Notifications via e-mail comparison

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NoYes

Metric Comment notify Message Stack Node notify Watcher Notify Subscriptions Notifications DANSE Drupal - Audit - Notification - Subscription - Event Entity Activity
Anonymous Yes ? No Yes (D6) No No Yes (v4.x) No No
Subscribe without comment Not Yet ? No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
AJAX-subscription link No ? No Yes N/A No No No No
Extensible 7.x lets you add tokens. Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Supports message templates with tokens Yes (kinda) ? No Yes No Yes (with String Override or Mail Editor) Yes Yes Yes
Users can share list of subscribed nodes No ? No Yes No ? ? ? ?
Scalable queue-based email dispatcher Yes (via Queuemail) ? ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes (via Queuemail) Yes (via Advanced Queue) ?
Notify on node update/change No ? ? Yes Yes Yes (updates and/or comments) Yes Yes Yes
Digest email? No ? No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Node comments integration? NA No No Not yet No ? ? NA NA
Supports user subscription ? ? No ? No No Yes Yes Yes
Supports taxonomy subscription ? ? ? ? No Yes (7.x) Yes Yes ?
Organic Groups integration? No ? No No No ? Yes No No
Brief description Provides a checkbox during comment submission allowing the commenter to get e-mails about a node they comment on (for either replies to their comment or all comments on the node). Comprises three main modules: Message, Message Notify and Message Subscribe. Maintenance status is changed to - see Update above. A lightweight module to allow subscription to comments on nodes for registered and anonymous users. Allows any user (including anonymous) to easily subscribe to comments and updates to a node. Allows users to opt-in to receive email with notifications about new/changed content on site. A generalized subscription and message sending framework. A generalized subscription and message sending framework. Allowing administrators, content editors and users to subscribe to content or other events to get notified about them. Entity activity allow to configure and generate any kind of notifications / logs on any content entity type for each of theses operations : create, update and delete.
WHY this module over others? Lightweight module that helps keep people updated about replies to their content. A number of well known Drupal distributions such as Commerce Kickstart, Drupal Commons and Open Atrium have already adopted the message stack and are a good place to see the versatility of these modules in action. Security issue Very user-friendly and simple to use, allows anonymous users to subscribe to nodes, allows email on updates and new comments. Lightweight module that allows admin and others to receive email notifications about new content and changes on a (usually fairly static) site. ... ... DANSE is designed to become the framework in Drupal's ecosystem to provide the only required generic approach in offering subscription and notification functionality for anything Drupal. You can use the message stack and the flag module to implement similar behavior on a Drupal project. Where as these two modules can do a lot more than a notification/log system, Entity Activity module is completely focused on this feature, and by this fact is easier to install and configure.
"Lightweight" Yes ? Yes Yes No No No No No
Usage statistics 2023-04-23: 6049, stable 14,660, stable (Message)
 
10,532, stable (Message Notify)
 
1,682, stable (Message Subscribe)
82, stable 110, declining 1,604, stable 1,956, stable 4,506, stable 88, stable 121, stable
Maintenance status Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Last update of dev (as of 2023-04-23) 2023-March 2016-September 2016-Feb 2023-January 2021-Aug 2015-August 2023-April 2023-April
Drupal 7 ver. (as of 2016-09-09) 7.x-1.3 7.x-1.10 (Message)
 
7.x-2.5 (Message Notify)
 
7.x-1.0-rc2 (Message Subscribe)
 
security issue 7.1.1 7.x-1.0 7.x-1.7 7.x-1.3 7.x-1.0-alpha2 None None
Drupal 8 ver. (as of 2023-04-23) 8.x-1.4 released 21 March 2023 Message: 8.x-1.0-rc2 released 23 April 2018

Message Notify: 8.x-1.0-beta1 released 31 March 2017

Message Subscribe: 8.x-1.0-beta5 released 7 May 2018
None None Development version: 2.0.x-dev updated 23 Sep 2022 None None None 8.x-1.0-beta14 released 6 December 2021
Drupal 9 ver. (as of 2023-04-23) 8.x-1.4 released 21 March 2023 Message: 8.x-1.4 released 4 November 2022

