Add ability to subscribe to shared thing changes (folder or file)

[iddm]

I'd like to share a folder and let everyone subscribe to any changes in the folder or a file. For example, I shared resume folder to a few HRs and I want them to be able to subscribe via their email to be notified on any changes in this directory (like the cv.pdf has been modified, or new files added or so). Or another example, - I have shared "useful stuff" directory with my colleagues and friends and they are very interested in its contents. Now all of them have downloaded the whole directory and I need to tell them whenever I have added something new so they could find and download it again. I'd like to not spend my time on it and let them just subscribe via their email to any changes of what they are interested in.

[nextcloud-bot]

GitMate.io thinks possibly related issues are https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/6856 (Question - Sharing Folders), https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/2851 (Moving shared folders), https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/6491 (Duplicate Shared folders), https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/4634 (Add ability for admin to hide folders from users ), and https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/10259 (Upload and Read shared folder).

[violoncelloCH]

@vityafx are you talking about shares to other nc users or about shares where you entered the emails of the recipients and they got an mail with a share link?

[iddm]

Shares to anyone, not only other nc users.

[violoncelloCH]

1. For other nc users: they can change their activity settings to be notified about changed files etc via email.
2. For shares via link, where you created a link and sent it to others, I don't think it's possible at all, because NC doesn't know the recievers.
3. For shares over email (where you entered the mail address and they directly get a mail from the server) it would be possible, but I don't know how much priority this will get.

Can you specify which shares you mean?

[iddm]

All of that.

1. This would be nice to have.
2. NC does not know, yes, but we could do this thing: if a outside-world guy opens shared link, he subscribes by entering his email and receives notifications on any change for a month (maximum). The guy must verify his email to receive notifications (by following some link, for example). After that he can receive change notifications on what he subscribed to.
3. This would be nice to have also.

[violoncelloCH]

Thank you for clarifying.

1. Is already possible (each user can change this individually and the admin can also specify a default for the activity notifications).

[xtrasimplicity]

Apologies for resurrecting an old issue, but I've been asked to look into this functionality and haven't really found the "global" notifications to be overly helpful.

Global notifications (i.e. notifications of all changed files/folders) results in a bit too much info for large environments, and users are likely to miss the important info they require. Being able to define this on a per-folder basis would be absolutely ideal!

I'm happy to spend some time actually developing this, but wanted to:

1. Make sure that this is actually a feature that the NC core team would be open to.

2. Check whether this would be better placed as part of the Files app or another app, assuming, of course, the core team are open to such a feature.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Edit: In my use-case, all users have either full NC accounts, or Guest Accounts. All on the same NC instance.

[violoncelloCH]

cool @xtrasimplicity ! just to say: if you implement it as an independent app, question 1 is actually not important at all... maybe someone from @nextcloud/server-triage and / or @nextcloud/designers can say if this would be something for the core/files app or rather an independent app and how to best implement this design-wise? possibly a button in the sidebar (maybe in the sharing tab?) which "subscribes" you to updates/changes on the file/folder contents?

[skjnldsv]

possibly a button in the sidebar (maybe in the sharing tab?) which "subscribes" you to updates/changes on the file/folder contents?

wouldn't activity be more appropriate ?

[violoncelloCH]

you're probably right... I just thought of it as something relevant when the object is shared (because you probably don't want to be notified of your own changes), so I made the association with the sharing tab :sweat_smile:

[xtrasimplicity]

Thanks, all.

I had thought of adding this to the activity app, but then thought it could be a bit clumsy from a user perspective.

Perhaps we could extend both? I.e. Add a watch or subscribe button in the "..." menu next to each folder listing in the files app, to subscribe/unsubscribe, but also add a list of subscribed folders in the activity app so that users can unsubscribe from multiple folders in a single pane.

I remember reading something about plugins and the potential to extend existing apps from another, but I'm not sure if the idea was ever developed upon. Is this a possibility? Could make it easier from a versioning perspective (I.e. Files and Activity apps won't be "bound" to each other).

[xtrasimplicity]

Thanks, all.

I had thought of adding this to the activity app, but then thought it could be a bit clumsy from a user perspective.

Perhaps we could extend both? I.e. Add a watch or subscribe button in the "..." menu next to each folder listing in the files app, to subscribe/unsubscribe, but also add a list of subscribed folders in the activity app so that users can unsubscribe from multiple folders in a single pane.

I remember reading something about plugins and the potential to extend existing apps from another, but I'm not sure if the idea was ever developed upon. Is this a possibility? Could make it easier from a versioning perspective (I.e. Files and Activity apps won't be "bound" to each other).

@rullzer Sorry to ping you, but I'm keen to implement this soon.

Is this something that you think would be better placed in the core/server, or the activity app?

[jancborchardt]

maybe someone from @nextcloud/server-triage and / or @nextcloud/designers can say if this would be something for the core/files app or rather an independent app and how to best implement this design-wise?

Purely telling from the little activity on this issue and the lack of requests we got for this, I would say this is not something for core, but a dedicated app. :)

[xtrasimplicity]

Thanks, @jancborchardt. Is it possible to extend the Files UI from another app? Ideally, it'd be great to be able to add a "Subscribe" or "Follow" menu option/action to the Files app, to make it easier for users (rather than having to traverse through a folder listing in a separate app, to subscribe/unsubscribe from folders).

[jancborchardt]

We are looking into reworking notifications, and part of that could be the ability to choose to get notified about actions on favorites. This is already possible in "Activity" settings now but only limited to showing in the stream or not.

That would then allow you to favorite a file and it would act as a subscription mechanism.

cc @icewind1991 @rullzer on the feasibility there.

[xtrasimplicity]

@jancborchardt, that sounds fantastic! Let me know if you want a hand working on that feature - I'm more than happy to allocate some time to this.

Thanks!

[Socs28]

I see the options for this have been put in the activity app, but it does not seem to be working. I can get notified if I select doing all files, but not for favorites. Has more work been done on this? I think the Subscribe Idea somewhere in the ... menu is a much better solution anyway. Anyone still working on that?

[mdn-united]

+1 The ... menu is a good place to add an email address for notifications. That should work for non NC users as well.