NEW Photo.net internal messaging system!

[joshroot]

<p>Howdy,</p>

<p>How's things?</p>

<p>I'm doing fine. Hope you are, too.</p>

<p>Now that we have that out of the way, allow me to announce the newest photo.net feature. After many long years, we finally have an internal messaging system. No more relying on email that may or may not be up to date in order to contact another user.</p>

<p><img src="../help/community/messaging/click-expand.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Need instructions? Of course you do! Click here:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/help/community/messaging/</p>

<p>Now, this is sort of a "soft" launch as I am launching it tonight and hoping that enough people will see it and try it out without the full stress that the "send it to every user" admin message that I am going to send tomorrow will result in.</p>

<p>So if you see any bugs or have any questions, please let me know by posting in this thread or emailing me via the "contact photo.net" link at the bottom of the page.</p>

<p>And of course, as with every new feature here, yes it's a "beta" product. So you can and should expect things to change a bit if we need them to.</p>

<p><b><i>EDIT:</b> Just as a note, I am aware that there is currently no way to delete admin messages. I am working on the issue.</i></p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Is there going to be any kind of alert to let you know if you have a message or do you have to go and check your workspace to see if you have any messages?</p>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>Is there going to be any kind of alert to let you know if you have a message or do you have to go and check your workspace to see if you have any messages?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Please read the instructions I link to above. That question is answered and illustrated there.</p>

<p><a rel="nofollow" href="../help/community/messaging/">http://www.photo.net/help/community/messaging/</a></p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Wow... reading something for yourself. What a novel idea. ;-) Thanks Josh.</p>

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>It may not be used to harass, attack, insult or otherwise degrade another user's photo.net experience.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Then what's the point? * Jest jokin' *</p>

<p>Again, nice addition. Some of our members have names that automatically dump them into my SPAM folder.<br>

(Mr Testesson, for example).</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Thanks Josh this will be useful.</p>

[joshroot]

<p>Just as a note, I am aware that there is currently no way to delete admin messages. I am working on the issue.</p>

[shining]

<p>Thanks this will be useful for me</p>

[lintrathen]

<p>Hi Josh...... thanks for this new feature..... done a bit of testing and it looks really cool. Thanks to the team for keeping our site No. 1.<br>

Have a great Xmas and New Year.<br>

Regards</p>

[d.v.bladel]

<p>Thank you Josh,<br>

Wish you with yours a happy New Year in good health.</p>

[ChristopherSchlaf]

<p>Huge plus</p>

[d_f11]

<p>Why is this necessary? Photo.Net is becoming more chaotic...!</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Well Dimf I figure it is because it was asked for and it is an option just like the 500 TV channels. If you don't want it you don't have to use it.</p>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>Why is this necessary? Photo.Net is becoming more chaotic...!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And that is why you can turn it off if you don't like it.</p>

<p>Those who want to use it will, and those who don't....won't.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Gee Josh I wish I had thought of that. :)</p>

[trakakis]

<p>Very nice to have it!</p>

[tmp]

<p>The admin message in my inbox won't display for me in either Opera 10.62 or Firefox 3.5. I can see the message text when I view the page source, but that's a less than optimal solution.</p>

[tmp]

Update to previous message...

 

The photo.net messaging system will never work for me until your programmers dump the links to Google APIs and develop their own. I don't like third-party redirects, especially when it's to an entity such as Google.

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>The admin message in my inbox won't display for me in either Opera 10.62 or Firefox 3.5. I can see the message text when I view the page source, but that's a less than optimal solution.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I can see the messages just fine with Firefox 3.5 running on both Windows or Mac.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The photo.net messaging system will never work for me until your programmers dump the links to Google APIs and develop their own. I don't like third-party redirects, especially when it's to an entity such as Google.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The Google API has nothing to do with the Messaging system.</p>

[tmp]

Then why does this line appear in the page source:

 

[script src=http://www.google.com/jsapi][/script]

 

which links to this:

 

google.loader.GoogleApisBase = 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax';

 

If they're not calling Google APIs, why are they there?

[jsc]

<p>We use a common Javascript library called jquery. Google makes this file available from their servers and keeps it up to date, incorporating any necessary bug fixes. The only interaction this call makes with Google is to serve up this file, and in fact this takes place on every page on photo.net. It does not make any use of any other services provided by Google. You can see the documentation for it here: http://code.google.com/apis/libraries/</p>

 

[szrimaging]

<p>Jim,</p>

<p>The point of calling jquery from a source like Google is to speed up the web. Basically, the concept is that you, as the browser, go to multiple sites (i.e. here and then someone's personal site) and if they are both using the code from Google, you only had to load jQuery once. Your browser will cache the file from the first place you visited that used it, then will use that same file for any other site that needs it. Basically, Google in this instance is running as a central CDN for multiple websites. Its a good thing.</p>

<p>Besides, if you are so paranoid about companies collecting information about you, quit using the web. Or, at the very least, disable JavaScript and Cookies. Your experience on the web won't be very nice, but hey, very little information about you will be collected.</p>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>The Google API has nothing to do with the messaging system.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I probably should have said "The Google API has nothing directly to do with the messaging system". We use jquery all over the site. So the messaging system doesn't have anything more to do with google than any other feature on the site that uses javascript/jquery, of which there are many.</p>

<p>Perhaps the best option for you will simply be to turn off the messaging system as described in the instructions linked to in my initial post.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>As a Dues Paying member I find that improvements and options are nice.</p>

[tmp]

<blockquote>

<p>Perhaps the best option for you will simply be to turn off the messaging system as described in the instructions linked to in my initial post.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>

I have ajax.googleapis.com pointed to 127.0.0.1 which accomplishes the same thing, given the way the photo.net messaging system is configured.

</p><p>

I have similar issues with twitter, for identical reasons, so don't think I'm picking on you :-)

</p>