Message Notify: 8.x-1.3 released 2 November 2022

Message Subscribe: 8.x-1.2 released 16 December 2022
None None 2.0.0-alpha2 released 26 March 2023 Development version: 2.0.x-dev updated 23 Sep 2022 None 2.2.16 released 20 April 2023 8.x-1.0-beta14 released 6 December 2021
Metric Comment notify Message
 
Message Notify
 
Message Subscribe
Node notify Watcher Notify Subscriptions Notifications DANSE Drupal - Audit - Notification - Subscription - Event Entity Activity

Comments

This table has been really

deviantintegral's picture

This table has been really helpful. Might want to also add Comment Mail.

--Andrew

that's a tough call

greggles's picture

There's also http://drupal.org/project/notify

Both comment mail and notify have the drawback of being more for admins than for regular registered users (and neither is for anonymous).

I guess this table could reflect that - but my original scope for the table was "comment notification modules that are generally focused towards regular and/or anonymous users".

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

Very helpful

elv's picture

This is timely for me too, a client just asked me to add these features on their website :) Thanks for the review Greggles!

Node Comments

Ntoronto's picture

I think more importantly, is a metric which shows which of these notification modules work with node-comments:
http://drupalmodules.com/module/node-comments

Node-comments convert comments into nodes. (This opens the door for CCK types to be comments, for comments to have uploaded files, taxonomy, revisions, and anything else that comes from the goodness of nodes....)

.

Michelle's picture

Nodecomments is neat but comes with a new set of problems. And the amount of people that need comments to be nodes is fairly small. Not saying it isn't something worth noting, but I don't think it's that terribly important.

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

as far as I know, none of them do

greggles's picture

I think that none of these modules provide integration with node comments "out of the box." I'd have to look at how node comments maintains the relationship to the node to see, but it would likely require custom code or a patch for all of them.

The Notifications/Subscriptions modules are most likely to be able to handle this somewhat natively or via an extension.

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

now possible

Thanks

dreadfulcode's picture

Node-comments. huh.

Who knew?

Now I have a new toy..

Greggles, Thanks for putting

matt2000's picture

Greggles,

Thanks for putting this together.

What would notify module need to do to earn your 'Lightweight' designation? IMO, it's a feather compared to Subscriptions, and my primary purpose in keeping it running is to provide a lighter, simpler alternative. Are you counting lines of code? Configuration options? (Comparing recommended D6 version tarballs, notify comes in at 27kb versus subscriptions at 101kb...)

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Matt

more conceptual than filesize

greggles's picture

This is more of a conceptual difference than a filesize difference. The watcher module which is listed as "lightweight" is bigger than notify. It is listed as "lightweight" because it only does a single very simple thing.

I think that notify is probably "lightweight" so I've updated that. Is there anything else that's inaccurate?

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

I've updated the table as

solipsist's picture

I've updated the table as Watcher is now available for D6 and allows anonymous users to subscribe to nodes.


Jakob Persson
NodeOne

Team Notifications

NonProfit's picture

http://drupal.org/project/notifications_team also offers similar admin-generated functionality. -NP

different goal (but included already)

greggles's picture

Team Notifications is an extension of the notifications module (which is in the table) to provide a specific UI for notifications module.

I don't think it really belongs in this comparison chart since it's purpose is quite different (most of these allow a user to subscribe themself, Team Notifications allows a user to send a notification to other people).

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

Comment notification is only the tip of the icebarg

druvision's picture

Comment notification modules are great, but what we really need is an auto subscription framework.

See what I've written in the Dries blog post.

Gabriel wrote "IMHO, it's essential to allow users to subscribe without having to post a comment"

His comment uncovers a much deeper issue which must be dealt with correctly - the issue of auto registration workflow - a term I've phrased more then two years ago.

Really, nobody wants to subscribe. Regular users wants to instantly post! That's why it's important to make the subscription process as smooth as possible, and a part of core.

We all want real users to easily post content. That's the whole point of a CMS. That's why subscription must be a SMOOTH, INVISIBLE part of the drupal CMS.

