While I have been waiting for my new video card to arrive, I have been working on @Member notifications.

This feature is only available to members that are signed in and you can only notify other registered members.

Basically, when you type an @ followed by at least two characters, you will get context menu of members that match. Keep typing to narrow your search. You can used the up and down arrow keys to highlight the member name followed by Tab or Enter to select that member. You can also use your mouse to click a name as well.

If you just keep typing the name, the member will not be selected. It is important that you select a member if you want to notify that member.

I have tagged a few active members - @raspatan, @HelterSkeleton, @EmeraldTiger, @Takkie, @themuffinator, @KommissarReb (SW12), @leilei, @Neon_Knight, @richoi, @Mapsking and @sst13 - as both a test and to let you know about the new notification system.

This tag system is active for the forum and review comments.

It is currently not available for editing an already posted comment or forum post - only when creating the original post. If people like the feature and want support with editing as well, let me know and I'll have a look at it.

And as always, feedback is welcome.

If you want to test the new system, you are welcome to tag me.

If you want to see your historical tags, for now, you will need to visit: lvlworld.com/membermsgs - or wait for a new notification.

@Tig This makes soooo much sense! Thanks for the innovation! Glad to see things keep getting better and better over here! Congrats!
@Raspatan -> random check to see if can selfnotify, which cannot, as expected.
Edited 1.48 minutes after the original posting.

@Tig
The notification system seems to work, I got a notice, and I like it. However, two things I noticed, which I noticed before reading the original post, so it may be related. One, the message notification itself is truncated, so I am not able to read the whole message when clicking on the notification, which I should be able to do, by hovering it. Please note the following screenshot.
i.imgur.com/Q1VRfaq.png

Secondly, when I try to click on the notification, the expected behavior would be that it would bring me directly to the message or forum post, but it highlights it, and yet does not actually take me there. I had to manually go to the forum, find this thread/post, read it, and then see where I was tagged, so if there are multiple tags, it could easily get lost. See this screenshot when I clicked on it.
i.imgur.com/3lQEQ20.png

Finally, this is great, but if it could be expanded to send an individual member a message, rather than a forum post, it would be even better. Not sure if that is practical, but maybe I want to send a private message, and not clutter up the forum posts with something minor or maybe personal. One other addition, the map search page, could be expanded, so if there is a @ followed by the start of a name, i.e., @Mapsking, it will give me an option to send a message directly that person. Initially, without seeing how it was set up, that is where I went instinctively, to see the message, since I could not see the whole message initially.

Oh, one other thought, maybe a tagged person, you can click on the tag, to see their profile, like you can, when you click on a member's name?
Edited 1.07 minutes after the original posting.

@raspatan - When the member context options appear, you need to use Enter or Tab or a mouse click on the member name on the list to link your post to that member. I think you have not done that. Keen to know exactly what you did as you may have come across a bug. The system worked correctly on the comment on EvilslavE but failed when you linked to @EmeraldTiger on the Is it worth it to make a RA3 map nowadays? forum post.

@Mapsking - Some detailed feedback there.

Messages are truncated by designed. Only the first 160 characters after the @ are included in the preview. Mouse over the preview is not expected to show the entire message either (also by design). This is not something that will be changed nor will it work well when you have a number of messages. The Member Messages page lvlworld.com/membermsgs will also show your historical notifications, not just new ones.

That said, when you click the topic of the message on the Member Messages page (the hyperlink is a different colour to make this clear), you should be directed to the exact message. No need to manually find the message or comment. It works for me. I'll look into making the entire text block an active redirect to the original message.

As to your member to member personal messages request, this is not going to happen. If someone wants to talk to someone else, they can get in touch with them other ways or make it public. There are privacy reasons and also I do not wish to be an administrator if someone starts to abuse or harass someone else. There would also need to be a very expanded privacy policy with clear definitions of what a private message is and who can really see it. A major legal issue that I want nothing to do with.

And finally, to making the @Member name a link to that members profile, this is not straight forward and a lot of code for something that is not really needed. For example, there are a number links and ways already to get to each members profile. At this stage, I see no need for it.

