Chrome Notifications for Beta Testers!

Updates Announcements
#1

Hi everyone!

I’m here to introduce a new push notifications system that we’re working on, and we’re inviting beta testers to try them out before we release them to the public! (See this thread if you want to become a beta tester.)

Why notifications?
On ROBLOX, there are so many events that our users care about, and we want to let you guys know when these events happen as soon as possible! For example, we could send you a notification when a friend accepts your friend request, when you receive a new PM, or when an item goes on sale.

What type of notifications will be available?
We have desktop Chrome push notifications available right now, and we are also working on Android and iOS push notifications for mobile devices. Specifically, we have notifications for:

  • When someone sends you a friend request
  • When someone accepts your friend request
  • When someone invites you to a party
  • When someone joins your party

We also have notifications for:

  • When someone sends you a chat message

However, there are some known issues with chat notifications, but we’re giving you guys the opportunity to opt in and try them out if you want.

We also have other notifications in the works, and feel free to make suggestions because we’re just getting started!

What are desktop Chrome push notifications?
Essentially, desktop push notifications are just like mobile push notifications, but on your computer. They will show up at the bottom right corner (if you’re using Windows) or the top right corner (if you’re using Mac OS) when an event that you want to be notified about happens.

When you enable Chrome push notifications for ROBLOX, you will be able to receive push notifications from ROBLOX even when your Chrome browser is closed. This also means that you will need to use Chrome to test out our new notification system. However, we are looking into expanding desktop push notifications to other browsers as well.


Here is an example of what they will look like.

Can we choose which notifications we want to see?
Yes! In the Privacy tab under My Settings, you’ll be able to choose which events you want to be notified by. However, we are still making adjustments to the system, so feel free to give us feedback.

How do I turn on desktop Chrome push notifications?
First, make sure you have the latest version of Chrome installed on your computer. Then, open up the ROBLOX website on Chrome and follow the steps below.

Click on the gear icon in the top bar to go to the Settings page.

Click on the Privacy tab in the Settings page.

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Click on the switch next to Desktop Push.

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You should see a popup that will walk you through how to turn on notifications for Chrome.

Afterwards, you should see that the switch next to Desktop Push is turned on, and you will be able to receive desktop push notifications!

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Please let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions, or questions about notifications!

18 Likes
#4

Could have this for group shouts too?

I’ve heard of people getting their accounts compromised because they downloaded a malicious chrome extension which promised to do something similar.

13 Likes
#5

Will notifications eventually come to Firefox as well (also has support for desktop notifications)?

Will PMs ever send out a notification (personally the notification I’d want to see the most)?

Which notifications will we not be able to turn off? Why? We can disable notifications as a whole, so I don’t see a reason to try to force some of them on.

1 Like
#6

Also, for developers, it may be cool to see stats like “Your game reached 1000 concurrent players!”, etc.

9 Likes
#7

We are looking at Firefox as a potential browser to move onto next.

We will have support for PMs soon!

Re: notification you can’t turn off, I’ve edited my post. You should be able to turn off all types of push notifications. My bad!

1 Like
#8

Any reason to restrict chrome mobile? Is it not the same APIs?

#9

I would totally use this if you guys support Safari notifications on OS X.

2 Likes
#10

It would also be neat if we could get notifications for these types of things on our phones using the ROBLOX app, but I recognize that’s a different team.

#11

We’re building native mobile push notifications for Android and iOS as well, so we haven’t decided to use Chrome mobile push.

1 Like
#12

Group shouts could get spammy, so we have to be really careful in how we tackle something like this. We’ll definitely consider this.

#13

Group shout notifying by default? Good lord that would be one of the most amazing things that ever happened. I’m sure the entire population of ROBLOX that is in groups, especially @Lilly_S and @Polymorphic, would love you for that. Every single person I know that’s in a large group has a group shout notifier plugin installed to notify them when shouts occur.

I wouldn’t necessarily want notifications for all of my groups’ shouts though, which is what I think you were getting at. What I would prefer most is if there was a button on each group’s page to enable/disable notifications for that group. That’s how the current shout notifier plugin by Merely works, and splendidly at that.

4 Likes
#14

Can we get notifications when a new item is released in the catalog?

#15

This is very useful, I like this so far. Will we be able to get notifications for other things such as when one of your friends join a game (like how Steam does) or as @TraeMan7 said, new catalog items? :slight_smile:

#16

[quote=“DataSynchronized, post:15, topic:24768, full:true”]…new catalog items? :slight_smile:
[/quote]
It would certainly give users who don’t use extensions a fighting chance at buying some limiteds.

1 Like
#17

Notifications is the only reason that I have Roblox+ right now. It will be awesome to have notifications supported.

How would it get spammy, assuming a group doesn’t do a lot of shouts? Maybe look into Roblox+'s implementation, it does something to prevent spam from shouts sent very close to each other.

#18

Aw, only notifications for features I don’t/barely use yet. :frowning:

I would use this if it would have some notifications related to groups, and if it would also allow me to blacklist/whitelist groups for which the notifications are shown.

For a small Group A I might want to allow it to send me notifications for when a member joins, or when someone changes the rank of a member, etc. For a bigger Group B I would only allow it to send notifications when someone does a shout. I would really like if we could have settings per group like that.

Please :pray:

#19

If noticifications for messages will be added, I have one big request:
Allow an option to auto-disable notifications (temporarily) while playing a game.

When I play PFB, I still get a lot of botted (group invite) messages, which would be annoying.
A secondary switch in the topright-corner-gear-menu-thing would be nice.
Just a quick “click gear, click ‘Disable Notifications’” and it’s done.
(button wouldn’t be visible if notifications are disabled in the Settings screen)

#20

I just get a message on Linux that I need the newest version of Chrome with everything greyed out with the menu there. I am on the beta list. Not tried it on my windows computer yet.

#21

We are looking to expand to other browsers like Firefox and Safari. We have the most users on Chrome, which is how we chose which browser to start with.

2 Likes
#22

Yes, definitely looking to do something for when a friend joins a game (like Steam), but also concerned with it being too spammy. I think play sessions are generally a lot shorter on ROBLOX than on Steam. However, whatever we choose to do, we’ll probably show you guys (beta testers) first and get some feedback on how it feels. :slight_smile: (As you can see, our main concern is that the notifications will be spammy and annoying instead of useful.)

Oh, and we’re definitely looking to do catalog-related notifications! The first wave released to the public might not include them, but we definitely want to do them!