[development] Subscriptions module for Drupal.org (was Re: You know what would be really cool for d.o?)

[Dries Buytaert]

On 02 Jan 2007, at 05:49, arthur wrote:
>> The meta issue is that we need someone to write a robust,  
>> lightweight,
>> highly scaleable subscription framework capable of handling the  
>> volume
>> on Drupal.org. There is the existing subscriptions module
>> (http://drupal.org/project/subscriptions) that doesn't quite meet all
>> of those needs yet.
>>
>> -- Boris
>
> I'm interested in moving the subscriptions module in that  
> direction. I've been doing some code cleanup, but I'd like to  
> target a specific feature set to streamline portions of the code.
>
> Would people be interested in helping identify what the core  
> functionality might be and I'll plan the implementation work?

Start with making it possible to subscribe to comment threads  
(individual nodes).  Once you can subscribe to individual nodes, you  
can create mechanism to automatically subscribe users to new nodes.   
I.e. automatically subscribe me to all nodes in whose discussion I  
participiate.  Or, automatically subscribe me to all nodes that  
mention my name or keyword 'XYZ'.  Or, automatically subscribe to all  
nodes with the term 'ABC'.

For now, I'd start super simple: let people subscribe to a node by  
checking a checkbox when they post a reply (i.e. like Wordpress  
does), get that in core, and worry about the 'automatic subscription  
mechanisms' in phase #2.  So for me, step #1 would be to mimic  
Wordpress' subscription functionality.  Just build that, but keep  
future use cases in mind.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/