@Tig this is a great feature. Should it also work on the mobile version of the site (not the app)? Because I didn't get the notification but it could also be that I was logged in on the forum, I frequently leave a tab to ..::LvL open on my phone.
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edit: removed some questions that Tig already answered in the previous post.
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Edited 5.3 minutes after the original posting.

@Takkie All versions of the site should be supported. The notifications are automatically marked as seen if you are on the same page as the notification for.

@Tig Just received it when I was browsing around. Very Smooth and intuitive. It led me right to this post. Great work.
And it was kinda cool to see notification slide into the screen...
Edited 1.38 minutes after the original posting.

@Tig just a couple of things (1 might need to be moved to a more appropriate thread), but while we are testing the tag feature for messaging: it would be nice to be able to return to the messages from the drop down in the top right where it appears. once opened and marked as read, I had to return to the thread manually through the menu.

@Tig you might remember me suggesting a note feature for the comments section??? the motivation is that sometime I like to make notes about a maps features for personal reference. The only place for this is the comments section but the comments are public. This means currently sometimes people will agree/disagree with comments when they are really only intended for personal reference. I don't know how difficult this would be, but my suggestion is this: where the post/submit button presently exists could there be a button that says perhaps private/hidden that when selected would make the comment only viewable to that particular user and not to others. this way people could use the comments feature for notes without having to always go public. Thoughts?

@HelterSkeleton @Tig the 'notes' might be a nice addition to the bookmarks section. A personal area where you can create your own (private or public) map lists with your own (private or public) notes. I find myself more often playing q3 and at the same time I am on my phone browsing LvL as a search and note tool for what map I want to play....
(and taking notes of experiences)

Quick update.

@Mapsking : You can now click anywhere on the message and be redirected to the post or comment.

@HelterSkeleton (and all) : Click your profile picture and there is now a link to the Messages section.

@Takkie and @HelterSkeleton : I'll take another look at personal notes for maps. Just a question of time and trying to work out how it will all be integrated.

A number of minor bugs with the message system have been fixed as well. You now also do not need to click or select the name so long as the name is a one word name. For example, @tig and @Tig will both work (neither selected from the context menu) but @Tig, lord of wonder (if that was a member name) will not work automatically. That kind of name will need to be selected from the context menu due to the spaces and the comma.

@Tig <- this was entered manually, which was my previous method.

@Tig <- this was with autocomplete (tab). Does it make a difference?
@Takkie bookmarking maps, that sounds amazing! At the moment I am saving all my favourite maps locally in a folder (for restoring when reinstalling OS, a frequent thing). But if I could do it on LvL, and even nicer, if I could bulk download (!), that would be sooo much better. Perhaps to demanding from the point of view of LvL? (bulk downloading I mean, could be used for spamming/jamming/DDOS?)

@raspatan I think @tig allows bulk download if you contact him personally. I believe he has a different way of supplying the files... I have seen him mentioning this option.

@raspatan, maybe I misunderstand you, but there IS currently a way to bookmark maps. When logged in, it becomes visible. You can view bookmarked maps by clicking on your avatar, and then selecting Profile>Bookmarks. You can also do it from an individual map page, with the plus bottom in the bottom right corner. I think there is also a plus button on mobile, but am not sure.

@Mapsking You're right! Thanks. It seems I wasn't aware of that option, which is in the (+) menu at the bottom (web).

@raspatan You're welcome!

@Tig, thank you for the notification. i do have a question. i have created a short demo of getting the quad in map Deadmeat. i used openarena that resulted in a *.dm_71 file. is it possible to include it in a comment of that map? thank you, from a clueless one.

@richoi : Sure, send it through to me. I can add a link to the demo from the review. Use the contact form if you do not have my email address and I'll send a reply - or include a download link in the contact message.

@richoi : I got your email and sent you a reply. Looks like you are not getting my replies. If you have still not got my reply, let me know.

I like this! I now can know if someone replied to me in the comments in case I'm not logged in, which is quite useful.