Private Messages

[XFool]

I clearly don't understand the LF Private Message system.

I just succeeded in sending a test message to myself, listed OK in "Sent messages", received OK in "Inbox" and then deleted.

But, whenever I log on I always have "Private Messages [1]" shown in the notification area. I have no idea what it is, if I look at my messages I cannot see any indication of an unread message. One message is also always shown in "Inbox (1)". If I click on that I simply see the usual list of past received messages.

Also, there are two messages shown in "Outbox (2)". If I click here I see two messages with a "Sent" field and a date. But if I click on "Sent Messages" I don't see either of these two "Sent" messages listed. I have no idea whether thay have or have not been sent.

Can anyone explain.

TIA

[Clariman]

I think I can explain the outbox ones. When you have items in your outbox it means you have sent it but the recipient has not yet read it. If and when they read it, it will appear in the sent folder instead.

The inbox one.... I'd presume you do have 1 unread message somewhere. It could be a few pages down.

[chas49]

I'm not sure exactly how the test you did would be handled but the 'feature' of the PM system which is probably causing this is that a message you send stays in your Outbox until the recipient opens it. If they ignore it, or delete it without opening it, it'll stay in your Outbox.

The name Outbox is a bit misleading IMHO - it's not the same as the Outbox in your email system ...

[Gengulphus]

I think it would be a good idea if the state of having unread private messages could be drawn somewhat more prominently to users' attention - I know I've sometimes gone quite a few days before I've noticed that "Private messages [0]" has changed to "Private messages [1]"... Not certain whether the phpBB software can be configured to produce a more obvious difference between having no unread private messages and some unread private messages, but if it can, it would help avoid inadvertent failures to pick up private messages.

I've also gathered that one of the reasons that moderators don't tend to use private messages much is that some users don't pick them up, so that they pile up in the moderator's outbox. It might help with that as well if the users concerned just aren't noticing them (though clearly there's also the possibility that they're deliberately ignoring them, and it won't help with that).

Gengulphus

[Bouleversee]

I used to get an email saying I had a PM, just as with notifications of relevant posts, but now I have to watch out for the 1 to appear at the top of the page and of course if I don't go on to the website I don't know a PM has been sent. Why did you stop sending the emails?

[mc2fool]

I used to get an email saying I had a PM, just as with notifications of relevant posts, but now I have to watch out for the 1 to appear at the top of the page and of course if I don't go on to the website I don't know a PM has been sent. Why did you stop sending the emails?

Do you still have Email ticked against Someone sends you a private message under the notification options in your user control panel?

Here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

[Bouleversee]

I used to get an email saying I had a PM, just as with notifications of relevant posts, but now I have to watch out for the 1 to appear at the top of the page and of course if I don't go on to the website I don't know a PM has been sent. Why did you stop sending the emails?

Do you still have Email ticked against Someone sends you a private message under the notification options in your user control panel?

Here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

I don't even know how to find my user control panel, I'm afraid, so can't answer your question. I certainly haven't unticked it accidentally for that reason. Email is ticked for PMs on the message you linked but presumably that isn't mine.

[mc2fool]

I used to get an email saying I had a PM, just as with notifications of relevant posts, but now I have to watch out for the 1 to appear at the top of the page and of course if I don't go on to the website I don't know a PM has been sent. Why did you stop sending the emails?

Do you still have Email ticked against Someone sends you a private message under the notification options in your user control panel?

Here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

I don't even know how to find my user control panel, I'm afraid, so can't answer your question. I certainly haven't unticked it accidentally for that reason. Email is ticked for PMs on the message you linked but presumably that isn't mine.

You find it by clocking on your name at the top right of any page, but the link I gave you was directly to it, and yes, that's yours.

[Gengulphus]

Do you still have Email ticked against Someone sends you a private message under the notification options in your user control panel?

Here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

I don't even know how to find my user control panel, I'm afraid, so can't answer your question. I certainly haven't unticked it accidentally for that reason. Email is ticked for PMs on the message you linked but presumably that isn't mine.

You find it by clocking on your name at the top right of any page, but the link I gave you was directly to it, and yes, that's yours.

As a small clarification, the link mc2fool gave goes directly to the part of it that you need for this particular question. Clicking on your name at the top right of any page gets you to your user control panel, but you then need to know the correct further links to click on to get to the particular part of it you want. (Which are the "Board preferences" tab followed by the "Edit notification options" link in this case - but there are a number of other parts of the user control panel that you might find useful.)

Gengulphus

[Bouleversee]

Thanks, Mc2. I have never altered anything there because I hadn't explored the site. As it is still ticked, why don't I now get an email to alert me to a private message?

And thanks also to Geng. Unfortunately, I hadn't read your post before I spent ages finding the relevant bits. No wonder I get nothing done!

[kiloran]

Thanks, Mc2. I have never altered anything there because I hadn't explored the site. As it is still ticked, why don't I now get an email to alert me to a private message?

Good question. I'm not convinced that email notifications for PMs are currently working. I did get an email for a reply to a post yesterday, but have not received an email for a PM that's arrived

--kiloran

[Lootman]

I think it would be a good idea if the state of having unread private messages could be drawn somewhat more prominently to users' attention - I know I've sometimes gone quite a few days before I've noticed that "Private messages [0]" has changed to "Private messages [1]"

I always get a notification as well as the Private Message tally being incremented. And I notice that a lot more readily than the PM flag. You can open the PM from either place.

But perhaps if you have set things up so that you get a lot of notifications then it might be less obvious when you get a new PM. I only get the default notifications so this works well for me, and I never miss a PM as far as I am aware.

