Gamersplane app for notification on phone

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May 8, 2025 8:46 am
Hi, don't know if already discussed something similar, maybe a weird idea but...
Some players I know do not play on Gamersplane because there is not a notification on the smartphone.
I know that using webhooks it's possible to set up a Discord server, that send notifications on smartphones.
But, many say that they have multiple servers on Discors, so basically Discord notification is always on on their devices.
Also, and this occurs even to me, Discord has some weird policy on notifications, so that at some point in time it stops sending them.
So I'm asking me if it is too difficult to create a small dedicated app with the only goal of sending dedicated notifications for Gamersplane forums.
I'm not into programming smarphones, so maybe it's too difficult, expensive or don't know.
But to me it would be usefull.
What do you think?
May 8, 2025 8:50 am
Email works fine for me. My phone lets me know (though I have told it to shut up, if I am not at a machine, I am too busy to answer games:) and I can tell it to treat (and notify) emails from Gamers Plane specially.
May 8, 2025 9:30 am
you can add webhooks to discord in a game tread, and then get discord notifications
May 8, 2025 9:53 am
We had a similar issue on Tavern Keeper which would notify players when there was a new post on their Session Log. But it didn't notify them if there was an OOC comment made on their post by the GM or another player. So, frequently, there were delays when players were distracted and not made aware that they had received a communication.

In theory, they should still have logged in at least once every 48 hours, anyway. But some players tend to be reactive rather than proactive.
Last edited May 9, 2025 9:26 am
May 8, 2025 10:41 am
What you mean there are people that don’t keep Gamersplane permanently open and refresh every five minutes?
May 9, 2025 9:28 am
I've learned to use the Index and Latest Post List so I don't miss anything.
May 10, 2025 2:52 pm
So on the matter of mobile apps + notifications, that cannot be done with the current site. It requires creating a Progressive Web App (PWA). PWAs allow a user to "install" a website as an app, wherein you get the icon on your home screen that goes to the site directly. Once installed, a PWA can send notifications to a user's phone. Unfortunately, given the age of the current site, it's not possible. The new site currently in development won't be a PWA from the start, but it will be significantly easier to make it a PWA once it's done.

For now, using Discord notifications or email are the most common options.
May 10, 2025 3:11 pm
Knifesedgegames says:
What you mean there are people that don’t keep Gamersplane permanently open and refresh every five minutes?
LOL
May 10, 2025 8:18 pm
Keleth says:
So on the matter of mobile apps + notifications, that cannot be done with the current site. It requires creating a Progressive Web App (PWA). PWAs allow a user to "install" a website as an app, wherein you get the icon on your home screen that goes to the site directly. Once installed, a PWA can send notifications to a user's phone. Unfortunately, given the age of the current site, it's not possible. The new site currently in development won't be a PWA from the start, but it will be significantly easier to make it a PWA once it's done.

For now, using Discord notifications or email are the most common options.
Interesting, I'm juggling with this and maybe I can come with an external microPWA that "catch" the webhook.
May 28, 2025 6:26 am
MasMas says:
Interesting, I'm juggling with this and maybe I can come with an external microPWA that "catch" the webhook.
If someone ever matters, I've managed to "catch" the Discord webhook and work on it. Also, I've managed to create a mini PWA that receive notifications.
But, the next step is to use something like Firebase to get the notifications and send them to clients.
The problem here is that the clients must be registered to "topics" (so to receive only the notifications of the games subscribed), but my "manual-fu" is weak and I cannot really understand how to have every client say to Firebase to subscribe to topic.
So I think I must forego my intent, at least for the moment.

But, if the big boss is listenening, I don't think it would be too much of a revolution adding something like this.
It's only a matter of having your primary site register a service worker, that in the background will then receive and display the notifications. And/or a parallel page can do the "service" work, so to offer the registration of the notifications and such.
I mean, the original gamersplane need not to be modifyed (if the only thing is to receive notifications).
May 28, 2025 10:12 am
MasMas says:
But, if the big boss is listenening, I don't think it would be too much of a revolution adding something like this.
It's only a matter of having your primary site register a service worker, that in the background will then receive and display the notifications. And/or a parallel page can do the "service" work, so to offer the registration of the notifications and such.
I mean, the original gamersplane need not to be modifyed (if the only thing is to receive notifications).
So the main site doesn't need to be a PWA? If you'd be willing, I'd love to chat about this, because I don't really know how to do this, but if you were able to provide me some direction/example, I could set it up.

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