Documentation

Creating notification events

When you create a new item or edit an existing item in the back-end, you will be able to create a notification event for this content change. The Content - Content Notifications plugin automatically adds the Notification Event tab to the item form. This tab contains parameters that control the behaviour of the notification event.

If you enable the option Create new and save the item, a new notification event will be created. You can select to publish or unpublish the new notification event. Typically you would create the notification event in an unpublished state if you wanted to modify it first before the system automatically processes it. You can also enable the notification emails by checking the parameter Enable Emails or you can enable the notification updates by checking the parameter Enable Updates.

In the field Updates content you can add custom content that will be displayed in the Updates list in the front-end. If you leave this blank, the item introtext will be used as content. This custom content is not the content of the email notification. The content of the email notification is created automatically by the email templates.

New notification events will appear in the notification events list. At this stage, both the Updates and the Email queue will appear as Pending.

Editing a notification event

Go to the component Dashboard > Notification events and open the notification event.

General settings

Title

The title of the notification event. For internal use only. Will not be used in updates or emails.

Type

The type will define the appropriate default email template for this notification.

Status

The status of the notification event.

Access

Only users of this level will receive the updates/emails.

Language

Only users of this language will receive the updates/emails.

Object settings

The object of the notification event. These parameters are read-only.

Component

The component that the object belongs to.

Object ID

The ID of the object.

Object Author

The author of the object.

Email settings

An email notification will be sent to all subscribed users who have selected to receive emails for this item or for the parents of this item (category, author, tag).

Email Queue Status

If the email queue has not been created yet, it will appear as Pending. If the email queue has already been created, it will appear as Completed. If you don't want to send emails for this notification event, select Disabled. Emails will be resent if you change the status back to Pending.

Email Template

If Default (auto) is selected, a default email template will be automatically assigned according to the notification event type and language. Select Custom if you want to assign a custom email template, then select a template in the field Custom Email Template.

Updates settings

An update notification will be displayed in My Updates page for all users who have subscribed to this item or to the parents of this item (category, author, tag).

Updates Status

If the updates have not been created yet, it will appear as Pending. If the updates have already been created, it will appear as Completed. If you don't want to create updates for this notification event, select Disabled. Updates will be recreated if you change the status back to Pending.

Update content

Optional. This custom content will be displayed in the Updates feed. If left empty, the article introtext will be used instead.

Publishing settings

Start Publishing

An optional date to start publishing the notification. You can use this field to schedule the notification event processing in the future.

Finish Publishing

An optional date to finish publishing the notification.

Created Date

Optional. The notification event creation date. If left empty, it will be automatically filled with current date.

Created By

The author of this notification event.

Processing notification events

The processing of a notification event is done automatically via Scheduled tasks. When a notification event is processed, Updates are created and Emails are added to the email queue. All users that have subscribed to the object (article) of the notification event (or to a parent of that object: category, tag, author) will see the updates in their personalized My Updates page.

Also, Emails will be created and added to the email queue for all users that have selected to receive email notifications for the object (article) of the notification event or for a parent of that object (category, tag, author).

Scheduled tasks

Before setting up the scheduled tasks, you must first go to the component Configuration. Under the tab Scheduled Tasks you will find the option Password. In that box you have to enter a password which will allow your cron jobs to access the required front-end urls. After you're done, click on Save & Close.

Now you can set up the actual scheduled tasks (cron jobs) in the hosting control panel. Log in to your hosting control panel and search for a section called Cron jobs, Scheduled tasks or something similar. If you can't find it, ask for help from your hosting provider.

Create updates - command line (wget)

wget -O --max-redirect=10000 /dev/null "http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?option=com_contentnotifications&task=notifications.createUpdates&password=YOUR_PASSWORD"

where YOUR_PASSWORD is the password that you entered previously in the component configuration.

Create email queue - command line (wget)

wget -O --max-redirect=10000 /dev/null "http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?option=com_contentnotifications&task=notifications.createEmailQueue&password=YOUR_PASSWORD"

where YOUR_PASSWORD is the password that you entered previously in the component configuration.