My design above is ready to use - to allow every user purchasing a product, adding a comment, subscribing or rating a post to be auto-subscribed. Otherwise it's a TOWER of BABEL. This is the real need! United framework!

This architectural point is essential to make drupal rule the world. And you can make it happen! It's really not a large task - but it's very important!

This can be done in D6 with an addon module. I've once asked Roshan Shah for an estimate and the investment is modest. Or a student can do it - under our mentoring. And you may have other ideas as well. This is one of the biggest drupal usability issues

Please forward this post to the people who can make it happen.

Thanks

Amnon Levav

Web Architect | Funder - Drupal Israel | Drupal Project Management | Ecological Entreprenour

Careful

Michelle's picture

Be very careful with anything that auto subscribes. I just had a problem on my site with that. I had set subscriptions to default to auto subscribing because my site was so slow. Then it picked up suddenly and people were flooded with emails. They didn't realize they'd be auto subscribed and were not happy. They also didn't understand they could turn it off themselves. So whatever is done here needs to be very obvious and have an easy way of turning it off.

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

Comment Notifications on Organic Groups

pieterbezuijen's picture

I'm looking to integrate Organic Groups to split forums on a small community website. On this I'd like to encourage users by notifying them of new content. Maybe there could be added a line with support for Organic Groups. I allready saw that notifications and subscriptions both support Organic Groups.

The table is of good help for selecting a module for notifications, but what's not completely clear is the difference between the last 2 modules. Maybe adding something about cron- and tokensupport could be added? Or something about notifications via other ways as e-mail? How do you think about that?

You sure?

Michelle's picture

The last I checked, only notifications worked with OG. Has that changed recently?

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

You're right

pieterbezuijen's picture

Sorry, you're right!

I looked to fast, that's only true for the 2.x release, which is not ready yet, or the extra addon...

Pieter

Suggestions:

webchick's picture
  1. Add a column to the table of which Drupal versions each module supports.
  2. Add a summary sentence for each module above the table that explains why it is unique ("If you want blah dee blah, use the foo module")

While this information isn't particularly relevant for core inclusion, it's a nice collection of data for people who are building sites and want to add comment notifications, and they would care about this.

below?

pieterbezuijen's picture

I think it's better to add the summary below, than you'll get a quick overview and can read in more detail beneath it.

seems reasonable

greggles's picture

I added a row with a brief description to the best of my ability.

I didn't add a "core version support" since all modules support 5.x and 6.x. I also moved the row about providing an RSS feed of comments to a blanket statement. None of them do it so I don't see a reason to mention it.

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

Comment RSS

As does Views; it installs a

Garrett Albright's picture

As does Views; it installs a "comments_recent" view on installation, though I believe it's disabled by default. Enable it and create a feed view, and viola.

It's what I use to keep an eye on incoming comments to my site so I can baleet the man-made spam ones that sneak through Mollom.

Well, yes...

Michelle's picture

But views is already mentioned so I was mentioning the other option. ;)

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

Multiple notifications ?

tsi's picture

Does any of these will wait until a user checks a node before sending him another notification, I meen - if there are 7 new comments on a node a user should get only one notification message and not seven.
I think this is very important feature for not annoying users because they are flooded with emails and I don't think notification does it.

interesting idea...

greggles's picture

This would be somewhat tricky - you'd have to know
1) when did you last mail that person about this node
2) have they viewed the node since then

Item 2 is tracked by core. #1 is probably possible to determine based on some other data...but would be slow to calculate and so it's best stored in it's own table. That means this is more complex than what I'd like to do in comment_notify, but it's an interesting idea for something like notifications/subscriptions.

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

It's on my wishlist for

solipsist's picture

It's on my wishlist for Watcher. It makes a lot of sense, why I wish to implement it.


Jakob Persson - NodeOne

suggestion...

tsi's picture

I am no programmer, so tell me if this makes any sense : Drupal core tracks how many new (not viewed) comments a user have on each node, what I suggest is that the module will check :
- if there is 1 new comment - send notification mail.
- if there are 2 or more - wait for the user to view the thread.
I know that I will go with any module that will provide this feature even if it means loosing all the corrent subscriptions.
BTW there is a surprisingly quiet thread about exactly this issue here : http://drupal.org/node/359883

.

