Descendent Notification Plugin

Added by Shannon Krebs, last edited by Jonathan Nolen on Jun 19, 2008  (view change) show comment
Name Descendent Notification Plugin
Vendor Shannon Krebs
Authors Shannon Krebs
Homepage http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CODEGEIST/Descendent+Notification+Plugin
Issue Management http://developer.atlassian.com
Categories Administration
Version 0.6.1
Availability Confluence v2.7 to v2.10-m1
State Stable
Support Unsupported Plugins
License Freeware / Open Source (BSD)
Price Free
Release Docs http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CODEGEIST/Descendent+Notification+Plugin
Java API Docs n/a
Download Source http://svn.atlassian.com/svn/public/contrib/confluence/descendent-notification-plugin/tags/0.6.1
Download JAR descendentNotification-0.6.1.jar

Description/Features

This plugin allows user to automatically add notifications for a page hierarchy as new pages are added, and to recieve notifications for child page updates to the immediate parent page they are watching.

Descendent Notifications
A new icon is added near the current notification icon on all pages that allows users to specify they want to watch all descendents of the current page. When a new page is added all users who are watching that section of the page hierachy will be added as watchers to the new page.

Automatic Child Page Notifications
If a user is watching any page they can opt to recieve notifications whenever there are updates to the immediate child pages of the watched page. This is controled through a setting in the users profile.


Installation

The plugin can be installed from the plugin repository or uploaded by the normal plugin manager.

Usage

Descendent Notifications

This part of the plugin allows you to automatically be added as a page watcher for any new pages added under a given page family.

Adding automatic descendent notifications

To watch a page hierachy click on the multiple envelope icon next to the watch page icon. You will then be added as a watcher to all descendent pages of the current page. If any new pages are added to the hierachy you will also be added as a watcher to these new pages.

You can manually unwatch any of the pages under the hierachy if you no longer want to recieve notifications for an individual page. This will also stop you being automatically added as a watcher to any new child pages that are added to the page you are no longer watching.

If you select to watch a page that has descendents that are already configured as the root page for descendent notifications the descendent pages will no longer appear when managing the watches (since they are now covered by the newly selected page).

Managing automatic descendent notifications


The (Confluence 2.8) menu link to manage automatic descendent notifications

If you are watching a page family clicking on the manage page family watch link will take you to your profile where you can view all of the page families you are watching.

From this screen you have three options for each of the notifications you have setup:

Re-Add Notifications This will make sure that each descendent page under this page is added to your notifications. This can be handy in situations where you may have manually removed notifications for some pages in the hierachy and want to make sure you are watching all pages.
Remove Automatic Descendent Notifications This will remove the current page as the root of an automatic descendent notification watch. All current page notifications will remain, but you will not be added as a watcher to any new pages created under this hierachy.
Remove All This will remove the current page as the root of an automatic descendent notification watch as above, but all page notifications under the hierachy will be removed with this option.

Automatic Child Page Notifications

If you are not watching the entire page hierachy you still have the option to recieve notifications for updates to the immediate child pages of pages you are currently watching. This setting can be controlled through the user profile, by default it will be set to true for all users when the plugin is installed.

TO DOs / Discussion

  • Child page notifications aren't sent on a remove event, this doesn't seem to be possible since the page parent information is thrown away before the listener gets page event :-\

If you have any suggestions for improvements or notice any bugs please leave comments on this page.

This plugins addresses some of the functionality requested in the following related issues: CONF-2853 CONF-5728

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Comments (14)

 

  1. Jun 16

    Matt Keeneth says:

    This is a great plugin, and our users find it very helpful. We have found two i...

    This is a great plugin, and our users find it very helpful.

    We have found two issues with the plugin:

    1. It doesn't check to see if a user can view a page before adding the watch.
    2. The default action should be configurable (under site administration). New users are getting watch emails and don't understand why.

    1. Jun 17

      Shannon Krebs says:

      1. It doesn't check to see if a user can view a page before adding the watch. ...

      1. It doesn't check to see if a user can view a page before adding the watch.

      This is soemthing I thought about during development, my thinking with adding the watch anyway is that the confluence permissions will prevent them from seeing any pages which they are not permitted to see (or recieving email updates) but if the permission on the page changed, they would then recieve email updates if watching that page tree.

