Need a little more info about Nabble

[Tom Swan]

Hi. Discovered Nabble and need some more info on possibilities. Do I understand correctly that I can use Nabble to create a forum on my site (www.tomswan.com) and maybe a blog? Who is responsible for hosting, and what are the maintenance duties? I also need a way to collect email addresses from my visitors for signing up to a newsletter. Is that a Nabble type of application? I'm intrigued by a quick browse around the Nabble site, and will appreciate any further info. Thanks and hello!

Tom

[GregChapman]

Hi Tom,

Tom Swan wrote

Do I understand correctly that I can use Nabble to create a forum on my site (www.tomswan.com)

Yes!

and maybe a blog?

At a technical level the Nabble apps, forums, blogs, boards etc, are all the same. People post and, usually, others reply. It's just how the data is presented that changes with each of Nabble's apps. It's best to create one to use as a test bed and have a good play as, Nabble's documentation is not the best. However, it is highly flexible. Not only can you play with colour schemes and different apps, if you have programming skills you can even re-write much of the NAML code that generates the HTML and CSS that forms your app.

Who is responsible for hosting

Nabble hosts the forums from its own servers.

what are the maintenance duties?

Nabble will delete apps that appear to be unused (though it will return an archive of posts to the owner of the forum so the forum can be recovered, if requested.) Provided your forum is visited reasonably frequently with occasional posts then Nabble will keep it on line. (I'm not sure about the exact time limits but you will get a warning email that your app is scheduled for deletion - Keep an eye on your mail service's spam folder as some find they miss the warning.)

I also need a way to collect email addresses from my visitors for signing up to a newsletter. Is that a Nabble type of application?

Nabble is essentially forum software, so the fundamental assumption is that people opt to visit when they choose and they can never be sent unwanted mass emails.

Any user can send an email to any other registered user. (There's no other "Private Message" facility on Nabble). However, there is no automated way for a forum owner to harvest user's email addresses and issue bulk emails through Nabble's software.

In Nabble it is up to an individual user to opt in (subscribe) to forum posts via email, this can be done at Topic, Sub-Forum, or complete Forum level and unlike many other forum software a subscriber gets the full contents of the post (unless they subscribe to a daily digest) and they may reply via email. This is how Nabble can also claim to offer a mail list service. It's really just a forum (that provides an archive of past posts) with all its users subscribing.

The best that a forum owner can do to generate mail list traffic is to request Nabble to add the "Invite subscribers" module to your forum. That will provide a facility that allows a forum owner to generate a bulk email from Nabble to the addresses the forum owner supplies, inviting those people to subscribe by clicking a link in Nabble's email.

[Tom Swan]

Hi Greg,

Thank you for your helpful and detailed response. The only reason I want to harvest email addresses is to let my site's viewers know when something is new. I get my share of spam and like most I hate it. I don't want to add more to the universe! You have got me thinking that a forum could be the idea compromise. Users can elect, I assume, to be notified if a certain topic is revisited -- that's the functionality I would want. I only want to write to those who want to hear from me! Others are welcome to remain anonymous.

Thanks again. I will be trying a test Nabble app very soon.

Tom

On July 26, 2016 at 4:58 AM "GregChapman [via Nabble Support]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Tom,

Tom Swan wrote

Do I understand correctly that I can use Nabble to create a forum on my site (www.tomswan.com)

Yes!

and maybe a blog?

At a technical level the Nabble apps, forums, blogs, boards etc, are all the same. People post and, usually, others reply. It's just how the data is presented that changes with each of Nabble's apps. It's best to create one to use as a test bed and have a good play as, Nabble's documentation is not the best. However, it is highly flexible. Not only can you play with colour schemes and different apps, if you have programming skills you can even re-write much of the NAML code that generates the HTML and CSS that forms your app.

Who is responsible for hosting

Nabble hosts the forums from its own servers.

what are the maintenance duties?

Nabble will delete apps that appear to be unused (though it will return an archive of posts to the owner of the forum so the forum can be recovered, if requested.) Provided your forum is visited reasonably frequently with occasional posts then Nabble will keep it on line. (I'm not sure about the exact time limits but you will get a warning email that your app is scheduled for deletion - Keep an eye on your mail service's spam folder as some find they miss the warning.)

I also need a way to collect email addresses from my visitors for signing up to a newsletter. Is that a Nabble type of application?

Nabble is essentially forum software, so the fundamental assumption is that people opt to visit when they choose and they can never be sent unwanted mass emails.

Any user can send an email to any other registered user. (There's no other "Private Message" facility on Nabble). However, there is no automated way for a forum owner to harvest user's email addresses and issue bulk emails through Nabble's software.

In Nabble it is up to an individual user to opt in (subscribe) to forum posts via email, this can be done at Topic, Sub-Forum, or complete Forum level and unlike many other forum software a subscriber gets the full contents of the post (unless they subscribe to a daily digest) and they may reply via email. This is how Nabble can also claim to offer a mail list service. It's really just a forum (that provides an archive of past posts) with all its users subscribing.

The best that a forum owner can do to generate mail list traffic is to request Nabble to add the "Invite subscribers" module to your forum. That will provide a facility that allows a forum owner to generate a bulk email from Nabble to the addresses the forum owner supplies, inviting those people to subscribe by clicking a link in Nabble's email.