Michelle's picture

Drupal core tracks how many new (not viewed) comments a user have on each node

No it doesn't. It just tracks the time the user last visited the node and assumes any comment with a later timestamp is new. It would probably make more sense to compare the timestamp of the notification against the timestamp of the last node view.

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

Maybe this is what you're

matt2000's picture

Maybe this is what you're saying, but it seems tsi's suggestion could still be implemented via

<?psuedocode
  $count = db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM {comments} WHERE nid=$nid and timestamp > $last_node_view_time"));

  if ($count == 1) {
     $send_notification = TRUE;
   } elseif ($count > 1) {
     $send_notification = check_user_preference_re_subsequent_comments();
   }
?>

(Just trying to communicate the idea; obviously I'm not too concerned with standards and best practice at this point.)

Best,

Matt

Drupal.org user profile
Portfolio: http://www.NinjitsuWeb.com
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000

great idea - though limited

greggles's picture

This is a great idea.

This would work for some modules if they just send notifications of all comments on a nid, but it doesn't work if they are selectively sent (for comment_notify/subscribe it can optionally send responses to a thread).

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

Then those modules must

matt2000's picture

Then those modules must store rules for determining which comments to send. It wouldn't be hard to dynamically generate a JOIN and the WHERE clause in the above query.

Are sub-selects kosher in Drupal core?

<?psudeocode
$mailing->uid = user_we_are_mailing();
$mailing->nid = node_we_are_checking for comments();

if ($comment_filters = module_invoke_all('define_comment_filters', &$comment_filters, $mailing->uid, $mailing->nid) {
   foreach ($comment_filters AS $table['#fields'] => $fields) {
     if ($where_clause) $where_clause .= " OR ";
     $unset($last_comment_field);
     foreach ($fields AS $comment_field => $module_field) {
        if ($comment_field != $last_comment_field) {
           if ($where_clause) $where_clause .= ")";
           $operator = $table['#operator'] ? $table['#operator'] : 'IN' ;
           $where_clause .= " {comments}.{$comment_field} {$operator} (SELECT {$comment_field} FROM {$table} WHERE ";
       } else {
           $where_clause .= " AND "
       }
        $where_clause .= $module_field['#field'] . " = " . $module_field['#value'];
     }
}

$comments_to_send = db_query($base_query .  "AND (" . $where_clause . ")" );

?>

So then comment_notify could implement:

/**
* Implementation of theoretical hook_define_comment_filters
*/
function comment_notify_define_comment_filters($filters, $uid, $nid) {
  $filters['comment_notify']['#fields] = array(
        'pid' => array( '#field') => 'uid', '#value' => $uid),
        );
}

So if we have comment_notify and some theoretical module that notifies me of my buddies' comments, our resulting query might look like:

"SELECT count(*) FROM {comments} WHERE timestamp > $last_notification_ts
  AND  ( {comments}.pid IN (SELECT pid FROM {comment_notify} WHERE uid={$mailing->uid})
             OR {comments}.uid IN (SELECT uid FROM {buddy_comment_blast} WHERE buddy_id = $mailing->uid)
            )"

And if we don't have any comment notification contrib modules, we just get notification of all new comments since the last mailing

Of course, after writing all of that, it almost seems more trouble than it's worth and I've forgotten what exactly it allows us to do that we couldn't do before without having to learn yet another structured array syntax.

That might be the most complex dynamic query generator I've written, so I guess it wasn't as easy as I first thought; although that says more about me than it does about the problem at hand. I'm surely no Earl.

But it was a fun exercise to distract me from the work I should be doing, and has renewed my faith in the need for Notify by Views.

Matt

Drupal.org user profile
Portfolio: http://www.NinjitsuWeb.com
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000

FWIW, my reference to Core

matt2000's picture

FWIW, my reference to Core above was because I confused this thread with this one.

Notify Roadmap

matt2000's picture

FYI, There is a proposal on the table to either discontinue Notify and provide it's features under Notifications, or else rewrite it for better integration with notify_by_views. At that point, views could be used to set up some fairly complex rules for comment notifications, if desired.

