User Alert

This module provides a simple way to show a short-term urgent message on the website. Think of CNN Breaking News, when they show a short message the top of the site (or the 'Welcome!' style messages at StackExchange websites). This module works for both anonymous and authenticated users by using a cookie, and recording actions in the database. This solves the need to show messages independent of the users authenticated status.

With User Alerts, you can:

• Alert users about breaking news, or a special same-day sale for ecommerce
• Set expiration timers for alerts (1 hour, 3 hours, Never, etc) (Drupal 6 Only, D7 requires Scheduler)
• Override display with TPL and CSS

How to use this module:

1. Enable User Alerts
2. Set the appropriate permissions for selected roles
3. Set the User Alert block in the appropriate region of your theme.
4. Create a user alert node.

You can also set some global settings for alerts at admin/settings/user-alert.

Drupal 7 Version

A Drupal 7 version has begun. It is still in the early stages. I could use some assistance on the javascript/caching side of things (so alerts can still be served when a page is statically cached).

The first big change is the ability to expire nodes now relies on the excellent Scheduler module to 'set and forget' alerts at your discretion.

In conjunction with using Scheduler, unpublished alert nodes are removed from the system automatically. This is to prevent an old alert being seen by a user (if the cookie was cleared or expired, for example) if a node was republished accidentally.

In the meantime, 6.x updates will be minimal as I am focused on 7.x development minded projects. I welcome patches and also co-maintainers.

Known Issues

• IE7 shows empty alert area
• Fade in / fade out animations not consistent in some browsers

7.x-2.x

Please note that this is a branch of 7.x-1.x-dev and identical at the moment. I plan on rewriting the module to make alerts entities instead of nodes.

This module was sponsored by the US Travel Association and developed by Inclind. We are available for custom work on this module should you need specific implementation outside of contrib.

Downloads