Summary Email feedback

[tobiaseigen]

@neil

Clicking on avatar and username should take you to the post? Do you mean user profile page?

Nope - on my site nothing happens when you click on the avatar and username in the summary email. only the topic title and READ MORE button are clickable.

@jomaxro

Here’s where I see things differently.

OK - as long as it’s easy to find the link to click through to the post on discourse, I’m happy. If the post text is not clickable but the entire next row of content after that (avatar, username, title, READ MORE button) is clickable, that could work.

FYI I noticed the links at the top go to /new which, if you’re not logged in, displays a bit of a sad and discouraging error instead of the actual content. Maybe these links should go to / or /latest instead which works for everyone, logged in our not? Or change this link so it pops up a login if not logged in?

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@tobiaseigen

Nope - on my site nothing happens when you click on the avatar and username in the summary email. only the topic title and READ MORE button are clickable.

I mean you were suggesting they should link to a topic page, but if anything they should link to a user page.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

The #1 goal is to drive people to topic pages for discussion, not user pages, so let’s focus on that.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

Given the goal is to drive people back to the site:

@mcwumbly

Are there any metrics on site visits from digest emails to measure the impact of changes like this?

Also, added one more item to my wish list above:

@mcwumbly

.4. The text in the quote bubbles for popular posts could be a little darker or stronger. I find it a bit hard to read as is.

[peternlewis]

@jesselperry

I agree with Jeff’s logic that the goal of these emails should be to entice people back. Theoretically, if you have highly engaged users that care about every detail and every topic title, they will already be on your site going through Discourse that way. These emails should be more marketing-style emails for those that are on the fringes of being somewhat engaged. An information-dense email does not entice a barely engaged person to come back.

@codinghorror

The #1 goal is to drive people to topic pages for discussion, not user pages, so let’s focus on that.

Clearly there are two entirely different ways to view these digest emails.

You and Jeff and presumably the rest of the Discourse team see it as a way to “entice people back”.

I see summary emails as a way to keep up to date with what is going on at various forums I use (other than my own which I use mailing list mode emails for). I am not going to be engaged in every Discourse forum. I do not want to be engaged in letsencrypt. Heck, I do not particularly want to be engaged here. I certainly don’t want to be engaged with my Rachio reticulation controller. But I do want to keep up to date with them. I want to notice new stuff (like this topic). And that’s what I use the summary emails for.

The new format does not meet my needs for this. Indeed it runs completely counter to my needs for this. Too bad for me, fair enough, the folks creating Discourse can do whatever they like, but for me, this change is a disaster as far as my usage of non-primary Discourse forums. I rue the day of each one upgrading to version 1.7 and my ability to follow them is severely diminished.

[tobiaseigen]

Hey @peternlewis great to have your input here. I think mailing list mode is what you want on all of these sites you don’t want to visit regularly, set up with daily digests. The design of the mailing list mode digests is still the old one that you know and love, as of this moment at least. I don’t know what the future plans are for that and would also be interested to know.

@tobiaseigen

Which reminds me of a nagging question… digests for mailing list mode subscribers still have the old design. Is this going to change or will it keep the old design going forward? I think it might be a good idea to keep the old design. If that happens, a toggle on the digest preview admin interface would be desirable to let admins see how it appears.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

I understand you don’t like the new spacious layout, but the information you’re being shown comes from the same query as before, but with new information added (who posted each topic, date it was posted, like counts, etc.).

Also the new email has some important/popular posts further down in the email that are buried in topics that you otherwise would miss in the old digest emails.

The topic titles are bigger and bolder than before, so if you’re only scanning then it should be easier now. How has your ability to keep up to date become a disaster?

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

I am not sure why the stats for “Since your last visit” in the summary email do not match the dim-red “last visit” line in the topic list views. Why is “New Topics” 88 in the email but only 27 in the “New” topic view? Am I missing something obvious?

I received this email about 1pm my time. Incidentally, that was long after I’d read the first popular topic so why would I want to know about it if I’'m already reading it?

This current screenshot at 6pm is very similar to the numbers I had in the morning well before the email arrived.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

What email client are you using? That email formatting looks pretty messed up.

[Remah (Just another happy Discourse user)]

Outlook 2016 for a gmail account. I fished the previous Discourse email out of the trash and they both look fine on gmail.com in Chrome.

I noticed it was too wide for the preview but didn’t have time to elucidate at the time. In a maximized Outlook window on a FullHD screen it is 1666 pixels wide which is the same as the previous email which does preview correctly:

[jesselperry (Jesse Perry)]

Is there any way yet to change the blue color that’s used in the header and buttons?