Details are here:

http://drupal.org/project/notify_by_views

Best,

Matt

Drupal.org user profile
Portfolio: http://www.NinjitsuWeb.com
Drupal Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/matt2000

The comparison table is

duncanmc's picture

The comparison table is useful, but needs more information. For example, both "subscriptions" and "notifications" modules look exactly the same on the table, but I am sure they have important differences. Could you please add more information? For example, an important question is "which modules have an option to select whether you want to be notified about comments and updates to nodes?". A comment on the page http://groups.drupal.org/node/12645 says that "Notifications there is no option to select whether you get notified on an update", but subscriptions module has. However, the comment was written 8 months ago, so situation may have changed. Uptodate information on this table would be very helpful.

I've added some defining

solipsist's picture

I've added some defining features of Watcher. It may be useful if authors of the other modules listed do the same.


Jakob Persson - NodeOne

Differences between "Subscriptions" and "Notifications"

mrengy's picture

I'm also curious about this. Anyone have info on the differences between Subscriptions and Notifications? I'm particularly concerned about the workflow to subscribe to new content of a certain content type from the point of view for the end user. Are there any demo sites for implementations of "subscriptions" or "notifications"?

What does "Extensible" in

solipsist's picture

What does "Extensible" in the table above mean?

Each row header should have a description.


Jakob Persson - NodeOne

Has API?

mradcliffe's picture

I assume it means that the module provides some sort of API or works well if someone creates a contrib module that extends functionality.

Merging Comment Subscribe to Comment Notify

anoopjohn's picture

Comment Subscribe is being merged back with Comment Notify. The users of comment_subscribe is being provided an update that will migrate them seamlessly to comment_notify - #361449. Also see the discussion (#224782) and the work greggles have done to convince us of this merge.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world", M. K. Gandhi.

With Watcher module I can't

mr.alinaki's picture

With Watcher module I can't subscribe to replies to comment, only to node :(

Did you find a solution to

diego.pasc's picture

Did you find a solution to that?

suggestions

jeffschuler's picture

Thanks much for this, greggles!

A few suggestions:

It'd be great to have project info in the table, such as:

  • last commit,
  • # of commits, and
  • # of open and closed issues

Dunno if it's possible to gather this dynamically...

Module dependencies would also be helpful.
I might reorder rows to put Extensible directly after Lightweight, too, since they seem somewhat [cor]related...

Regardless, it's a tough decision to make. There's quite a lot of overlap here, which is, I assume, why the generalized frameworks cropped up... But they're not scratching everyone's itch, and they're heavy. Maybe something lightweight and extensible is what the solution space needs?

Happy to find out this

chamont's picture

Happy to find out this subject !

I would like my users be notified about any new node in my site (powered by drupal 5.12), and then be able to subscribe to the ones they find interesting to them. For this, I currently use modules notify+subscriptions, but notify is clearly not made for simple users and send too much details. I also lack the ability to set default notification options for my users.

What would you use for sending notification of new nodes to the users ? The "notifications" module ?

Actually, in the table at the top, I lack the following row : "can notify about new nodes on the site".

Two reasons I'd consider

sharplesa's picture

Two reasons I'd consider going to Drupal 6 to do this if I were you:

  1. If I understand right, when Drupal 7 comes out, 5 will no longer be supported.
  2. Using Drupal 6's built-in Actions and Workflow modules in conjunction with Notifications and Messaging modules you will be able to detect and notify about any event (like new comments), not just new node creation. (How about node updates? deletes? How about new users joining the site?)

For other events (new

chamont's picture

For other events (new comments, node updates, etc.), I am happy enough with "subscriptions", that's why I focus today only on "new node". Also, for those other events, I really wants to notify only the users which explicitly asked for. Our philisophy is that any users should be warned once about any new page, but later should not receive any more information unless he explicitly subscribe to the page.

Whatsoever, we (site administrators) actually consider the move to Drupal 6, and I thanks you for your comment. I understand that I should have a look at modules Actions, Workflow, Notifications and Messaging.

