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Preview for PMs

Formerly "Lemon Fool - Improve the Recipe" repurposed as Room 102 (see above).
Bouleversee
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Preview for PMs

#217358

Postby Bouleversee » April 25th, 2019, 9:55 pm

Most of the time when I am sending a private message it goes through OK. Occasionally, however, I am asked to preview it. Why? What is the criterion for a preview? I have lost several messages because I failed to notice the need to preview and confirm and there doesn't seem to be any consistency here.

Itsallaguess
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Re: Preview for PMs

#217382

Postby Itsallaguess » April 26th, 2019, 4:46 am

Bouleversee wrote:
Most of the time when I am sending a private message it goes through OK.

Occasionally, however, I am asked to preview it. Why?

What is the criterion for a preview?

I have lost several messages because I failed to notice the need to preview and confirm and there doesn't seem to be any consistency here.


Not sure if you're able to remember Bouleversee, if it's not happened frequently enough, but I seem to remember only seeing 'forced Preview' on PM's where I've manually entered the user-name it's being sent to, and I've not selected the 'Add' button to 'properly' add the intended recipient to the PM before hitting 'Submit'.

I *think* that if you either remember to select the 'Add' button after manually entering a user-name, which will then find and list the user (if they exist..) and add it to a 'Recipients' list underneath the 'Add Recipients' box, or if you use the 'Find a member' button to enter the user-name instead of manually entering it into the 'Add Recipients' box, then either of those two process will then eliminate the need for the board-software to force a PM-Preview on you, as the 'proper' checks have been done using either of the above two processes, and the board-software will then have no need to do those checks during the 'Submit' process...

What the board software is doing here is adding your manually-entered recipient into the 'Recipients' list for you, but then checking with you that they are correct using the 'Preview' process, before actually sending it. Until that point, if you've not used either of the above two methods to actually get the username(s) onto the 'Recipients' list for the PM, then the board-software doesn't actually 'know' yet that the intended recipients are 'real' users, and it's using the 'Forced Preview' process to then check that (and to 'properly' add the names to the 'Recipients' list), before sending the PM itself.

Does that ring any bells with when you may have seen this happening?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

melonfool
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Re: Preview for PMs

#217417

Postby melonfool » April 26th, 2019, 9:35 am

That's interesting, I was also wondering why that sometimes happened and sometimes not.

Mel

Bouleversee
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218390

Postby Bouleversee » April 30th, 2019, 10:43 am

I don't think it is that, Itsallaguess. I lost a long message yesterday to someone I have exchanged messages with before and vice versa. Admittedly, I wasn't replying to one of his and it was a new subject so I had to enter his name in the box but there was nothing to add as it wasn't a new contact and I am pretty sure I have inserted the names of recipients before without the necessity to preview. When one sends several messages without the need to preview, one gets lulled into a sense of false security and it's easy to forget to check that it has actually gone after pressing the submit button, especially if in a hurry. Can nothing be done to improve this? Life is too short to repeat typing messages, so that doesn't happen and I find it very frustrating. Also, I don't always notice and assume the lack of reply is for another reason than lack of receipt! All a guess indeed!

Itsallaguess
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218399

Postby Itsallaguess » April 30th, 2019, 11:02 am

Bouleversee wrote:
I don't think it is that, Itsallaguess. I lost a long message yesterday to someone I have exchanged messages with before and vice versa.

Admittedly, I wasn't replying to one of his and it was a new subject so I had to enter his name in the box but there was nothing to add as it wasn't a new contact and I am pretty sure I have inserted the names of recipients before without the necessity to preview.


Whether it's a 'new contact' or not is irrelevant to the problem you're having.

If the name of the intended recipient has just been manually typed similar to the example below, then you will be forced to carry out a 'Preview' of the PM before it's sent -

Image

To avoid the forced-preview after manually typing an intended PM recipient, you must use the 'Add' button below the box -

Image

Doing so will check the user-name database, and if the manually-typed user-name exists, the PM process will then add the intended recipient to the 'Recipients' list underneath the box -

Image

When all of your manually-typed recipients have made their way onto the above 'Recipients' list, similar to the above example, then at that point if you then select the 'Submit' button, you will not be presented with the forced-preview window, and should find that the PM's get sent straight away.