      2. The default action should be configurable (under site administration). New users are getting watch emails and don't understand why.

      What sort of configuration options would you like to see?

      I get what your talking about now, in regards to the automatic child page notifications. Adding an admin option to control the default would be a worthwhile addition.

      1. Aug 04

        Shawn Stepper says:

        I would REALLY like to see this option available. I can't use this plugin right ...

        I would REALLY like to see this option available. I can't use this plugin right now because users start getting flooded with emails. If I could set a default to NOT send child notifications, then this would be a wonderful plugin for my team!

        Thanks!

        Shawn

  2. Jun 19

    James Mortimer says:

    Child page notifications aren't sent on a remove event, this doesn't seem to be ...

    Child page notifications aren't sent on a remove event, this doesn't seem to be possible since the page parent information is thrown away before the listener gets page event :-\

    • although not a complete fix, you might be able to salvage this behaviour for installations that also install the pagetreesearch plugin. This plugin defines an ancestorid list for each page and stores it separately from the parent id. Perhaps the first ancestor id is the parent? perhaps this list survives the orphaning action that happens before you receive the remove-page event?
    • you might also be able to infer from the previous version in most cases what the parent was.

  3. Jun 20

    Emily Fort says:

    I work with Matt.  We have modified our Confluence instance to display who ...

    I work with Matt.  We have modified our Confluence instance to display who is watching each page.  Now, users are being shown on pages as watchers but they can't see them due to the restrictions.  Some of the information is sensitive and we are concerned that users will be nervous to see people's names as watchers on pages that they shouldn't be able to see. 

    I understand your logic as well.  Maybe this could also be made a setting for administrators?

    Thanks!

    1. Jul 15

      Shannon Krebs says:

      How you are displaying the users that are watching each page, it might be a bett...

      How you are displaying the users that are watching each page, it might be a better idea to remove users that can't see the page from this list, or to display them differently somehow. It will always be possible for a user to be watching a page which is then made restricted (granted that doesn't apply in this case, since they are already restricted when they are selecting to watch the hierarchy).

      1. Jul 16

        Matt Keeneth says:

        I have written a simple macro plugin that gets the list of watchers by pageid (u...

        I have written a simple macro plugin that gets the list of watchers by pageid (using the NotificationManager) and is then rendered on the info tab. It wouldn't be too difficult to check that each of the returned users can view the page and flag those that can't (or hide them).

        Thanks for the idea.

  4. Jun 27

    Flora Yang says:

    The multiple envelopes icon doesn't show up in "Top and Left Navigation" theme. ...

    The multiple envelopes icon doesn't show up in "Top and Left Navigation" theme. As soon as I switch the theme to Default theme, the icon shows up. I need to use "Top and Left Navigation" theme for the space though, is there a workaround?

    1. Jul 30

      Informatiediensten says:

      I have the same problem. I'm using Adaptavist Theme Builder. In the Default them...

      I have the same problem. I'm using Adaptavist Theme Builder. In the Default theme the icons show up but changing themes isn't an option for me either.

       Kind regards, Rebecca

      1. Jul 31

        Denise Van says:

        I'm having the same problem as well. I have the multiple envelops icon showing,h...

        I'm having the same problem as well. I have the multiple envelops icon showing,however it only leads to the Manage Page Tree Family page because I hard-coded it using html to get it to show up. That won't work for long though because it doesn't actually give you the option to watch the page family at all. Help? Any way to create a macro for this plug-in?

        1. Jul 31

          Shannon Krebs says:

          If you are using Builder you can use the menulink macro with the webui options t...

          If you are using Builder you can use the menulink macro with the webui options to display the same links (with the same conditions) as the normal theme.

          Have a look at the following forum thread:
          http://forums.atlassian.com/thread.jspa?threadID=19456&tstart=15

          1. Aug 04

            Informatiediensten says:

            It's working now thanks\! Kind regards, Rebecca

            It's working now thanks!

            Kind regards, Rebecca

  5. Jul 14

    Ricardo Sueiras says:

    I added a compiled version of this plugin that works for Confluence 2.6.2 on JDK...

    I added a compiled version of this plugin that works for Confluence 2.6.2 on JDK 1.4.x here

  6. Aug 12

    Stephen Voorhees says:

    Is there any way to get this to show up on the Clickr theme?

    Is there any way to get this to show up on the Clickr theme?