Correction: Triggers and Actions

sharplesa's picture

In the above, I should've said Triggers and Actions, not Workflow and Actions.

Rules Module

Shai's picture

Though the Rules module doesn't belong on the table, it should be mentioned as a completely custom and targeted method for dealing with notification requirements under certain circumstances. It's like using lego pieces to build something completely custom instead of using a lego set (module) that has built to create a specific thing.

Shai Gluskin
Content2zero

New Taxonomy posts

fgjohnson@lojoh.ca's picture

I'm looking for something that will allow users "subscribed" to Taxonomies with the notifications module to get notifications for NEW CONTENT ONLY.
I've tried Rules, Comment Notify and Subscriptions.
Anyone have any ideas?

It's a simple concept.
Taxonomy Subscriptions 6.x-1.2 is great for updates/comments but doesn't allow for "New posts Only"...nothing else seems to integrate with Taxonomy.

Thanks

I thought subscriptions did this....

andrew.lansdowne's picture

I thought Subscriptions lets you subscribe to a taxonomy term without selecting Updates or Comments and then it only notifies of new content?

Thanks, Doesn't seem to...

fgjohnson@lojoh.ca's picture

Thanks,

Doesn't seem to... The documentation indicates that here... But I cannot get it to function.
Perhaps I'm missing something basic!
I'll look again.

For each subscription the user can choose whether to be notified only of new nodes, or also of updates, or also of comments. The admin has fine control of which of the many subscription options to make available to the user. The subscription user interface can hence be as simple or as complex as the admin likes.

Yeah i think you just tick to

andrew.lansdowne's picture

Yeah i think you just tick to be subscribed to the term, then dont tick updates or comments. it will only send on a cron run mind so you got to run cron to see if it is going to send. is useful to set the 'send interval' to As soon as possible during testing too, then just run cron after creating a new node in the right category to see if it works.

know what! That's the ticket!

fgjohnson@lojoh.ca's picture

know what!
That's the ticket! Just tested it too... That's awesome!
Thanks

Glad you got it working. it

andrew.lansdowne's picture

Glad you got it working. it is an awesome module! recommend you change the display settings to use a block (as recommended in the admin view) it is much nicer, think they should make this the default

not clear to me...

ClearXS's picture

Thanks for all the contributed work to clarify, but... I don't get a clear picture from this:
* per module WHY one should prefer that specific module over the others
* Additional features that can be achieved by add-on modules
* Organic Groups integration another field; explaining the feautures and not a simple yes or no
* Then the user download statistics and trends per module
=> OK; I'll try to edit to add some of these rows, but I have no info to enter right now...

What all these modules appear

rmp's picture

What all these modules appear to lack is the ability for an anonymous user to subscribe to new content, specifcally new blogs.

Watcher works anonymous users, but can't watch for new content.

Notifications can watch for new content, but I can't see how anonymous users can enter email addresses.

Views integration

scalp's picture

Does anyone know what integration with views each of these offer? I've looked on a few of the modules' individual pages and some are not clear on what they offer, and some clearly do not offer any. Being able to use arguments and filters based on a user's subscriptions/watches/notifications would be great. Thanks for this comparison!

I've just loaded the latest

rmp's picture

I've just loaded the latest Notifications beta which requires the Messaging beta plus Autoload. That looks to be the most complete solution so far and I've tried them all.

Thank you for this

Bartezz's picture

Thank you for this comparison, yet one thing is possibly missing, or I am miss-reading the table.
Based on the comparison I downloaded and installed comment_notify thinking it would be able to notify the author of the node to which comments were made but it doesn't. It only allows notifications to users registered/anonymous who have commented. I think subscriptions might do this but will have to test.

Is it possible to extend the table with 2 rows 'sends notifications to node author' and 'sends notifications to commenter'.

Or have I just missunderstood the whole table :)

Cheers

Sure it does

Michelle's picture

There is a setting on the each user's page to choose whether they want to subscribe to their own nodes or not.

Michelle

True

tsi's picture

I don't know if that was what Bartezz meant but anonymous node authors can't get notified for comments on their posts, for me this is the most important feature missing from comment_notify.
see these issues :
http://drupal.org/node/631662
http://drupal.org/node/288726

Ah

Michelle's picture

Anonymous node authors is a bit of an edge case so I hadn't thought of that. The way Comment Notify handles subscriptions is kind of weird in general, unfortunately.

