Notification subscriber config section

[Peter Suter]

Trac already has a few notification config options to control default subscriptions:

• always_notify_updater
• always_notify_reporter
• always_notify_owner
• never_notify_self (soon?)

But we don't want always_notify_close_reporter_except_when_reporter_closed_the_ticket. :)

The new INotificationSubscriber makes it easy to add new such rules, but if we provide more implementations we may actually need more config options. Also there could now be different message formats, distribution transports, default subscription priorities (and required authentication and later maybe permissions and more).

We could instead try to add a [notification-subscriber] section:

[notification-subscriber]
always_notify_updater=TicketUpdaterSubscriber
always_notify_updater.default=email, 100, always, text/plain
always_notify_reporter=TicketReportedSubscriber
always_notify_reporter.default=email, 100, always, text/plain
always_notify_owner=TicketOwnerSubscriber
always_notify_owner.default=email, 100, always, text/plain

always_notify_owner.requires_authentication=True
always_notify_owner.permission=CUSTOM_CONFIG_NOTIFY_OWNER_PERMISSION
...

(Or some equivalent notation.)

[Peter Suter]

Proposed changes in psuter.hg@T11875-notification-subrscriber-config-section.

A preliminary steps changes the interface INotificationSubscriber so default_subscriptions() also yields format (e.g. 'text/plain').

A new parse_subscriber_config() function (similar to parse_workflow_config()​) parses [notification-subscriber]. The result is cached in the NotificationSystem, and used to yield default subscriptions.

An upgrade step converts the old settings:

[notification]
always_notify_owner = true
always_notify_reporter = true
always_notify_updater = false

Creating a new section:

[notification-subscriber]
always_notify_cc = CarbonCopySubscriber
always_notify_owner = TicketOwnerSubscriber
always_notify_reporter = TicketReporterSubscriber

always_notify_updater = true would add two more lines:

always_notify_updater = TicketUpdaterSubscriber
always_notify_previous_updater= TicketPreviousUpdatersSubscriber

For a future never_notify_self (#2247) one could instead append:

never_notify_self = TicketUpdaterSubscriber
never_notify_self.adverb = never

Distributor, priority and format could also be changed:

always_notify_cc_via_xmpp = CarbonCopySubscriber
always_notify_cc_via_xmpp.distributor = xmpp
always_notify_cc_via_xmpp.priority = 200
always_notify_cc_via_xmpp.format = compact

(never_notify_self might benefit from a .priority = 99.)

[Peter Suter]

Committed preliminary refactoring in [13552]: INotificationSubscriber.default_subscriptions() now includes the format (so it can easily be configured in this proposed [notification-subscriber] section.)

[Peter Suter]

Replying to jomae in #11934:

2. Unlike options in trac.ini, no way to known easily subscriber class's name. If the section is introduced, I think we should provide subscribers wiki page like TracIni and/or subscribers manager panel in admin page.

Good idea. Maybe TracIni#notification-subscriber-section could use a [[SubscriberList]] macro?

[Jun Omae]

Replying to psuter:

Good idea. Maybe TracIni#notification-subscriber-section could use a [[SubscriberList]] macro?

Yeah. Sounds good.

[Peter Suter]

Updated in changeset:T11875-notification-subrscriber-config-section-2/psuter.hg with a [[SubscriberList]] macro.

[Peter Suter]

Looks like a bunch of tests need an update.

[Peter Suter]

In log:psuter.hg@T11875_notification_subscriber_config_section_3:

• Updated tests
• Default settings: I assume for new environments [notification-subscriber] should have defaults equivalent to the previous [notification] always_notify_* defaults, mirroring the upgrade step. So far the only ConfigSection with default values seem to be [ticket-workflow] (which has a custom IEnvironmentSetupParticipant​) and [repositories] (which has special handling in trac-admin initenv​).
• Invalidate cache: If the parsed subscriber configuration is cached, that cache must be invalidated, or configuration changes have no effect.

[Peter Suter]

Committed in [13933].

TracNotification may need an updated wiki:1.1/TracNotification now.

By the way, is there a guideline for using trac.util.lazy or trac.cache.cached?

[Peter Suter]

I added a short section in wiki:1.1/TracNotification@2. Feel free to improve it.

[Jun Omae]

AlwaysEmailSubscriber cannot be configured using [notification-subscribers] section. I've filed in #12036.

[Ryan J Ollos]

Unless I'm missing something, #2247 was implemented in this ticket. I've closed that ticket as a duplicate. We now have a Never Notify: I Update a Ticket preference, which I've been using for some time to avoid receiving notifications when I create or update a ticket.

[skrattaren@…]

Doesn't this feature seem underdocumented for you, guys? I'm trying to figure how to get from Trac 1.2 the same behaviour as from 1.0 with ​NeverNotifyUpdaterPlugin. I've dug into sources and still all I comprehend is a vague idea of "I probably have to implement Subscriber plugin to unsubscribe ticket updater". "Never Notify: I Update a Ticket preference" is nice, but asking all users to tinker with notification preferences manually instead of setting sensible defaults in trac.ini is suboptimal, don't you think? TracNotification includes [notification-subscribers] section twice, but it really does not make any clearer how to send notifications, let's say, for owner, reporter and all the updaters except current one.

[Peter Suter]

Some more documentation has been added in TracNotification@92.

Please ask further questions on the MailingList, thanks.