(I found a lot of things that are very similar to this but none of them seem to be exact dupes. A lot of them are very ambiguous. Here you go, in case you want to decide for yourself: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)

Okay, I hate unnecessarily long OPs but I think I need to make this one a little bit lengthy in order to make it seriously worthwhile. Please forgive me in advance. I tried to be generous with newlines to make this suggestion easier to read if it's any help.

I'm going to keep this intro brief: Make a new section of the messages page for user subscriptions.

So how would this work? First off, this is how you would opt into project notifications. Once you follow a user, next to the “unfollow” button will be a button that says “Subscribe to Project Notifications” or something similar.

(I know that they're moving away from 2.0 pages but I would rather use an outdated design than take a shot in the dark as to what the scratch-www user page will look like.)

Clicking on this bell will opt you into receive special notifications every time the user releases a project. The number of subscribers would not be counted or displayed privately or publicly. Okay, that's kind of obvious. Sorry about that. Let's move onto what happens when the user shares a project.

The first visual part of receiving a project share notification is in the “messages” icon in the navigation bar. Project share notifications should have their own separate bubble with a different color. Here's a mock-up I made:


That's nice and all, but we need to know what happens when you actually click it. Here it is:

(I'm not sure what order they would be displayed in, maybe chronological order based on when each user uploaded their latest project?)

There would be a new section on the messages page, above standard messages but below alerts. Each account followed would have one list item maximum. If they shared one project, it will link to that project. If they shared multiple, then it will link to the latest one. As soon as this page is loaded, all of the subscription notifications will be cleared.

So, what benefits would this have? For one thing, I will feel much more encouraged to view the new projects. A big red notification icon and readily available links right in front of your face are a lot more enticing than easy-to-miss “What's Happening” notifications. This will in turn increase site activity and make it easier for people who like a user's projects to play or watch a new one when it comes out.

Also, this would be a nice feature to add to scratch-www userpages and make the upgrade feel more worthwhile to people who don't totally understand its technical value.

Edit: To be honest, this suggestion is mainly a more specific version of this, and especially the proposed implementation by Vadik1. I felt that this was different enough and complex enough to warrant its own suggestion though.

I'm going to say that this topic is a duplicate. It's basically the same idea for the same solution to the same problem with some minor tweaks. Having two topics that do pretty much the exact same thing with one being more specific would kinda fracture the discussion, what closing duplicates avoids. Suggestions are not set in stone; they are dynamic and can change through discussion, the whole point of a forum. I would recommend adding on to a topic with a similar idea instead of creating a new one.

Support. Not missing out when your favorite creator posts a new project can be extremely useful in shows that rely on voting (like object shows).

fdreerf wrote:

I'm going to say that this topic is a duplicate. It's basically the same idea for the same solution to the same problem with some minor tweaks. Having two topics that do pretty much the exact same thing with one being more specific would kinda fracture the discussion, what closing duplicates avoids. Suggestions are not set in stone; they are dynamic and can change through discussion, the whole point of a forum. I would recommend adding on to a topic with a similar idea instead of creating a new one.

I disagree. The original suggestion (I'm assuming you're referring to the one which is currently active right now) was only to give the user standard message notifications when projects were uploaded by people they were following. All of the other stuff, even including the “grouping multiple messages into one” thing was not part of the original post. Pretty much the only two things they have in common in my opinion are:

• Optional subscription button separate from the follow button
  
• Displayed on the messages page in some form
  

I agree that suggestions aren't set in stone but I also don't think that means that everything that sets out to achieve a similar purpose should be in one thread. I consider the whole idea of making subscription notifications separate from standard messages and all of the mock-ups included along with that enough of a hypothetical detour to consider this a separate suggestion, but I could understand people disagreeing with that.

Edit: On reading other peoples I have decided that this, given the chance is a great idea. However, I feel there would have to be a cap to prevent spam.

SUPPORT!!!! I NEED GRIFFPATCH PROJECT NOTIFICATION!!!

I think the subscription button looks massive. I think it needs to be a bit smaller. I also don't think that having a separate icon for project notifications would be could as it means you feel more forced to check this out rather than a regular notifications. people would also be confused to why there's a bell in their inbox.

Support! Even though I followed griffpatch, I didn't know that he released Taco Burp and this is much more noticable What's Happening and I would like a notification for this.

Support!

-TWILIGHTMISTY- wrote:

Support!

*facepalms* Please give out a reason why do you support.

pandacorn_owl wrote:

I think the subscription button looks massive. I think it needs to be a bit smaller.

I don't see any real harm in having it large, but I agree that I could've made it a lot smaller too.

pandacorn_owl wrote:

I also don't think that having a separate icon for project notifications would be could as it means you feel more forced to check this out rather than a regular notifications.

