Big upgrade: Comments just got a whole lot better

Would also like this feature.

AND when they are used as buttons in a table - how does us/the client know which record it is in relation to - we lose sight of which record it applies to once the comments side panel is open.

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Email notifications are coming according to this video:
https://youtu.be/v6daWl3vHhU?si=YYhizkuLgfHitQgq&t=88

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We would like verification Badges so our users get verified

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“Can we modify this section? I understand it currently says, ‘Settings below will apply to all comment lists enabled in this application,’ but I’d like the ability to customize the headings, placeholders, and button labels. I plan to use this feature both for reply messages between patients and doctors, as well as for blog comments.”

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As shown below this use case still does not work after the update so nothing has really changed except aesthetics? @Jjenglert This is pretty stock standard for client portals so how will Softr handle B2B Many-Many and B2B one-to-Many use cases? And when will Replies to comments be coming?

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Hi @FPX

You say “this is pretty standard for client portals” but we haven’t heard this feedback from anyone else, nor have I ran into these problems myself when building portals with these comments. The current functionality for comments covers most (if not all) of our core use cases (client portals being the main one) and is working well across the board for our community.

So either there is some confusion about what our comments can or cannot do, or you might need functionality very specific to your marketplace use case and may need to look at alternatives to solve.

Feel free to DM the specifics of your use case if you think I am mistaken and I’ll review again along with other team members to ensure we’re not missing anything from our side. Thanks,

@kahtechn Do you mean to have different copy depending on the record type?

Could you share an example how you’d like them to be different?

Loving the comments functionality. having it assigned to a record works really well for our use. well done SOFTR!

#lovingtheplatform

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Thanks @Ash !!!

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Hi all!

First of all, the new comment section is really, really helpful for our community platform. Thanks!

I was under the impression that people were not using our new comments section, but apparently you can’t see how many comments are placed when you have the comments installed behind a button. In our case we use a list to create a forum style look, but it looks like nothings happening on the platform because there’s no comments counter. Are you working on improvements on this? I’ve attached two mockups of what I would think would really help.

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Just bumping this- I agree and also need this. We have a bunch of Airtable automations which currently post “bot” updates to our client portal in the form of comments. This is core to our workflow and customer experience. The old comment block is still running but if this goes away we’re in big trouble (development time and $ wasted, lost functionality with no replacement)

I also prefer to keep all my data in my database rather than have some of it silo’d to Softr. The information from our client comments needs to be referenced in several places across our internal Airtable and we’ll need access to it in perpetuity.

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We are working on adding a notifications system for our new built in comments to make it easier to alert users when there are comments that are unseen.

@mcschaefer I understand where you’re coming from. This feature is very new, and can’t support that integration yet. However, we do plan to open up the comments, and provide endpoints for it in the future so you can continue to trigger automations based on new comments. Until that comes, I’d suggest using our old comments block.

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Hi, are you considering to have the old comments block as a seperate feature? I cannot see it anymore. It is not ideal in our case to have the data hidden and only shown natively.

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Thanks for the update regarding notifications. Do you have a rough timeline for implementation?

Thanks :slight_smile:

@Zorro, it seems like the old comment block got hidden on newly created apps by accident. We’ll fix that ASAP.

@mcschaefer @jkasman we don’t plan on deprecating old comment block anytime soon, and we’ll definitely give you plenty heads up on changes that could impact your existing usage.

With that said, we currently don’t have plan on making new Comments block sync with external data source like we used to.

Allow me to elaborate:

  • In general, comment data are different from regular data you have in your database. They have standardized structure and relations with users + records they’re attached to. And we really haven’t seen any exceptions in any software.
  • We will offer all the comment related-features: notification, admin UI for deleting comments, and automations (including triggers to build custom workflows) natively in Softr, so you should be able to achieve everything you want :slight_smile:
  • :point_up_2: To offer those features to the same level of experience as you’d expect from any SaaS product, we need to store those data natively. Otherwise many things are simply impossible. For example: We will likely offer nested/threaded replies at one point, and that require a more advanced data structure + migration under the hood. We don’t think you or other users should worry about how to rebuild your database to enjoy that :slight_smile:
  • The old comment block is actually very limited in features. You can rather easily replicate a similar experience using just Form + List. So that’ll always be an option.
  • Even though the comment data is in Softr (just like some of your user data are), that data is still owned by you. And we can offer exporting to CSV feature in case you ever need the data outside of Softr

Once we offer all the comment-related features natively, we know many will likely want to migrate existing comment data to the new system. We will find a way to support one-time importing (at least what’s technically possible) so it doesn’t erase all your existing data.

TL;DR: You don’t need to worry about old comment block deprecating, and many good comment related features are coming soon!

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Email notifications will be coming probably next week (if all testing goes well)!

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I can already see it in my app :eyes:

Would be nice to have the functionality to set the default value for the opt in notifications feature. Having it set to disabled by default is not ideal for our product :sweat_smile:

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Whoaaaaa I can see it now too :raised_hands: :slightly_smiling_face:

and +1 re your request - being disabled by default is not ideal - our listings are constantly changing so we’d have to keep going in and enabling them all.

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This is great! My clients are happy to hear this

Re. to notifications enabled by default @Grainne & @Zorro

We do this on purpose to ensure all users of your app do not get notifications for all comments made everywhere. That could get annoying.

When a user responds to a comment or adds a comment, notifications for that thread should turn on for them automatically.

Beyond that, mentioning functionality will come in a couple of weeks, and that will include notifications for whenever a user is mentioned.

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