I’m running a self-hosted Discourse instance running on pretty basic Docker installation. The forum runs on a subdomain of my main site and it uses main site as SSO host. I’d like to encourage traffic between the main site and forum by showing some kind of unread forum notifications/topics number for a given user on the main site. Problem is, I haven’t figured a good way to get the data. I tried relaxing same site cookies setting to disabled, but if I query for example /notifications.json?recent=true with JavaScript from the main site (when logged in on the forum), I still get not_logged_in error. The query works fine from browser window (when logged in). Is there a way to change the Discourse session cookie for the top-level domain, or some other way I could query this data? There is also possibility to query this from the backend with a Python script and API key if it helps. In any case I would still need at least a semi-decent way of syncing this data so if a user sees 10 notifications on the main site, then goes to the forum and reads/resets them, she should see the updated number on the main site, too. I just realised that notifications are totally different than unread/new topics. Preferably I would show both for the users on the main site. Say Alice has 2 new topics, 3 unread posts and 2 unread notifications. I’d preferably show a number “7” on the main site notification tab (like on Facebook, for example) Any tips or ideas would be appreciated :slight_smile:

[תמונה] Uninen: I’d like to encourage traffic between the main site and forum by showing some kind of unread forum notifications/topics number for a given user on the main site. Problem is, I haven’t figured a good way to get the data. I do think we should offer a clean howto on this .. perhaps @blake could take it?

I’m happy to help in writing one if I can be of any assistance :slight_smile:

I think we should always encourage people to do such requests from the backend. Maybe a simple Rails/Sinatra example app where: Discourse users authenticate using SSO with the example application Example application has a simple header that shows DIscourse notifications

[תמונה] Falco: I think we should always encourage people to do such requests from the backend. Totally agree. [תמונה] Uninen: There is also possibility to query this from the backend with a Python script and API key if it helps. @Uninen I think this is where you should start focusing your efforts. [תמונה] Uninen: I just realised that notifications are totally different than unread/new topics. I’ll look into this. I don’t think there is an api endpoint for this like there is for /notifications.json. [תמונה] Uninen: In any case I would still need at least a semi-decent way of syncing this data I’m thinking you will have to do polling. So make an API request at a set interval to check for new notifications. The problem is that you will have to do polling for each user separately. How many users do you have? This could get out of hand.

[תמונה] Falco: I think we should always encourage people to do such requests from the backend. As a user, doing this in the backend would make lots of sense to me :+1: [תמונה] Falco: Discourse users authenticate using SSO with the example application Example application has a simple header that shows DIscourse notifications I think this is missing the cruicial part, tho; how does one fetch the necessary data (using the api? which endpoints? what kind of api key / authentication we need?) and what would be a smart way of doing these queries (in realtime? periodically?) and how would the updating/dismissing work if we store something in cache or db. Thanks for helping!

Sorry, I totally missed the previous post. Thanks @Falco and @blake , I will get very far with this help already! Let me know if I gan help in writing the documentation or some other way. Don’t know Rails/Sinatra (but Django instead) but I’m generally familiar with both back- and frontend stack.

[תמונה] Uninen: Let me know if I gan help in writing the documentation or some other way. Of course, please do! We love help from the community :slight_smile:.

[תמונה] Uninen: how does one fetch the necessary data (using the api? which endpoints? what kind of api key / authentication we need?) Using the API. The endpoint https://example.com/notifications?username=Falco which can be discovered using Reverse engineer the Discourse API and navigating to a user profile Notification page. You will need to pass an Admin API Key to be able to query notifications from any user. [תמונה] Uninen: what would be a smart way of doing these queries (in realtime? periodically?) and how would the updating/dismissing work if we store something in cache or db. Depends on your app. A good default is: When you are rendering a new page in your main app, you will know your current user. Translate your app user id to a Discourse user id (and cache this for a long period) Query the notifications endpoint in Discourse (cache for a short period) Render your app page with the Discourse Notifications For Dismissing, a click to dismiss will need to hit your backend and then you issue a PUT to https:/example.com/notifications/mark-read. That needs to clear your app notifications cache for the user. Advanced stuff would include listening to new notifications in a Discourse plugin (or a PR to core that adds a Notification webhook. That would allow your main app to keep an websocket or server-sent events and update notifications in real time.

[תמונה] blake: I’ll look into this. I don’t think there is an api endpoint for this Okay there doesn’t appear to be an API endpoint for getting the unread or new topic counts for a user. It would be possible to write a plugin that creates a new endpoint that provides those stats. Those counts are coming from this file.

How to get unread notification / topic count via API?

תמיכה

blake (Blake Erickson) 10 באפריל,‏ 2019,‏ 4:43pm 6

A clean howto on how to use those api endpoints? or how to use cookie/session to make authenticated JavaScript CORS requests (doable, but way more involved)?

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Get notifications via the API Integrations rest-api , how-to	4	4742	22 בספטמבר,‏ 2025
Is it possible to display discourse notifications on another site? Feature	2	698	5 בנובמבר,‏ 2021
New posts, read posts, unread posts - I like this Site feedback	4	3299	23 ביוני,‏ 2013
Discourse Chrome Extension to show unread count Feature	14	5580	1 ביולי,‏ 2015
Notification counts are inconsistent and wrong Bug	20	1787	21 באוגוסט,‏ 2022

How to get unread notification / topic count via API?

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