website feature request: reply to email = reply to thread

[shrimants]

pretty much says it all right in the title. It would require a fair bit of scripting and finagling with the site's mail servers, but i think it could be done. You immediately get notified of a thread post that you're subscribed to, you reply directly to the email, and it posts up for you.

On a side note, seems like the site only notifies once for a new post rather than immediately for all new posts after yours, and it keeps this behavior until you visit the site again. i get that its an anti-spam measure but is it possible to be notified by 1 email for every new post that happens after yours? that would be sweet.

 

[insyder]

I haven't viewed an email notification in a while so I don't know exactly what they look like. But if there's a link to the thread, whats the problem with opening the link and replying in the browser window that comes up?

 

[shrimants]

its not a problem at all, its just a matter of efficiency. its not a site bug, its a feature request that i think would be pretty handy. saves a bunch of clicks, especially on mobile. on browser it doesnt really save much time because opening the link and starting to type is trivial. on mobile you get into switching apps, trying to navigate around the forum with tiny little buttons, redirection, etc.

 

[insyder]

On mobile, it would be better if a real mobile theme or Tapatalk was used. However that issue has been addressed many times over the years with little interest from those that have the decision making power for that.

 

[shrimants]

does the forum need some specific toolkit or something installed to be tapatalk compatible? and is tapatalk just a general purpose forum app for all forums that support it? or is it like a forum specific thing? i never really understood that but a bunch of people who use forums all the time really advocate the app.

 

[Diezel]

its not a problem at all, its just a matter of efficiency. its not a site bug, its a feature request that i think would be pretty handy. saves a bunch of clicks, especially on mobile. on browser it doesnt really save much time because opening the link and starting to type is trivial. on mobile you get into switching apps, trying to navigate around the forum with tiny little buttons, redirection, etc.

I wouldn't be impossible. But it would be a major pain in the ass to implement.

 

[KennyMonster]

Would rather see the effort put into making a mobile friendly interface to the site, preferably through responsive HTML or a mobile only HTML view.

 

[shrimants]

yeah, i'd opt for a mobile specific site rather than responsive html. responsive is easy to implement in theory but really freaking annoying to get working right. with fresh mobile specific website you could probably start with a barebones version of the forum and add features slowly. It strikes me that the forum is vbulletin powered. isnt there some sort of provision for vbulletin for mobile nowadays? i mean its a pretty popular platform, you'd think they have some sort of mobile thing.

 

[tagraff]

This feature comes standard with many collaboration platforms. The intranet at work runs on Jive and the way OP described it is exactly how it works. I haven't checked it out but perhaps the latest version of our forum software has this feature?

 

[sckego]

There are mobile v bulletin options in the dropdown menu in the lower left corner of the page.

 

[JackTheTripper]

There are also security and spam problems that arise when you allow posts from email.

 

[Mr Pepsi]

Just image all the out of office reply posts.
Nice idea, but would not work in the real world.