Feature: Email notification on comment

[gogowitsch]

This pull requests extends the comment provider named "default" with an email notification. This pull request defines a new job that collects unsent comments. It can notify about multiple comments that were added after the last job ran.

Before merging this we probably need to:

• [ ] Adjust the name of the server/db/migrations/2.5.292.js file to whatever version this PR lands in.
• [x] Add a SQLite migration. I have only tested with PostgreSQL.
• [x] ~~Add some way to trigger the notification job - or explain how to configure it on the server. Right now I use the operating system cron. This works by adding the command node server/core/worker.js --job=send-comment-notification-emails to crontab. I can imagine to find or build a poormanscron feature within the node server, so notifications are triggered by HTTP requests. Then, we'd need to define a frequency, preferably by config.~~
• [ ] Potentially add a test - please guide me though your expectations here.
• [ ] Add the new i18text in a proper way. I have tested it by running this SQL:

  update locales
  set strings=jsonb_set(strings, '{emails}', '{
    "notification-email": {
      "subject": "New comments",
      "item": "Comment on page <a href=''{{pagePath}}''>{{pageTitle}}</a> by <a href=''mailto:{{email}}''>{{commentAuthorName}}</a>"
    }
  }', true)
  where code = 'en';
  

I have added a textarea to the comments admin page:

[gogowitsch]

Here is the link to canny.io: https://feedback.js.wiki/wiki/p/send-an-email-when-a-comment-is-added

[NGPixel]

Very cool.

To trigger a job on schedule, you need to add an entry to https://github.com/requarks/wiki/blob/main/server/app/data.yml#L118-L139

[mike-lloyd03]

Could this be expanded so users can subscribe to certain pages so they only get comment notifications for that page?

[gogowitsch]

@mike-lloyd03 Sure, but I might not be the person to write the code. Before expanding the feature, I'd like to get this PR merged.

[gogowitsch]

@NGPixel I have updated the data.yml and the description of this pull request. Let me know if you need anything else from me to get this mergeable.

[gogowitsch]

We have used this feature in our production instance of the wiki for 7 days now and it works great.

@NGPixel Let me know where I can help to get this into a release. Getting English texts into the official i18n seems crucial.

[zhuzhzh]

Can this be enhanced to send email on the event of the page being changed?

[farzadpanahi]

We have used this feature in our production instance of the wiki for 7 days now and it works great.

@NGPixel Let me know where I can help to get this into a release. Getting English texts into the official i18n seems crucial.

@fonata , just curious, is there any blocking issue for this PR's merge?

[RandyAbernethy]

I have a site that will use this as soon as it is merged. We use sqlite and I'd be happy to test or help out.

[gogowitsch]

just curious, is there any blocking issue for this PR's merge?

@farzadpanahi I am not aware of open issues.

[gogowitsch]

Can this be enhanced to send email on the event of the page being changed?

@zhuzhzh I suggest that you open another issue or pull request for that, as it is a different feature with different config settings.

[vhristev]

Hey guys,

To check if we can review that and merge it, it's a feature we are waiting for from a couple of mounts. We can also help with testing it.

[johncmunson]

I would absolutely love to see a feature like this land in WikiJS. However, to really be useful, I think we need some more granularity and control similar to what @mike-lloyd03 suggested.

Users should be able to subscribe/unsubscribe to the comments section of any given page. In addition, users should have some level of control over their default subscriptions behavior. For example, if you leave a comment on a page, that could auto-subscribe you if you've enabled it.

What I'm really hoping for, perhaps in WikiJS v3, is a full-blown event driven webhooks abstraction. That could potentially serve as the backbone for comment notifications.