Michelle

Well yes and no... I thought

Bartezz's picture

Well yes and no... I thought there would be some setting on the node edit page to have a per node base settings. For registered users the account details could be used for anonymous users it could provide some kind of cck field to have an anonymous user leave their email. I couldn't find the setting at all, but now know it's not node based but user based on the user settings page..

Cheers

what is the simplest and most user-friendly way?

daveatkins's picture

I've had a Drupal site up for almost 3 years now and the notifications continue to be a big embarrassment for me. I'm using the "Notify" module

6.x-1.0 Enables notifications of new content and comments by e-mail.

The reason it's embarrassing is that users get these plaintext emails with hard carriage returns all over the place that look like something from 1995. I use feedblitz to give them a readable daily new post update, but I need the instantaneous comment notification so I can catch spam. Can someone recommend a simple solution?

I don't need any flexibility for the users. Most of my users can't remember their passwords and will not be logging in to set preferences or anything like that. If they go to the trouble of creating an account on my system, I want to be able to send them notifications of new posts and comments in a clean, professional-looking email. Ideally, I would have an instant email for me, the admin, but an hour delay for everyone else. But mainly, I just want to stop these awful looking emails from going out.

The line break issue is fixed

matt2000's picture

The line break issue is fixed in the current version of Notify. (It's been fixed in the dev branch for quite a long time.)

6.x-1.0 to 1.2?

daveatkins's picture

I might have a setting wrong or something...are you saying is was fixed in just the last couple updates? I have 6.x-1.0. I'll update the module and see what happens

http://drupal.org/project/not

giorgio79's picture

http://drupal.org/project/notifications_extra provides comment notifications even for anon users, just like comment notify. Suggesting some kind of merge. :)

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Comment Count Notify

fotuzlab's picture

To add to comment notification list,
I have added a module Comment Count Notify currently supporting D6
Of use for sites with comment approval enabled, it sends periodical email to the admin or moderator notifying him the number of comments pending for approval.
It is easy to configure and does not send any other info about comments than the number of comments in comment approval queue. Check the project page for more detail.

June 2011 which is the best notification module

emutile's picture

Hey, just looking to get any comments on what is the best notification module to use for anon users and in general.

Is there one where anybody can just signup with an email and get back notifications without the full user registration?

Drupal - world changes fast!

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Darrell Ulm

Super Power Planet
Emu Tile

Emily Ulm at EmuTile.com
Ceramic Handmade Tile by EmuTile

Simple comment notifications with triggers and actions

rfay's picture

If you only want the simplest kind of notifications (like site-owner notifications, or notifications to a user when their comment is approved (maybe)) you can use triggers and actions as described in http://randyfay.com/node/106

Comment Notification module

thiruvelan's picture

Thanks for your valuable collection of notification module. I am planning to use one to get the user back and contribute further. Then only the discussion goes on as chain, but even after I am confused between watcher and notifications. Hope finally I will go with notification which support Organic groups, that helps in the future.

Node Notify

playful's picture

This module is relatively new but seems very lightweight and works perfect as far as I can tell:

http://drupal.org/project/node_notify

Comment notify is surprisingly bad for such an established module. Maybe it is time to start building from this one as the new standard.

Hi playful, You said that

greggles's picture

Hi playful,

You said that comment notify is surprisingly bad - can you clarify which parts of it feel bad to you? I see that you haven't participated in the issue queue yet so I'm hopeful that you could post your feedback of problems in the issue queue (or point to existing issues that you feel show it as being "bad."

Also note that this page is a wiki, so it would be great if you could add node_notify into the comparison table.

Thanks!

Thanks for the reply and

playful's picture

Thanks for the reply and sorry for not being more specific before. What I didn't like about Comment Notify:

  1. It doesn't allow users to see their subscriptions anywhere
  2. Users can only unsubscribe via the link in the email
  3. It places a field on the user edit page that cannot be removed via admin
    3a. Descriptions of the options in this field are long and unintuitive for such basic functionality
  4. No way to subscribe to node without user adding a comment

Since this module seems to be the standard for subscribing to node comments, it's just a bit surprising to me that it doesn't have a "nicer" integration with drupal.

