Sitewide notices

[hnla]

Agree that keeping this to a backend/dashboard implementation has merit.

Only showing the notice when on your user account screens though? Think there needs to be some means of showing a notice exists wherever you are in a site, after all we termed this functionality 'Sitewide' ?

Two minor issue I seem to encounter: 1/ Are these notices meant to be hidden until you click on info icon (the readme.md notes suggest that?) if so mine are visible from get go, also seem to have no means to close/dismiss message, but do vanish if I refresh the page?

2/ Re-enabling an old notice appears to have no effect, although this may be an old issue not specific to this template-pack.

[robmcclel]

I agree with Hugo -- sitewide notifications are important, IMO. There is a reason this was implemented on nearly every other social platform. It's hard to know how your members will use the network and where they will "live" while on it.

No matter what screen a user is on, front or back, there should be a visible visual indicator that you have a notification (without relying on the BP Admin bar for the front end).

[mercime]

Agree that keeping this to a backend/dashboard implementation has merit.

Not sure what you mean by "keeping this to a backend/dashboard implementation." Could you please clarify or provide the context so we're on the same page?

The logged-in member should be able to see the notification in the site's front end. There is a "Close" link at the end of the notification to dismiss the notification --- though that link should be emphasized either by adding an icon or moving the link below the main text and surround it with border, etc.

In many cases, the site admin does not allow subscribers/members in the back end for a single site or redirect them to profile pages or elsewhere, so how are the members supposed to see the notification?

[hnla]

@mercime Sorry, context is one where it was suggested that creating sitewide notices was an admin function and could live in backend.

Naturally we need then to display the notices on frontend, here the suggestion was on the user account only which doesn't feel right.

The display and positioning of notices has been an issue for a while, r-a-y made a good stab at a workaround but it has issues in some layouts so we need a better solution but that is going to be hard to arrive at given we don't know what theme structure we have to work with and injecting into just BP elements or structure is not strictly sitewide.

[imath]

It also adds a new entry into the WP Admin Bar notification Bubble. I was more thinking about introducing a bulk email feature, because that's the best way to be sure the user will get the notice ;)

[hnla]

Just feels like it needs something visibly sitewide that's a little more prominent than the admin bar which I either never look at closely or have removed altogether cos user/clients don't want stuff like that.

Not sure the best answer though at this moment.

[imath]

I think the most important about sitewide notices is to forget about the "sitewide" term. If there were real sitewide notice, then they would show even if the user was not logged in!

So it's more a notice to all members of the site imho.

The second thing that seems important to me, is that the user shouldn't have to come on the site to be aware of the notice. I mean let's say you publish a notice to inform about a maintenance indisponibility for 2 days the next week. If the user don't log in the site, he won't be aware of this. And when he tries to come during the maintenance period.. boom!

So the best scenario imho is to mail this notice to all users and keep a screen notification for those who refuses to receive this emails. We can probably style these in red into the WP Admin Bar.

But what we have today is a user experience we really need to improve!

[hnla]

Yep agree on global notice emails.

keep a screen notification for those who refuses to receive this emails. We can probably style these in red into the WP Admin Bar.

But I've deactivated email notification and the site admin/dev has removed the admin bar (admin bar is not universally loved!) we need a third option for visual cue but I guess that will just be what we know we can manage i.e the user account screens at least there we could add something to run across the under the main BP element.

[imath]

Good point! i agree we need to take this case in account.

[BoweFrankema]

I'd like to add that a lot of custom themes/sites are not using the WP Admin bar but instead have built a custom navigation menu. Ideally we'd be able to unhook/filter how sitewide notices are displayed. Either in the admin bar or a different hook set by the theme. (as you both mentioned)

[hnla]

Ideally we'd be able to unhook/filter how sitewide notices are displayed

It's been a while since I used, but was involved in the last implementation of sitewide notices, then we set things up iirc to be IF you used the provided widget then we would check for that and not load the positioned overlay notice.

[imath]

There was another reason why i chose the member's profile header. That was because i wanted this feature to become more interesting:

1/ Notice to all users > member header + mail - Managed in WordPress Dashboard 2/ Notice to all group members > group header + mail - Managed in a Group Manage subnav

I think group admins should be able to notice their members ;)

[mercime]

+1 "chose the member's profile header."

[hnla]

Closing this but may need to re-open and re-visit sitewide notices.