can have it automatically add people you have messaged in the past, and I can put a link in messages from folks not in your contact list to add them to your contacts. Then from the contacts tab you could select someone to message.
This would pave the way for multiple recipients nicely, too...
My thoughts
I like the idea of the contact list being people you've already contacted. Maybe call it "Previous recipients" or sumsuch. Another nice thing might be to add buddies there if buddylist is also installed.
I looked at the demo and it's pretty slick. One thing that's confusing, though is the "With selected: "
I'd do "With selected: [Move to folder] [Folder drop down] | [Delete]"
The order it's in now just seems funny to me.
Is it possible to have the move to folder option on the sent messages box as well?
Otherwise, it looks very good. Can't wait!
Thanks,
Michelle
Hmm... sent messages are
Hmm... sent messages are handled specially since there is only one folder ID per message (and that gets set to the recipient's folder). I imagine there would have to be some special handling done to get sent message subfolders and moving. So... long answer, it could be done. Short answer, I think it'll be outside the scope of my modifications.
About the arrangement for With selected... I generally think the same thing, but both Gmail and Yahoo mail put the delete button first. I've been trying to mimic their basic functionality but am willing to depart here. Anyone else have any thoughts?
Also, can you login and read a message? Gurpartap wanted to see the buttons above and below for responding to messages, so what you see is what I came up with. (It's not functional yet, still quasi-concept.) Thoughts?
Sent messages & buttons
My thinking was that I like to group my sent messages in email with the rest of the conversation. Along those lines, it would be nice to be able to move a sent message into another folder. I'm not suggesting special subfolders for sent messages; just the ability to move something out of the sent messages folder and into another.
If Gmail and Yahoo do it that way, then that may well be a more familiar interface. I don't use those except Gmail extremely rarely, so it seemed unintuitive to me. Let's see what others say.
I'm not terribly fond of the buttons above the message. On long messages I guess it would be nice but it looks cluttered on short ones. How about making this a config option and letting the site admin decide?
Keep up the great work! I'm building an SN site, so private messaging is a big part of it.
Thanks,
Michelle
Aye, I went ahead and made
Aye, I went ahead and made it optional... can even have it use the old style links if you want, though I didn't do anything to improve them. Actually... I should probably test those since I've changed that code to make sure they still work. : P
Anyways, I made the action forms function (fully?) I believe... I also fixed the Delete button on list pages to degrade to a confirm form if JS is disabled. (This previously didn't work.)
I haven't done anything for contacts, and I'm really spending too much time on this instead of Ubercart... so I'm not sure I'll get that far. Maybe I can do it in the future. ; )
I wouldn't mind it if you tried to break what was there or at least confirm that it's all working. ^_^
The last thing on the to-do is touch up the "New message" screen, then it's back into the Ubercode... or rather, making gsitemap work with comment_page.
Ciao,
-Ryan
I never use the contacts
I never use the contacts list, and it would clean out the interface a lot if it was removed. Contacts tab sounds like a lovely addition as well, as would multiple recipients. In fact all of this sounds great.
Work has been completed on
Work has been completed on what I consider to be Private Message 2.0. You can login to http://www.ubercart.org to see the finished product. Read about it and download the code here:
http://www.ubercart.org/forum/announcements/801/site_upgrades
An issue has been opened for this code to be committed as the new version here:
http://drupal.org/node/141174
Please take the time to review this and give the issue a +1 for inclusion. I have no way to get CVS access, but maybe mindless will be impressed and send it in. ;)
6.x
Who is working on the 6.x version, or who has an idea when it will be finished?