Also it appears that custom text in the “Text Content” admin settings don’t show in the new digest/summary emails. My footer custom HTML is working, but it doesn’t appear other sections are. Will this be reintroduced with the new template?

[peternlewis]

@neil

The topic titles are bigger and bolder than before, so if you’re only scanning then it should be easier now. How has your ability to keep up to date become a disaster?

Well, lets looks at a specific example, the recent emails from Let’s Encrypt, and the last Summary I have from Meta.

Let]s Encrypt is a forum I am not overly engaged in, nor will I ever be, but I’d like to use them one day, and I’d love if they supported S/MIME certificates, so I’d like to keep up with what’s going on without visiting the site. So the last summary, after scrolling down a couple inches past the headers and title, I get this:

I can see the five most popular posts, if none of them interest me I can hit a key and file the message away. If I’m keen, I can do a page down and get:

Either way, from looking at the message, two keystrokes later I’m done - and happily not engaged with the web site!

Compare that to the Discourse Meta summary I got on Nov 24 using the new format. I get one or two topics per page, so I have to scan the page, page down, scan the page, page down, scan the page. Then I get to Popular Posts and the writing is tine, and the title is obscurely placed at the bottom so I can’t even quickly see what it’s about. And I still only get a couple entries per page.

Note that visual scanning is much easier when the display remains static - as soon as you are paging down, the topic titles, no matter how big, are moving vertically up and down and so are much harder to scan.

So for my use, instead of ~ 5 seconds to see if there is anything new of interest, it’s probably closer to 30+ to get a similar level of update. I monitor several other Discourse sites, so wastage is multiplied N times.

To me, that counts as a pretty big negative step to what was previously a useful feature.

I completely understand, this new facility may serve others way better, it may serve the Discourse folks way better. But for me, it does not.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

I disagree, not being able to see who posted anything is a major negative in the old format. It lacks headline stats related to me, as in, what’s in it for me? And if scanning the top 5 does not convince you, why would adding 10 more in tiny barely formatted print text help?

I think you’ve said your piece here; if you want the old format, write a plugin to recreate it, or just stay on the old version indefinitely.

[peternlewis]

@codinghorror

I think you’ve said your piece here;

I’d already said my piece. I only responded because I was asked a specific question by @neil.

And you can’t disagree because I was expressing my usage and my feelings. You can have your own, and no doubt do, and I respect that as I have said all along.

@codinghorror

if you want the old format, write a plugin to recreate it., or just stay on the old version indefinitely.

Now I have to wonder if you read what I said at all - I cannot either stay on the old version or write a plug in on every Discourse site I use tangentially.

And now I most definitely have said my peace.

[Nam_Nguyen]

It’s not easy to customize email,
If main color of website is yellow or red…, Email summary color is not synchronous with web color. I like the old Email template https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/9db36858237f190658157a262fc2af50225be9ba/app/views/user_notifications/digest.html.erb

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@jesselperry

Is there any way yet to change the blue color that’s used in the header and buttons?

Not yet. I was trying to generate that colour from the site’s color scheme, but the result can be quite ugly. We already use the colour scheme for the area with the site logo/title, so need something contrasting in the stats area.

(Note the custom blue colour at the top, which is from the color scheme’s “header background” value.)

I think the solution is to add a site setting where you can simply define background and text colors of the “Since your last visit” area.

@Remah

Why is “New Topics” 88 in the email but only 27 in the “New” topic view?

The summary email logic isn’t only about things that you’re tracking. It follows some basic rules about which topics to show you:

• Ignore categories and tags that you’ve muted.
• Prefer categories and tags that you’re watching and tracking.
• If there’s nothing new in places you’re tracking or watching, show other topics.

Also, I’ll need to see what’s happening in Outlook again. It’s definitely the worst client for html emails.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@jesselperry

Also it appears that custom text in the “Text Content” admin settings don’t show in the new digest/summary emails. My footer custom HTML is working, but it doesn’t appear other sections are. Will this be reintroduced with the new template?

The only section that’s missing is digest.custom.html.header, and I don’t see how it was ever working. Other sections are already there. Which ones aren’t working for you?

[jesselperry (Jesse Perry)]

I’ve tried:

• user_notifications.digest.custom.html.below_popular_topics
• user_notifications.digest.custom.html.above_popular_topics
• user_notifications.digest.custom.html.header

None of which worked

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@jesselperry I’m guessing that you don’t have the “New in topics and categories you follow” section showing when the _popular_topics ones are missing? I’ll fix it so those show even if that section is missing, which is how it worked before.

I’ll also fix the custom header.

EDIT: done

[jesselperry (Jesse Perry)]

Your guess was correct and thanks for fixing!