Notifications Stream for Beta Testers!

Updates Announcements
#1

Hi everyone!

I’m here to introduce a new feature that we’ve been working on called the notifications stream and we’re inviting beta testers to try it out before we release it to the general public! (See this thread if you want to become a beta tester.) Specifically, we’re inviting desktop users and Android users to test this feature out first. (iOS users, we haven’t forgotten about you, and the release to the general public will include iOS as well!)

Notifications what?
The vision is that the notifications stream will be the one stop shop in our mobile apps and on our website for all the ROBLOX notifications that relate to you. For example, someone sent you a friend request. Someone commented on a T-Shirt you made. Someone invited you to edit together in TeamCreate. These are all worthy contenders for notifications that belong in the stream. You should be able to open up your ROBLOX app and see all these notifications in one place.

<img src=’/uploads/default/original/3X/1/f/1f60a7010ac2e0b8d5c85088ba541843831096ab.png’>

Where can I find the notifications stream?
You should see a new icon in the top right hand corner of the ROBLOX apps and the ROBLOX website. That way, it’s always accessible. Any time you receive a new notification, you should see a red badge pop up over the notifications stream icon.

How is this different from push notifications?
While push notifications and the notifications stream both alert you in real-time, push notifications are super useful for alerting you when you’re not currently on ROBLOX. The notifications stream, on the other hand, is more like a log of all notifications related to you, and lives exclusively within the ROBLOX app / on the ROBLOX website. So you’ll only see the notifications stream when you’re using ROBLOX.

What type of notifications will be available?
We’re releasing with just two types – when you receive a friend request and when your friend request has been accepted – but have more types planned. Future notifications include: when you receive a PM, when you’re invited to a VIP server, when someone invites you to edit together in Studio, when someone follows you.

Can we choose what notifications we want to see in the stream?
Mostly yes. There will be a few notifications that we’d like to keep in the stream for all users so that your stream won’t always be empty (still experimenting with this). However, we will leave it up to you guys for most notification types. Just go to the Notifications settings under the Privacy tab in the Settings page. Note – you can configure your notifications stream independently of your push notifications.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions about this exciting new feature ~

45 Likes
Add 'Ignore all' to notifications
#2
#3

I definitely like this. I think it’d be great if when this is publicly released, the notification counters for PMs and Friend Requests went away and were handled through the notification stream. It’d also be neat if the website chat toggle was moved up to a button like that instead of being overly-big and in-the-way as it is now.

Edit: I have a question though. How does this handle (or not) scrolling? I don’t see a scrollbar in the OP screenshot.

Edit2: Also, when I open the stream, are all notifications dismissed, or only the ones I can see without scrolling?

6 Likes
#4

I feel like we should be able to disable friend request notifications… Most of the time, I get at least 15 a day, and for top devs they can get nearly 100s a day, and this can be extremely annoying for those people.

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#5

Yes please.

1 Like
#6

Regarding notification counters for PMs and Friend Requests, we’ll take away the red badge at the top left corner. Haven’t decided if we’re removing the blue notification counters yet.

Regarding scrolling – there will be a scrollbar when you have enough notifications.

Regarding notifications being dismissed – the stream is more like a log that collects all your notifications in one place. We won’t remove any notifications unless it’s no longer true. For example, you receive a notification that someone commented on your T-Shirt, but then they deleted that comment. In that case, we would revoke the initial comment notification. However, we’ll only keep up to 30 days (I think? I might need to double check) of your notifications.

Edit: if your question about notifications being dismissed is about whether the red badge goes away, yes, the red badge will go away / all your notifications in the stream will be marked as read whenever you open the stream.

3 Likes
#7

I thought I was on the beta list, since I’ve gotten the past view beta releases but apparently not for this one.

1 Like
#8

One thing we’re doing to respond to that is to stack all notifications of the same type together. That way, it doesn’t completely fill up your stream. But yes, definitely thinking about making another type mandatory. Maybe have friend requests enabled by default, but allow users to turn them off too.

2 Likes
#9

Are you looking at the website or the Android app?

1 Like
#10

Thanks! Your assumption in the edit is correct. It wouldn’t be very fun if I open the stream and then lose my place. I could accidentally close the stream by misclicking outside of the popup, or click one of the links in the notification list and then leave the page, closing the stream. If this happened I’d have to scroll through potentially tons of notifications, painfully re-reading all of them, to find where I last was.

I think it’d be better to mark them as read (decrement the red counter) when they’re visible as opposed to all at once when the stream is opened. IM clients like Skype and Discord work like this, and I appreciate that behavior. This could introduce issues where you couldn’t find where notifications were coming from though, so it’d be great to open the list at the first unread notification and/or add a “mark all read” button in the header between “Notifications” and “Settings”.

1 Like
#11

Whoops, was too fast to say anything. I checked it on Safari on my iPhone but didn’t on my computer. I have the notification feed there.

2 Likes
#12

It’d nice if we could mouse over a ‘Trade’ notification and have a quick snapshot of what they’re offering, and deny/accept it right there!

2 Likes
#13

Ah, I see what you mean now. We do have a feature built in similar-ish to this. If you click on the notification, the card should turn gray (from white), marking it as read/interacted with. Otherwise, if you just open the stream without clicking on it, we mark it as ‘seen’ as opposed to ‘read/interacted with’ and the card remains white. (There is a bug with this that we’re fixing right now.) We might add a button directly in the card to mark it as ‘read/interacted with’.

4 Likes
#14

I don’t think I could be bothered to click “mark as read” just to change the color of every individual notification I view, so all of them would just remain “unread”. On the other hand, I might use a “dismiss” button that permanently removes the notification from the stream. I’d still like the read/unread color though in the event I have notifications I don’t want to dismiss just yet-- automatically marking them as read when interacted with sounds useful as it is.

1 Like
#15

A dismiss button on hover is planned!

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#16

I think this is the time for 'My Feed" on the homepage to be destroyed and then have those options merged into the stream. This would be especially useful for group shouts.

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#17

Ooh, good idea. Now to add it to the growing to-do list ~

5 Likes
#18

Also could you enable it for tablets? My iPad seems to haves enough room on it to work, or is there something that isn’t touch friendly yet?

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#19

Sorry, no iOS devices for the beta test. The iOS apps aren’t ready yet, unfortunately, since we’re still squashing some bugs.

1 Like
#20

Would it work on an Android tablet on the web? I was talking about using the website via my iPad, not the app.

1 Like