Messaging & Notifications 4.x: Documenting new features

New UI options for subscribe /unsubscribe links not to require a confirmation form. Links have signatures to prevent CSRF.

Custom subscriptions: Improved and moved into Notifications package. More stable fixed many UI bugs.
Also, it is possible to create custom subscriptions for specific event types, like 'Node updates' or 'Node comments' only.

Templates can now be defined per event / content type allowing much more granularity. I.e. You can disable notfications for page comments but enable them for Story comments.(Included Module: Content type extension)
There's also a test tool to see which template will be used and how it will look for a specific node event, ike a blog update or a story comment. (Included Module: Notifications Tools)

Notifications for anonymous users. Anonymous users can now subscribe entering an email address or a phone number for SMS.
They can also get an email with a (signed) link to edit, ancel or administer their subscriptions to the site.
This part needs some polishing yet (Included module: Notifications Anonymous)

Reworked message templates and filtering:
- Messages can be defined per language, so the translation UI is already there.
- Messaging module comes now with its own filters, doesn't need Input formats anymore (though they can be used)
- The template administration page has got some love. Better help texts, navigation, templates are
- Formats can be defined for each template text, which should allow better formatting and faster processing. Some filters have been optimized for performance too.
Note: This is not yet in beta1, but in the -dev version. Will be in next beta.

Reworked Messaging filters and formats:
- Streamlined settings and filtering process so they are easier to understand. Filters get their own settings page.
- For each send method you can set up both a 'Filter format' (Input format) and a 'Final filter' (Messaging filter)
- Settings page needs 'administer filters' permission so it is simpler and has all options (if you can access to it)
- Better help texts which explain how text is filtered step by step.
- Messaging filters not available anymore as standard filters for input formats.

Revamped Notifications admin pages (After Beta 2)
- Moved tabs around for the UI to be cleaner and more functional, hiding 'dangerous' queue options on last tab
- Adding help texts everywhere to explain basic concepts: Subscriptons, Notifications, Queue, Events, etc...
- Added global Subscription types options. These may replace global content type options and UI options (?)

Revamped Messaging admin & settings:
- Implemented real configurable queueing & loggging: queue and log option for each sending method
- Added some more options for queue processing (no cron, clean up...)
- Added queue status / operations pages for debugging and testing and manual queue process and clean up

@twooten,

For using signed links, you need to produce the links on the fly with some php. Signatures have a timestamp so they're only valid for a while (1 week). Take a look at notifications_subscription_get_link() and notifications_build_link()...

About new features in Beta 3:
- Added new unsubscribe page for registered and anonymous users
- Implemented workflow to get an email with global unsubscribe link

Added real Queueing that supports multi-threaded workers:
- For Messaging, this is a new module: Messaging Queue, it can be actually used with drush cron tasks
- For Notifications, there's Notifications_Queue class that can be overridden (just the option of implementing it is there)
See also #797828: Support for high performance queue processing: improving queue API

Improved Messaging settings:
- Better method settings overview. New 'enable/disable' checkbox.
- New shared mail settings, for all mail sendingmethods
- Added Test feature into the main module (it was in messaging_debug)