WebNotify < Codev

r661 - 09 May 2008 - 15:09:10 - SreerangaVembarYou are here: TWiki >

This is a subscription service to be automatically notified by e-mail when topics change in this Codev web. This is a convenient service, so you do not have to come back and check all the time if something has changed. To subscribe, please add a bullet with your WikiName in alphabetical order to this list. When you save this page please use "Quiet Save" to avoid alerting the rest of the TWiki community of the fact that this page has changed.

Web Changes Notification Service

Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail notification service that sends you an e-mail with links to all of the topics modified since the last alert.

Users subscribe to email notifications using their WikiName or an alternative email address, and can specify the webs/topics they wish to track using one of these bullet list formats:

three spaces * [ webname . ] wikiName - SMTP mail address
three spaces * [ webName . ] wikiName
three spaces * SMTP mail address
three spaces * SMTP mail address : topics
three spaces * [ webname . ] wikiName : topics

In the above examples, topics is a space-separated list of topic names. The user may further customize the specific content they will receive using the following formats:

Specify topics without a Web. prefix
Topics must exist in this web.
Topics may be specified using * wildcards
Each topic may optionally be preceded by a '+' or '-' sign. The '+' sign means "subscribe to this topic" (the same as not putting anything). The '-' sign means "unsubscribe" or "don't send notifications regarding this topic". This allows users to elect to filter out certain topics (and their children, to an arbitrary depth). Topic filters ('-') take precedence over topic includes ('+').
Each topic may optionally be followed by an integer in parentheses, indicating the depth of the tree of children below that topic. Changes in all these children will be detected and reported along with changes to the topic itself. Note This uses the TWiki "Topic parent" feature.
Each topic may optionally be immediately followed by an exclamation mark ! or a question mark ? with no intervening spaces, indicating that the topic (and children if there is a tree depth specifier as well) should be mailed out as complete topics instead of change summaries. ! causes the topic to be mailed every time even if there have been no changes, ? will mail the topic only if there have been changes to it. This only makes sense for subscriptions.

For example: Subscribe Daisy to all changes to topics in this web.

   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com

Subscribe Daisy to all changes in all webs that start with Web.

   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com: Web*

Subscribe Daisy to changes to topics starting with Petal, and their immediate children, WeedKillers and children to a depth of 3, and all topics that match start with Pretty and end with Flowers e.g. PrettyPinkFlowers

   * TWiki04x01.DaisyCutter: Petal* (1) TWiki04x01.WeedKillers (3) Pretty*Flowers

Subscribe StarTrekFan to changes to all topics that start with Star except those that end in Wars, sInTheirEyes or shipTroopers.

   * TWiki04x01.StarTrekFan: Star* - *Wars - *sInTheirEyes - *shipTroopers

Subscribe Daisy to the full content of NewsLetter whenever it has changed

   * daisy@flowers.com: TWiki04x01.NewsLetter?

Subscribe buttercup to NewsLetter and its immediate children, even if it hasn't changed.

   * buttercup@flowers.com: TWiki04x01.NewsLetter! (1)

Subscribe GardenGroup (which includes Petunia) to all changed topics under AllnewsLetters to a depth of 3. Then unsubscribe Petunia from the ManureNewsLetter, which she would normally get as a member of GardenGroup? :

   * TWiki04x01.GardenGroup: TWiki04x01.AllNewsLetters? (3)
   * petunia@flowers.com: - TWiki04x01.ManureNewsLetter

A user may be listed many times in the WebNotify topic. Where a user has several lines in WebNotify that all match the same topic, they will only be notified about changes that topic once (though they will still receive individual mails for news topics).

If a TWiki group is listed for notification, the group will be recursively expanded to the e-mail addresses of all members.

Tip: List names in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the names.

Note for System Administrators: Notification is supported by an add-on to the TWiki kernel called the MailerContrib. See the MailerContrib topic for details of how to set up this service.

Note: If you prefer a news feed, point your reader to WebRss (for RSS 1.0 feeds) or WebAtom (for ATOM 1.0 feeds). Learn more at WebRssBase and WebAtomBase, respectively.

Note: It is recommended to subscribe also to the TWikiDevMailingList, which is mainly used for CVS change notifications. TWikiIRC is also used for discussion.

Note: Consider also subscribing to WebNotify (for TWiki users), WebNotify (for TWiki documentation), WebNotify (for TWiki Plugins repository), WebNotify (for questions TWiki users have).

Note: Occasionally you may get notification that a page has changed but you will find no changes, not even an increase in the revision number. The most likely cause for this is that someone has made a change and then, within one hour of the original change, has edited again and reverted the changes (restored the document to its condition prior to the first changes). For other possible causes of this or slight variations, see ChangeNotificationWithNoObviousChanges.

Related topics: WebChangesAlert, TWikiUsers, TWikiRegistration

Comments on this topic

TWiki now supports WebNotify entries that just include the user's WikiName, or the WikiName of a TWiki user group. There is no need to include the email address of each user, as TWiki's mailnotify script now picks this up from the user's home page. Multiple email addresses per home page are supported and will all be notified. Specify your email address using the old format to override this behavior. For example, here are some entries for a user and a group:

    * Main.FredBloggs
    * Main.EngineeringGroup

This simplifies email address updates when a user is in many WebNotify pages, as well as allowing use of TWiki user groups to notify a whole group with one entry. [You can try this right now on TWiki.org WebNotify pages, or on your own TWiki by testing out the TWikiAlphaRelease.]

OmittingEmailInWebNotify is now implemented at TWiki.org and in TWikiAlphaRelease - so you can delete your email address from this page, as long as you've specified an email address (or addresses) in your home page in the Main web.

Please comment here (or in WebNotifyDocs) on the new doc text at the top of this page - once people are happy with it, I'll clone it into WebNotify etc, and presumably all the other webs installed by default. The doc text is now a bit long - might be good to split most of this out into a separate page.

-- RichardDonkin - 10 Nov 2002

I would send email notification by using webNotify on any update in one of blogs. However, in notification, BlogEnryX or BlogCommentX are listed there instead of headlines. Those will make reader confused to judge the exact info they have concerns. In code level, I find "mailnotify.tmpl" but change on the file will influence other webs. This is an urgent request.

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RelatedTopics	TWikiUsers, TWikiRegistration