Instant Private Messages with jQuery growl

As a n00b to "Growl", how would you test this? Is just activating the module enough or does there need to be something installed/configured on the site/PC too?

hm.. not seeing anything - no dialogue boxes, updates etc and I did clear my cache.

I am using privatemsg 1.x-dev.

ok. Just to make you aware, the 2.x-dev branch name is misleading - its the same as 1.0-rc2 and way older than the 1.x-dev branch which was had significant api changes (and had many new features added and bugs fixed).

Saying that, looking at the come, you do not seem to use any api functions, so I have no idea why it is broken.

Just a note - I am looking into why it does not work, and its not due to api changes. the problem is the various places in pmgrowl.js where the url is given as /messages/% (not the trail at the start) and I am testing this on a localhost where the site url is like http://localhost/testsite/ but the above code will go to localhost only.

The drupal answer is to use Drupal.settings.basePath to get the correct basepath.

updated pmgrowl attached that should work for all sites.

The body however should be clipped - if its a long message - it can extend to go off the page.

If this module was improved further - things I would like to see:

1. default checking time to be longer. maybe 30 seconds and potentially configurable. Any idea where to set this?
2. Message body clipping as said.
3. An option to instead of showing all the messages, to show just a "you have new messages" notification instead of trying to turn it into instant messaging.
4. A setting to allow each user to turn this off on an individual basis.
5. Not sure this is possible, but there may be tricks - some sort of persistence. Closing a message should not mean that it pops up again after you visit a new page. That is ok for one or two notifications, but if there are like 10 new messages... annoying would be the least of it.

Another slight modification - moved the is_new check into the query - I am sure this is much lighter than doing a check for every row in a loop.

As to number 5 is there a simple way to write to/read from a cookie? I know that there is a jquery plugin for that, but this is supposed to be something quick and simple...

A theme problem too: "View all" looks like view al to me. No idea if the last l is cut off somehow or hidden due to theming...

and this one truncates the body to 300 characters.

A theme problem too: "View all" looks like view al to me. No idea if the last l is cut off somehow or hidden due to theming...

Its actually not just that - the last letter on every line is slightly clipped.

Small module but make the difference !

Firefox 3.5b4 - so the bug could be in there (I also tried using cookies in the javascript code [for a different featureset - just an announcement that the user has new messages, and to only show that announcement if the value of new messages is different in the cookie than what the value from the database] and that works well on other tested browsers, not 3.5beta - where instead of overwriting an existing one, it adds a new cookie.)

@dave ingram - in your version, can you also make sure you use the change of menu location? just having messages/json does not seem a good idea. in the version I uploaded, I changed it to pmgrowl_json. (and also the change to "read privatemsg" instead of "access content" as the access check)

I am using the plugin for a different purpose - to notify of new messages only and I ahve modified the code to be as follows:

pmgrowl.module, I modified the pmgrowl_json function to be:

function pmgrowl_json() {
  $data = privatemsg_unread_count();
  drupal_json($data);
}

and then the pmgrowl.js is

$(document).ready(function() {

  // Function borrowed from http://www.quirksmode.org/js/cookies.html
  function readCookie() {
    var nameEQ = "privatemsg_unread_messages=";
    var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
    for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
      var c = ca[i];
      while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length);
      if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length,c.length);
    }
    return null;
  }

  var pmGrowlCheckNew = function() {
    $.getJSON(Drupal.settings.basePath + 'messages/pmgrowl_json', function(data) {
      var saved = readCookie();
      if ((data != saved) && (data > 0) && (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Firefox/3.5b4') ==-1)) {
        $.jGrowl('You have <a href="' + Drupal.settings.basePath + 'messages">' + data + ' unread message(s)</a>.', { sticky: true, header: 'Unread Messages' });
        document.cookie =  'privatemsg_unread_messages=' + data + '; path=/;';
      }
    });
  }

  pmGrowlCheckNew();
  var messageTimer = setInterval(pmGrowlCheckNew, 60000);
});

Note that the bit (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Firefox/3.5b4') ==-1) means that the notifications will not work on firefox 3.5beta4 - the cookie handling there is broken and new cookies do not seem to overwrite old ones

(I assume the 60000 number makes the script check every 60 seconds?).

Since the body can be trimmed for large messages, its probably not a good idea to mark as read when closing a notification - instead maybe a separate mark as read button?

Very good job Dave. i think it was the right more.