Community Builder Private Messaging is here!

Folks please stop posting support questions or feature requests here. This is just a news announcement thread. Create support topics where your posts will actually be visible and answered on a per post basis more appropriately. Giant quote chains are just not user friendly and makes it very hard to follow each persons needs.

wbuk wrote: 1. Send Attachments (Restrictable by admin)

This will not be implemented. It's possible it maybe supported with a System Action in CB Auto Actions utilizing CB Gallery for a per-PM gallery, which maybe doable now as there are triggers available to potentially have this.

wbuk wrote: 2. Inbox and Compose Button

Not sure I understand. You can create a Joomla menu item to both pages and link to them using a button if you like with a Custom HTML field or in a module. Additionally the messages icon displayed on a users own profile will show them their messages.

wbuk wrote: 3. Block

This will just be a part of CB Privacy and the PMS functionality will simply respect it.

wbuk wrote: 4. Report

Have added a feature ticket to look into implementing this.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/7356

wbuk wrote: 5. An option to search your connections list to send a message

This is already available. There's a connections dropdown next to the To input that has searching. You can also view your connections and click the message icon to go directly to new message page with them set as the To.

wbuk wrote: 6. Admins ability to only allow you to message your connections or to message anyone on the site.

This is planned as noted below.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/7337

wbuk wrote: 7. Ability to be notified by email of a new message and to log in to see it.

This is already available. Edit Private Message System and enable notifications.

Josh Lewis wrote: wbuk is spot on regarding features that would benefit most if not all Community Builder sites. #7 is the most important, a feature that helps content producers not only be responsive but come back to the site and work out content accordingly.

Same as above. #7 is already there. Users can even control their notifications based off a custom field you create.



Please keep in mind we want to provide a featureful PMS, but we also want to avoid it being bloated with features the majority won't ever use (e.g. attachments, blocking system specific to PMS, etc..) and to also avoid making something simple become complicated and complex to use (e.g. we've already had usage issues yet the plugin is extremely simple in its current state).

Okay I had few issues with the PM system after moving away from UddeIM, mainly the default editor (JCE). Did not want members having access to the admin/publishers content plug-ins just a basic editor layout similar to UddeIM's. Took a bit of tweaking but managed it and members now have a few more options than UddeIM provided.

Commenting on WBUK and Josh's post. PM does send emails to users to telling them there are new messages. The email can contain a link to the message or the whole text. What you are requesting above is a parallel email system which is rather pointless as your users/members can go to users profile and email from there. Think of PM as SMS was before the likes of WhatsApp, etc. It is primarily for internal messaging. Admins can mass message too but I would'nt recommend users having this facility - would get abused for definite.

Regarding admins banning or moderating PMs. That could be a contentious option. Why? Because PM is what it is, Private Messaging. Albeit, superadmins can access the database to read those messages if they wanted to.. If someone wants to report abuse, etc then they can email the admin team is best option and the admin can lock out the abuser from the PM system.

Finally keeping the PM fairly simple avoids conflicts likely in the future. I still have UddeIM installed but will probably in the near future uninstall. One less component to worry about. Although one thing I do miss. That's User drop down list in PM. got round that one by creating a menu link to Kunena user-list.

My System:: Joomla 3.9: CB, Kunena. Flying Club website with private members area since 2009

wbuk wrote:
Feature List Needed (The magic 7):-

1. Send Attachments (Restrictable by admin)
2. Inbox and Compose Button
3. Block
4. Report
5. An option to search your connections list to send a message
6. Admins ability to only allow you to message your connections or to message anyone on the site.
7. Ability to be notified by email of a new message and to log in to see it.

wbuk is spot on regarding features that would benefit most if not all Community Builder sites. #7 is the most important, a feature that helps content producers not only be responsive but come back to the site and work out content accordingly.

A user needs to be able to ban and report as we use UddeIM and that allows full moderation. Students must be able to report other uses. This new features for CB has so much potential but it's not as feature rich as UddleIM at the moment. I hope it is developed so that we can use it instead of UddeIM.

Feature List Needed (The magic 7):-

1. Send Attachments (Restrictable by admin)
2. Inbox and Compose Button
3. Block
4. Report
5. An option to search your connections list to send a message
6. Admins ability to only allow you to message your connections or to message anyone on the site.
7. Ability to be notified by email of a new message and to log in to see it.

Cheers

My understanding is you cannot ban it yet - some granular permissions are coming in the next version of CB.
For now, all you can do is unpublish the PM stuff...