[Bouleversee]

I have just received an email notification of kiloran's post and get quite a lot of others but no longer of PMs. Not the end of the world but curious if others do.

[XFool]

Thanks for all comments. XFool

I think I can explain the outbox ones. When you have items in your outbox it means you have sent it but the recipient has not yet read it. If and when they read it, it will appear in the sent folder instead.

Yes, I believe that was originally my understanding too, but I became confused by the "Sent" flag in the messages combined with their failure to be listed via "Sent Messages".

The inbox one.... I'd presume you do have 1 unread message somewhere. It could be a few pages down.

Yes. I made my way through the messages from the latest until I opened the 'unread message' and the "Private Messages [1]" and "Inbox (1)" flags finally went away. There is no obvious indication of whether any particular message in the Inbox has or has not been read. Also, on looking at the 'unread message', its contents seemed familiar, implying I had read it previously. So, who knows? Perhaps a glitch in the software. Or in my brain.

I had a look at Rules, folders & settings to try and solve this one by creating a Read folder. Unfortunately the only two message status conditions available are 'answered' and 'forwarded', no 'read' status. So that's not going to work, unless done manually.

[csearle]

But, whenever I log on I always have "Private Messages [1]" shown in the notification area. I have no idea what it is, if I look at my messages I cannot see any indication of an unread message. One message is also always shown in "Inbox (1)". If I click on that I simply see the usual list of past received messages.

Well quite a long time ago, following our spat, I sent you an "olive branch" PM that disappeared out of my Outbox but never appeared in my Sent messages box. That seemed odd and didn't accord with my understanding of the PM system. I never recieved a response from you so I didn't know whether you had read it or not. Maybe the two anomalies are related?

Chris

[GrahamPlatt]

Congrats on correcting that anomaly Chris

[Gengulphus]

I think it would be a good idea if the state of having unread private messages could be drawn somewhat more prominently to users' attention - I know I've sometimes gone quite a few days before I've noticed that "Private messages [0]" has changed to "Private messages [1]"

I always get a notification as well as the Private Message tally being incremented. And I notice that a lot more readily than the PM flag. You can open the PM from either place.

But perhaps if you have set things up so that you get a lot of notifications then it might be less obvious when you get a new PM. I only get the default notifications so this works well for me, and I never miss a PM as far as I am aware.

Good point - I'd deliberately set things up to keep the number of notifications I receive down, but had gone over the top about reducing them - I've now got notifications switched on for private messages. Thanks.

Gengulphus

[Itsallaguess]

I don't have any email notifications turned on at all.

I'm not sure if this is the same for all browsers and platforms, but on my Windows and Android devices, using Firefox across all of them, then as well as the [0] number in the 'Notifications' and 'Private Messages' top-right area of the site changing whenever I get either of them, I also see a number in a set of brackets on the Firefox browser tab as well, whenever either of those two figures changes from [0].

This works well for me, as I almost always have a few different tabs open in my Firefox browser session anyway, so the simple act of flicking between those tabs will usually visually highlight on the Lemon Fool one if there's any new Notifications or PM's, via the change in appearance of the Lemon Fool tab itself...



This process clearly needs me to manage those numbers back to [0] to help with this process, at which point the Lemon Fool browser tab will then lose it's (x) additional text, so I don't tend to keep anything in either of those two notification areas with an un-actioned status, so my Lemon Fool tab will, in it's default and usual state, normally not have a number in either that means something's un-actioned, and of course if others were to sometimes keep Notifications or PM's un-actioned, with numbers in those fields for any length of time, then I imagine it would be more difficult to see when anything 'new' were to happen via this useful change of browser-tab text-indication...

The above all works well for me, without the need to receive any email notifications at all. I'm on the site most days though, and so I appreciate that email notifications might be useful for someone who might visit much less frequently.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Gengulphus]

I don't have any email notifications turned on at all.

I do have the Your topics/posts are approved or disapproved by a moderator email notification turned on - but that's only in case it ever happens: I suspect it's only generated when the phpBB software is used in a moderator-approval-needed-before-a-post-can-appear way, which TLF doesn't do (or only so rarely that I've never encountered a case).

But otherwise all my notifications are non-email ones - the change I described was from not getting a private-message notification at all to getting a non-email one.

I'm not sure if this is the same for all browsers and platforms, but on my Windows and Android devices, using Firefox across all of them, then as well as the [0] number in the 'Notifications' and 'Private Messages' top-right area of the site changing whenever I get either of them, I also see a number in a set of brackets on the Firefox browser tab as well, whenever either of those two figures changes from [0].

I get that as well, but I don't always notice it... Basically, when I want to go to TLF, I click on the tab with a picture of a lemon on it - no further visual recognition required!

Gengulphus

[XFool]

But, whenever I log on I always have "Private Messages [1]" shown in the notification area. I have no idea what it is, if I look at my messages I cannot see any indication of an unread message. One message is also always shown in "Inbox (1)". If I click on that I simply see the usual list of past received messages.

Well quite a long time ago, following our spat, I sent you an "olive branch" PM that disappeared out of my Outbox but never appeared in my Sent messages box. That seemed odd and didn't accord with my understanding of the PM system. I never recieved a response from you so I didn't know whether you had read it or not. Maybe the two anomalies are related?

Chris

For the removal of doubt:

I am unaware of receiving any such message. The apparently 'unread' message was received a while ago from a helpful TLF member who was assisting me with a technical matter related to repeated failures of my mobile phone due to recurring problems at a local base station.