[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #43484: WordPress Notification Center proposal

[WordPress Trac]

#43484: WordPress Notification Center proposal
-----------------------------------------------+---------------------------
 Reporter:  hedgefield                         |      Owner:
     Type:  feature request                    |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                             |  Milestone:  Awaiting
Component:  General                            |  Review
 Severity:  normal                             |    Version:
  Focuses:  ui, accessibility, administration  |   Keywords:
-----------------------------------------------+---------------------------
 For a long time people have been suggesting / daydreaming /
 [https://twitter.com/Ipstenu/status/966411791134699520 wishing for] a
 unified notification center in WordPress. People expect it, the
 notification center has become a staple of almost all apps/sites that have
 a lot to keep track of - and WordPress definitely fits in that lineup. So
 there’s no reason not to add one to WordPress core too.

 This ticket aims to explore the details of such an implementation. I think
 clear limitations, a good backwards compatibility strategy and a strong UX
 are key to make this work for everyone.

 Key features:
 - One location for all notifications.
 - Easy to hook into, should work out of the box.
 - Flexible enough to be useful, limited enough to not get a circus.
 - Accessible from anywhere.
 - Accessible in the a11y sense.

 Here’s my first basic idea for notification properties, feel free to chime
 in:
 - A text field, limited to 280 characters, the length of a tweet. Probably
 wouldn’t want one notification to get so long that it fills up the whole
 visible sidebar. Links can be added to the text to trigger actions or
 visit pages, same as now basically.
 - A timestamp.
 - An icon. Could be the plugin icon, author avatar, or something like a
 category/message type, like info, warning, question, error, update, stuff
 like that, to visually distinguish notifications quickly.
 - A status, meaning read or unread basically.
 - Persist/show as toast. A suggestion by Joen Asmussen. Shows the
 notification outside the notification center for a set amount of time in a
 floating div. Similar to what Android/MacOS/Windows does when a
 notification comes in. Maybe only WordPress itself can throw notices like
 that. Probably not for MVP anyway.

 I created a quick interactive proof-of-concept in Sketch that you can view
 here.

 Desktop: https://sketch.cloud/s/AZz0M/all/notification-center/desktop/play
 Mobile: https://sketch.cloud/s/AZz0M/all/notification-
 center/iphone-8-plus/play

 Riad Benguella got excited by this idea and built a basic plugin to test
 it in your own WordPress install. https://github.com/youknowriad/newtify,
 and also a previous exploration at https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-
 notification-center/. Developing this as a plugin is a great way to
 explore the best implementation, and any help is more than welcome.

 Some discussion points to get this started:
 - Can we agree on a set of notification properties that provide a
 consistent experience and that plugin authors can be happy with?
 - Which notification categories can we define, and should it only ever be
 possible to assign a category, or are plugin authors allowed to supply
 icons for their own notifications too?
 - How best to approach the backwards compatibility so we don’t break (all)
 existing admin notices? Can some type of conversion be made?
 - Is it enough to only show the notifications in the sidebar, or should
 there be a separate notifications page, maybe with filtering? (Probably
 not for MVP at least)
 - Are there any essential features missing from the list?

--
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/43484>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress publishing platform