I expect a similar process will have to be carried out if you use the BCC option too.

What the above 'Add' button process is doing, is making sure that your manually-typed recipient actually exists. If you don't use the 'Add' button before using the 'Submit' button, then the board-software is actually doing that 'for you' after you've pressed 'Submit', and is using the forced-preview process to check with you that the correct intended recipients are properly listed in the 'Recipients' field.

Does that help make things clearer?

I very much suspect that if you ensure that the people that you're wanting to send PM's to are correctly listed in the 'Recipients' field (third snapshot example) by using the 'Add' button after manually typing their names, and then selecting the 'Submit' button, that your missing-PM issues will go away...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Bouleversee
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218474

Postby Bouleversee » April 30th, 2019, 2:54 pm

Thanks, I'll try that. Perhaps on previous occasions when I typed the recipient's name in the box but didn't add, I noticed the preview requirement so didn't lose the message then. It seems rather an unnecessarily elaborate procedure, though. Why would one type in a name that didn't exist? Or is it to draw attention to typos? It is easy to lose a message without noticing the preview requirement.

Is there any way of retrieving a lost message? Couldn't it go into drafts, for instance?

PinkDalek
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218475

Postby PinkDalek » April 30th, 2019, 3:19 pm

Bouleversee wrote:Thanks, I'll try that. Perhaps on previous occasions when I typed the recipient's name in the box but didn't add, ...


It might be simpler for you to add the recipient's name to your "Friends" ucp.php?i=182. You can add a friend by clicking in the right place on their Viewing profile (mine looks like this memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=259).

Once there it is easy to select them from the list to the left, which would be here ucp.php?i=177.

Bouleversee
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218478

Postby Bouleversee » April 30th, 2019, 3:35 pm

Many thanks, PD. Will do that.

Itsallaguess
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Re: Preview for PMs

#218488

Postby Itsallaguess » April 30th, 2019, 4:30 pm

Bouleversee wrote:
It seems rather an unnecessarily elaborate procedure, though.

Why would one type in a name that didn't exist? Or is it to draw attention to typos? It is easy to lose a message without noticing the preview requirement.


I think it's one of those situations where the software authors thought that asking users to trawl through lists of users to select a valid one to send a PM to would be overly laborious in itself, so they've come up with a system where you can shortcut that process to some extent by manually typing the user-name, but the bottom line is that at some point, that user-name requires verifying as a valid one if you expect the PM to actually get to the user, and you may have either made a typo, or the user simply might not exist at all, so it's just the authors of the board-software trying to come up with a routine to help validate that process.

I do agree that this process then introduces an opportunity for you to still lose the message anyway, if you don't notice the 'forced-preview', but if you ensure that your recipient is actually listed in the 'Recipients:' field before sending it, that should avoid this particular opportunity to lose a PM in the future, hopefully.

Bouleversee wrote:
Is there any way of retrieving a lost message? Couldn't it go into drafts, for instance?


I don't think there is. I agree that it's a shame the authors couldn't come up with a method of leaving unsent PM's in a DRAFT folder or similar, and that would also be handy for other normal posts that have been written up but that perhaps might fall foul of the 'someone else has posted whilst you've been compiling your post' issue, but I doubt things are likely to change in the short-term in those areas, so I think we're all just going to have to make sure we're aware of the potential for issues in these areas, and try to catch them if they do occur.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

bruncher
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Re: Preview for PMs

#238500

Postby bruncher » July 22nd, 2019, 7:47 pm

I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread, but I have sent a reply to a PM today. It seems to have been accepted as a submission, but it sitting in my outbox. I tried composing a new message instead of replying, but that too is now sat in the outbox.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Itsallaguess
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Re: Preview for PMs

#238503

Postby Itsallaguess » July 22nd, 2019, 7:51 pm

bruncher wrote:
I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread, but I have sent a reply to a PM today. It seems to have been accepted as a submission, but it sitting in my outbox. I tried composing a new message instead of replying, but that too is now sat in the outbox.

Any suggestions appreciated.


PM's will sit in your 'Outbox' until they are picked up by the recipients.

What you've done is fine - just wait for them to read it.

If you've currently got the same message (more or less) sat in your 'Outbox' twice, then it's safe to delete one of them.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


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