I'll add some details on Node Notify in the table above.

no aggregation can cause problems regarding spam policies

fmw's picture

one thing to keep in mind:
if your site has a big audience, and there will be heavy commenting going on:
Some modules like comment notify and node notify do not aggregate comments. They send the subscribed users a mail PER comment.
Therfore, if your site is popular subscribers to comments will receive a lot of mails.
This might annoy some people, and they might label your mails as spam. Which is not good of course....

Watcher

agerson's picture

Watcher is buggy. I would stay away.

EDIT:
It produced some inaccurate errors msgs on install. It told me to enable a content type after I had enabled one.

It sent out emails for a while then stopped. Its was able to send test emails but not real emails while other modules sent emails from my stack just fine.

Thanks for your comment. It's

greggles's picture

Thanks for your comment. It's good to hear all experiences.

Ideally a comment like this ("X is buggy") should include links to issues in the issue queue of the module you're commenting about. Filing an issue (one issue per bug) helps the maintainer and other users know about the problems in the module so that they can potentially fix it.

please share you rationale so other can learn

fmw's picture

@Agerson, please tell us how you came to this conclusion (your experiences, setup, results, etc.), so other users can make better informed decisions.
Thank you.

Node publishers aware of node subscribers

hoff331's picture

Looking to achieve the following:

User A publishes Story 123 (content type "article")
User Z likes Story 123 and "flags", "likes", "subscribes", etc. to Story 123

Now User A is made aware of User Z - User A can log in and see all users who "flagged", "liked", "subscribed" to their content and collect email for contacting purposes.

User Z can log in and view all stories that they "flagged", "liked", "subscribed", etc. in a profile

this can be done

fgjohnson@lojoh.ca's picture

I did this using cck, taxonomy, and notification/subscription modules in D6.

user x logs in and 'subscribes' to a taxonomy.
when a new node is created amend assigned that taxonomy there is an email sent informing the users subscribed to the assosiated taxonomies with a Link to the content.
also used some template module to change the default dosp
at of content based on an increasing level of permissions to the content assigned by the site manager.

it was a book review request/track in/submission site. reviews could be added as com,cents or attached to the node. Once the node was marked complete it was not available to non admins.

Might have had some workflows in there so,lace as well... down,t remember.
view s for sure were used.

Message, Message Notify, and Message Subscribe

Bob Newby's picture

For D7 use, how would the experts among you rate the trio:

in comparison to the solutions covered thus far in this wiki page?

Thanks,

Bob

Done. Added Message Stack.

Francewhoa's picture

I just added a column for Message Stack. Any volunteer to complete the missing cells with the question mark symbols "?".

Please note that the

AlfTheCat's picture

Please note that the notifications module for D7 doesn't have the option of creating messaging templates without coding your own module.
Also, anonymous notifications don't work.
Patches are coming into the issue queue but it doesn't seem maintained actively atm.

People make mistakes. But to really mess something up you need a computer.

Fantastic table thanks tons

rwscid's picture

I wish there were a table (and discussion) like this for every Drupal module/feature. I am a complete newbie and every time I think about adding a module it takes hours and hours and hours of research ... this table/discussion does it all on a single page (not that I understood half of what was being discussed).

@greggles I will install Comment Notify immediately, just to thank you for this table!

P.S. Was a bit scared when I saw the discussion started in 2008, so your update from just a few days ago really made my day.

Now that comments are

doublejosh's picture

Now that comments are entities you may want to just use Rules and setup some reactions.

i've tested most of these

alibama's picture

i've tested most of these modules and have now dropped them in favor of views rules integration https://www.drupal.org/project/views_rules - it's really pretty elegant, although it takes a bit more to set up...

here's a sandbox of the

alibama's picture

here's a sandbox of the aforementioned rules + views integration... it's a bit specific but could be abstracted
https://www.drupal.org/sandbox/alibama/2430605

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