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NAML

[GregChapman]

Hi Tom,

Tom Swan wrote

a forum could be the idea compromise. Users can elect, I assume, to be notified if a certain topic is revisited -- that's the functionality I would want.

One of the major features of a Nabble forum is that it is possible to interact with it entirely via email. One just subscribes to the topic, sub-forum or forum of interest and you'll get the complete post via email - to which you can reply and it will then appear on the forum. It means you can use Nabble to produce a mail list with a very neat archive of previous posts. You could also make this an "announcement list", with replies disallowed, so you could post links to any significant updates anywhere on your site. (That's done by removing the "Create_topic" and "Reply" permissions for ordinary users of the forum. Obviously, subscribers might reply by email, but they'd just go into a black hole as the forum would refuse to accept the email as a post.)

There is no method available by default for just receiving notifications to encourage subscribers to visit the forum although any email received through a subscription does include a link in its footer that will take you directly to the topic in question.  Although, if into NAML coding, you could edit the appropriate macros to replace the contents of the full contents of any post with a general message confirming to subscribers that a post has been made, so turning subscriptions into the simple notifications you want.

Having a forum with some users responding via email can turn out to be a real pain. As most people using email always top-post replies over a full thread of previous replies. For visitors to the forum it can then be very difficult to see simple one line responses in amongst a forest of quoted text. You can find yourself with a huge management overhead editing all the emailed replies to remove the unwanted quotes in emailed replies.

[Tom Swan]

Sounds very workable and worth trying. My site is entirely static and public and I want to keep it that way (i.e. I don't want to manage a cms) so one big appeal here is to add user interaction without altering my site's basic structure.

I know nothing about NAML. Is it unique to Nabble?

Tom

On July 27, 2016 at 4:48 AM "GregChapman [via Nabble Support]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Tom,

Tom Swan wrote

a forum could be the idea compromise. Users can elect, I assume, to be notified if a certain topic is revisited -- that's the functionality I would want.

One of the major features of a Nabble forum is that it is possible to interact with it entirely via email. One just subscribes to the topic, sub-forum or forum of interest and you'll get the complete post via email - to which you can reply and it will then appear on the forum. It means you can use Nabble to produce a mail list with a very neat archive of previous posts. You could also make this an "announcement list", with replies disallowed, so you could post links to any significant updates anywhere on your site. (That's done by removing the "Create_topic" and "Reply" permissions for ordinary users of the forum. Obviously, subscribers might reply by email, but they'd just go into a black hole as the forum would refuse to accept the email as a post.)

There is no method available by default for just receiving notifications to encourage subscribers to visit the forum although any email received through a subscription does include a link in its footer that will take you directly to the topic in question.  Although, if into NAML coding, you could edit the appropriate macros to replace the contents of the full contents of any post with a general message confirming to subscribers that a post has been made, so turning subscriptions into the simple notifications you want.

Having a forum with some users responding via email can turn out to be a real pain. As most people using email always top-post replies over a full thread of previous replies. For visitors to the forum it can then be very difficult to see simple one line responses in amongst a forest of quoted text. You can find yourself with a huge management overhead editing all the emailed replies to remove the unwanted quotes in emailed replies.

---

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http://support.nabble.com/Need-a-little-more-info-about-Nabble-tp7596953p7596963.html

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NAML

[GregChapman]

Tom Swan wrote

I know nothing about NAML. Is it unique to Nabble?

Yes!

But I'm told it's easy to pick up if you're familiar with other modern programming languages. (I used to be able to cope with Assembler on a Z80 processor and Batch files in MSDOS.) I can do a few things with it - but more by luck than judgement. These days my skills are limited to HTML and CSS. I can't even manage JavaScript too well.

[Tom Swan]

<begin self toot> I am familiar with programming languages having written GNU C++ for LInux and 39 other books on programming plus being the originator of Dr. Dobb's Algorithm Alley. FYI http://tomswan.com/biography/ <end self toot>

Is NAML an HTML preprocessor? My site is generated-HTML using asciidoctor as the primary engine. Does one install a NAML processor in a tool chain? Is that how it works?

On July 27, 2016 at 9:47 AM "GregChapman [via Nabble Support]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tom Swan wrote

I know nothing about NAML. Is it unique to Nabble?

Yes!

But I'm told it's easy to pick up if you're familiar with other modern programming languages. (I used to be able to cope with Assembler on a Z80 processor and Batch files in MSDOS.) I can do a few things with it - but more by luck than judgement. These days my skills are limited to HTML and CSS. I can't even manage JavaScript too well.

---

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://support.nabble.com/Need-a-little-more-info-about-Nabble-tp7596953p7596967.html

To unsubscribe from Need a little more info about Nabble, click here.
NAML

[GregChapman]

Tom Swan wrote

Is NAML an HTML preprocessor? My site is generated-HTML using asciidoctor as the primary engine. Does one install a NAML processor in a tool chain? Is that how it works?

Most of those questions went completely over my head.

Just click on the "Edit this page" link to the bottom right of most Nabble pages and hunt around a bit. You'll soon get the picture.

[Tom Swan]

okay thanks, just getting the feel of nabble and naml