Maybe this could be done by something else besides the core LW team, but I’d like to have an Android app for LW and EA Forum, that would give me periodic notifications for my inbox, posts/authors/threads I subscribe to, karma changes, maybe new high-karma posts and comments, so I don’t have to constantly refresh many different pages on LW/GW/EAF to keep up with what’s going on. Having to do that is really a pain when you’re trying to use forum participation as a research strategy
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I’ve been thinking about writing this app myself, but thought I’d ask first to see if anyone else wants to do it.
I added web push notifications to GreaterWrong, you can activate them on your inbox page. If your browser and device have the proper support, they should show up even when you don’t have a GreaterWrong tab open.
This is pretty experimental, let me know how it works for you.
We’ve been working on a revamp of the notification system, which is at least related to this. Would email notifications with a daily digest (and settings to be informed of certain events individually and immediately) be sufficient for a lot of these, or is there something specific about the push-notifications from the app that would help with this?
I’ve been thinking about an app for a while. For notifications, I actually think just making LW a full progressive web app and using the notifications API of mobile browsers seems like the best choice to me, but not confident. I don’t think anyone on the team has super much experience with native App development, so building a full native app would definitely be at least a bit of a learning effort.
Would email notifications with a daily digest (and settings to be informed of certain events individually and immediately) be sufficient for a lot of these, or is there something specific about the push-notifications from the app that would help with this?
Seems like app notifications could be much more user-friendly. I wouldn’t need to open up the email, then press again to open up the browser, then close the browser tab, delete the email. Also, the app notification can directly show me the most important information so I can decide whether or not look further, whereas I’ll probably have to open the email to see that. Also with emails you’d have to deal with or worry about spam filters, rate limiters, delivery problems, etc.
For notifications, I actually think just making LW a full progressive web app and using the notifications API of mobile browsers seems like the best choice to me, but not confident.
I’m not familiar with PWA, but if it works it may be a good alternative to native apps.
Agree that they have advantages. I personally much prefer email notifications, because it allows me to centralize all my notification systems, and because I generally prefer to process things in batches, but I can see the case for app notifications.
I will look into this more. Will let you know what I find.
Maybe this could be done by something else besides the core LW team, but I’d like to have an Android app for LW and EA Forum, that would give me periodic notifications for my inbox, posts/authors/threads I subscribe to, karma changes, maybe new high-karma posts and comments, so I don’t have to constantly refresh many different pages on LW/GW/EAF to keep up with what’s going on. Having to do that is really a pain when you’re trying to use forum participation as a research strategy .
I’ve been thinking about writing this app myself, but thought I’d ask first to see if anyone else wants to do it.
I added web push notifications to GreaterWrong, you can activate them on your inbox page. If your browser and device have the proper support, they should show up even when you don’t have a GreaterWrong tab open.
This is pretty experimental, let me know how it works for you.
Just got my first notification on Android Firefox. Thanks!
Nice, I activated them and if it overall seems good, we will do the same for LessWrong.
We’ve been working on a revamp of the notification system, which is at least related to this. Would email notifications with a daily digest (and settings to be informed of certain events individually and immediately) be sufficient for a lot of these, or is there something specific about the push-notifications from the app that would help with this?
I’ve been thinking about an app for a while. For notifications, I actually think just making LW a full progressive web app and using the notifications API of mobile browsers seems like the best choice to me, but not confident. I don’t think anyone on the team has super much experience with native App development, so building a full native app would definitely be at least a bit of a learning effort.
The ability to get notified, in any way, about new comments in specific threads/posts would be very helpful for me!
Seems like app notifications could be much more user-friendly. I wouldn’t need to open up the email, then press again to open up the browser, then close the browser tab, delete the email. Also, the app notification can directly show me the most important information so I can decide whether or not look further, whereas I’ll probably have to open the email to see that. Also with emails you’d have to deal with or worry about spam filters, rate limiters, delivery problems, etc.
I’m not familiar with PWA, but if it works it may be a good alternative to native apps.
Agree that they have advantages. I personally much prefer email notifications, because it allows me to centralize all my notification systems, and because I generally prefer to process things in batches, but I can see the case for app notifications.
I will look into this more. Will let you know what I find.