LJ Inbox improvement

[theljstaff]

Hello again, lj_feedbackers

Comments

[mystereos]

I agree that some HTML capability, threaded messages, the ability to view unread and choose page numbers would all help.

The thing that I'd find most useful would be if instead of "new comment by (username) on (an entry)", the text for each comment read "new comment by {username} on {entry title}" - going through my comments would be a lot easier if I didn't have to guess which ones belonged to which entry, so I could see at a glance where each comment had been left.

[montuos]

+1

[pony_express]

I wouldn't want to see any changes to the inbox. I think it is fine as is. It works, and it's a system I'm used to.

Yay! This has needed fixing for so long

[fiddlingfrog]

First of all, thanks for looking at the inbox - it's currently an unworkable mess that I avoid as much as I can. Some of these ideas have been mentioned already, but to add my two cents

RE: Yay! This has needed fixing for so long

[astronewt]

Re #3: So, like a 2/100 type of label, you mean? First number is unread, second is total messages contained?

Re: #7: Excellent idea.

RE: Yay! This has needed fixing for so long

[fiddlingfrog]

So, like a 2/100 type of label, you mean? First number is unread, second is total messages contained?

Yup. And this may not be a popular idea, but I think that the "All" section should be all messages, even including suspicious. That way when someone maxes out their inbox it would say something like (1923/2000) and not (1923/1978). And with that change the "All" listing should no longer be the default view when you visit the inbox.

RE: Yay! This has needed fixing for so long

[montuos]

+1 to all of this.

[winged_kame]

What would be nice would be something that would let a sender know if their settings are preventing the person they're messaging from sending a reply, and how to change said settings. I've gotten messages I can't respond to and usually the sender is totally unaware they had their settings so I couldn't reply. Going to their lj and commenting on an entry to tell them I can't reply is rather a pain.

[astronewt]

Nice one -- that is indeed frustrating. So, sort a pop-up or something to say "The person you're messaging will be unable to reply to your message because you have your messaging settings set to {whatever}. To adjust these settings, please click here" and that opens in another tab or whatever.

[siderea]

That would be better than we have.

The super-awesome solution, which is development-intensive, is a pop-up that says "The person you're messaging will be unable to reply to your message because you have your messaging settings set to {whatever}. Would you like to make an exception for this person, so they can message you back?"

Then there'd need to be some sort of exception management system (to review and revoke exceptions, etc) as well as updating the system to respect these new rather more complex access rules.

[montuos]

+1

[scolaro]

I like the suggestions so far. Gotta admit, I never used the inbox much - the messages go to my email inbox that I set up to my liking in Thunderbird, so I never felt the need to use the LJ one.

That being said, there is one niche feature I'd like to request regarding birthday notifications. The notif option is called "One of my friends has an upcoming birthday", however, there are no detailed options to restrict this to people whose birthdays you actually care about (as opposed to others you're not close with).

Would it be possible to go to a birthday notification of a certain person and choose not to receive b-day notifications for that person anymore?

In addition it would be great if the notification could be set up to only alert the user to any friend's birthday on the actual day and not in advance.

Not sure this is even possible in the inbox itself, but I wanted to ask.

[wendymr]

Actually, with birthday notifications, I and others I talk with would like to receive these earlier - a couple of days in advance is nowhere near long enough to produce something creative as a birthday gift. I've started checking birthdays on friends' profiles and putting the information into ReminderFox instead.

[scolaro]

Understandable - everyone uses them differently, of course. The point is that there should be more options to tweak the feature to the user's requirements. (Personally I'm close to shutting down notifications about birthdays altogether because there are too few people left here I have interactions with - those are also in my regular google calendar - and with the additional notif a couple of days earlier that was introduced some time ago I feel I'm getting too much spam now.)

[wendymr]

I do agree with the need for something to choose who on your friends list you'd like to receive notifications about, absolutely. Because the only way of choosing to associate specifically with people here is through friending them, we all have people on our flists that we have greater or lesser degrees of interaction with. If there were a feature that would allow me to choose who on my list I'd like to receive birthday notifications for, and specify how far in advance, I'd be all over that :)