First off, having a separate icon tells me instantly that someone I'm subscribed to has released a project. Let's say that we DID combine the message and subscription display. Now, if you're very popular and get a ton of notifications, you wouldn't even know if your own favorite creators released a new project.

Additionally, you chose to subscribe to this user. “Feeling more forced to check this out” is the entire reason you subscribed to them. And if you really don't like the project, you don't have to open it. As I said in the OP, just reading the subscription notification would clear it instantly.

pandacorn_owl wrote:

people would also be confused to why there's a bell in their inbox.

How is that a bad thing? You're confused as to why there's a new icon on your inbox, so you click on your inbox and then immediately find out what the bell icon was for and never have to wonder again. I actually think that's a good thing.

-EmeraldThunder- wrote:

However, I feel there would have to be a cap to prevent spam.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by “spam”. I'm assuming you mean a cap so that people can't spam their own messages? I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I agree that subscribing to too many people could strain the servers in some way, but on the other hand I don't want Scratch to enforce a limit on how many people I can be subscribed to. Maybe if there were a pretty high limit like 200 subscriptions and/or you could only subscribe to someone once every minute or so like how following works, that would be a good enough compromise.

OMG YES SUPPORT

Animation_King123 wrote:

OMG YES SUPPORT

Why? As much as I appreciate the ego boost, please be a little bit more constructive

The mockup for the messages icon doesn't look very good, I think something like this would look better:

(the number wouldn't actually appear if it was 0, obviously)

This is more clear and I think the mockups make it easier to understand why it'd be a good idea, as compared to the other, more ambiguous topic I discussed this on.
My thoughts:
I think the subscribe to notifications button shouldn't be as red (red is not as friendly a color, especially when dark).
Also I think the projects notifications in your messages should show up in chronological order (should it be as a part of the standard messages or a separate area?).
And finally, maybe you should be able to subscribe without following?

I think this would be nice because some good Scratchers make good projects and I don't want to miss them, although it should definitely not be the default when you follow someone.

Maximouse wrote:

The mockup for the messages icon doesn't look very good, I think something like this would look better:

(the number wouldn't actually appear if it was 0, obviously)

I would still prefer having a separate bubble with a different color, as that is much more readable. Think about this: Would messages be nearly as exciting-looking if they were in a blue bubble that blended in with the background? The idea is that the user will begin to associate the subscription bubble's color with “a user I like just released a new project, time to check it out.” Sticking a bell in the existing notification icon would negate that effect, I think. (Also, I think the bell looks much better as a silhouette, but I'm not sure if you changed that on purpose. Also close your tags )

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

I think the subscribe to notifications button shouldn't be as red (red is not as friendly a color, especially when dark).

Yeah. maybe. I was thinking of changing the color of the notification but that meant I would have to recreate the entire mock-up and I was feeling a little too lazy for that.

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

(should it be as a part of the standard messages or a separate area?)

I say definitely a separate area. Standard messages should be all about stuff happening that concerns you, while subscriptions are about other people. This also makes it easier to find both messages and subscription notifications; how would you feel if you had to filter through a bunch of subscription notifications to find the message you were looking for? I think it would be better for subscription notices to disappear after you read them, and I think that displaying them along with regular messages would make for a confusing design contradiction.

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

And finally, maybe you should be able to subscribe without following?

I don't know. I considered it, but I think that allowing such a thing would make follows even more useless than they already are. I want follows to mean something a little bit significant, not just “I vaguely like this user”.

Yes,
But I think it should be in a separate button

I suck at HTML mockups imagine notifications replaces the icon(which puls a yt syle notifications)

pokeshah wrote:

Yes,
But I think it should be in a separate button

I suck at HTML mockups imagine notifications replaces the icon(which puls a yt syle notifications)

I have considering adding a separate button for it but I'm not totally sure about that.

the2000 wrote:

pokeshah wrote:

Yes,
But I think it should be in a separate button

I suck at HTML mockups imagine notifications replaces the icon(which puls a yt syle notifications)

I have considering adding a separate button for it but I'm not totally sure about that.

I think a bell symbol next to the envelope comments symbol would be nice.

the2000 wrote:

Maximouse wrote:

The mockup for the messages icon doesn't look very good, I think something like this would look better:

(the number wouldn't actually appear if it was 0, obviously)

I would still prefer having a separate bubble with a different color, as that is much more readable. Think about this: Would messages be nearly as exciting-looking if they were in a blue bubble that blended in with the background? The idea is that the user will begin to associate the subscription bubble's color with “a user I like just released a new project, time to check it out.” Sticking a bell in the existing notification icon would negate that effect, I think. (Also, I think the bell looks much better as a silhouette, but I'm not sure if you changed that on purpose. Also close your tags )

Maybe there would be only one bubble, but it would change color if there were new projects? For the icon I agree that a silhouette looks better, I just used an emoji because that's simpler.