Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

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SkyFrontier
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Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

Does anyone know of a way to monitor the forums using Thunderbird?
I used to have a 3rd party software for this, plus an XY script (which I abandoned due to XY not allowing minimization when a script is running). But portability issues, time constraints and Thunderbird facilities lead me to think that there may be an answer to this.

TIA.
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bdeshi
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by bdeshi »

Well, TB is a mail client.
So, you can subscribe (subscribe button at the bottom of page) to each subforum and get emails when they're updated :whistle:
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SkyFrontier
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

Will try it now, Sammay.
Thanks for the tip!

EDIT: Hmmmm... I'll try to do some filtering so notifications fall off of the main box. I was thinking on a light way by means of a RSS feed, for instance... It's a way, anyway. Tricky but may work. Thanks.
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bdeshi
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by bdeshi »

You might drown in emails, at the rate of updates around here! :P
Edit: oh, saw the edit just now.
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avsfan
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by avsfan »

Unfortunately, the email notifications are just that -- a notification that a message was posted. The message itself isn't sent, so you still need to log in to the forum to see what was posted.

(unless there's a setting I missed, which is certainly possible).

SkyFrontier
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

To get notification on desktop Thunderbird requires the mail from XY to enter the main inbox, not a redirected folder.
Also it seems that forum notifications only occur on new threads, not for replies.
Any other ideas?
AHK-ers, can this be done using your language?

Thanks, guys.
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bdeshi
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by bdeshi »

Now that you mention it, the whole job might be done in AHK, eliminating TB and email subscriptions altogether...
The general idea is to check the "unread posts" page from time to time and notify when something changes.
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SkyFrontier
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

The big idea would be getting notification on desktop, regardless it being "unread" or not (in the sense that "unread" is a feature available for logged users!).
A small popped window notification should optionally:
-stay there until clicked;
-dismiss after X seconds (up to several hours, as sometimes one must leave the machine more than 1 hour TB max dismiss time).

If possible, a list of other forums addresses (non-xy.com) could be parsed for monitoring - it would be the same job but with a wider scope.
Then you can sell it on market and make some money, too!, why not?! :biggrin:

I bet you meant
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/search.php ... ive_topics
as "unread posts", right?
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binocular222
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by binocular222 »

why not http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/search.php ... ive_topics ?
About this approach: "donwload that webpage to a temp.folder then compare after each xx minute" It's simple enough for any programming language. It's just string comparision, even XYS can. Or are you thinking of something else?
I'm a casual coder using AHK language. All of my xys scripts:
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 243#p82488

SkyFrontier
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

It's a tad more complicated as each user view triggers a page change, binocular. My script required several tweaks until it was accurate enough to be of any use.
But Sammay may have a more efficient method which can intercept changes on non-xy forums too. High hopes. Any way, monitoring XY alone would help me saving unnecessary checks as well as touchpad journeys.
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binocular222
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by binocular222 »

It's COM Object in AHK: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/5 ... ntry358974

Code: Select all

;// download the webpage source
URLDownloadToFile, http://www.google.com, Google_HTML
FileRead, html, Google_HTML
FileDelete, Google_HTML

;// write the Google Source to an HTMLfile
document := ComObjCreate("HTMLfile")
document.write(html)

;// loop through all the links
links := document.links
while (A_Index<=links.length, i:=A_Index-1)
   list .= i ") " links[i].innerText "`nURL: " links[i].href "`n`n"
Basically, download http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/search.php ... ive_topics, then loop through all links, then do something if the link match a specific thread you are watching. Interesting but I'm on business trip, so no time to code at the moment.
I'm a casual coder using AHK language. All of my xys scripts:
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 243#p82488

bdeshi
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by bdeshi »

Thanks, b222!
@sf, I got back my connection, so made+tested an ahk script. Shows a tray notification on "active topics" update.
If you haven't found another solution, want it?
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SkyFrontier
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

Oh yes, please! :D
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bdeshi
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Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by bdeshi »

Here you go.
Very basic really. Just downloads the active topics page every minute (by default) and notifies if the last post time has changed after last check.
It will break if the target page's html doesn't have elements with expected class (specifically a topic list <ul> and at least one topic in <li>).
Theoretically it should work with other forums which use phpbb and have a similar active topics page...
Keep the ini file in the same directory as the script/exe. Doesn't matter if the location is write-protected.
Attachments
chkForumUpd.zip
Source+compiled script, option ini
(372.07 KiB) Downloaded 165 times
Last edited by bdeshi on 15 Jun 2014 19:43, edited 1 time in total.
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SkyFrontier
Posts: 2341
Joined: 04 Jan 2010 14:27
Location: Pasárgada (eu vou!)

Re: Thunderbird vs Forum Stalking

Post by SkyFrontier »

Attachment not included.
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