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I'm testing a new notifications system

30
By on BlenderNation

Recently, I've been interested in 'push' notifications - little browser popups that tell you when new website content has arrived. These notifications will even show if you're not on BlenderNation, keeping you up to date with the news.

notification bell

I tested one for about a week, but found it was trouble to run and obtrusive. I found another one that I think is more mature and less obtrusive - and free to use. To opt in, just click the bell icon on the bottom right of the page and you'll receive your updates when new news hits BlenderNation.

What do you think? Are these useful reminders, or are you already visiting BlenderNation several times a day anyway? ;-)

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

30 Comments

    • Bart on

      That could be due to your cookie privacy settings - this seems to happen if you block all cookies from 3rd parties. Can you try adding an exception for blendernation.onesignal.com?

      Reply
      • Bart on

        Hmm, maybe you could clear all BlenderNation related cookies and set Firefox to allow all third party cookies? Then look what it added?

        Reply
          • Jason on

            Hey SPIROU4D,

            This is Jason from OneSignal. Looks like you've tried a couple of things; sorry to hear it still isn't working for you. We did test http://www.blendernation.com on a Linux machine (running Ubuntu, not Mint) and didn't have any issues. We were able to see the red bell icon on the bottom right corner, subscribe to notifications, and receive a welcome notification upon subscribing.

            First of all, you definitely don't need to create an account on onesignal.com, but thanks for trying that!

            Please make sure you are using the official Google Chrome browser from Google. Google Chromium (a separate browser with a light blue icon instead of the red-green-yellow colored icon) isn't officially supported.

            Here's a couple things I can think of:

            For Firefox:
            - Our web push product doesn't work in Firefox's private browsing mode because Firefox doesn't allow access to some web storage we need
            - Make sure you're using v44+
            - Rare issue with Firefox profiles being bugged when switching between multiple versions of Firefox that can be resolved by creating a new Firefox profile

            For Chrome:
            - Make sure you're using the official Google Chrome browser from Google, and not Google Chromium which is a separate browser
            - Don't use full-screen mode in Chrome when testing out notifications because notifications are not displayed while in full screen
            - Don't use Incognito private browsing mode while testing this feature out
            - Make sure your cookie settings are either NOT blocking third-party cookies, or have an exception set to "blendernation.onesignal.com"
            - Make sure you're using v42+

      • Raimon on

        Hi,

        I don't think I have any blocked cookies (not sure about this, though), but it doesn't work on Linux for me either on Firefox or Chrome. Anyway looks like a nice addition, thanks!
        Raimon

        Reply
        • Jason on

          Hey Raimon,

          This is Jason from OneSignal. Sorry to hear it isn't working for you. We just tested http://www.blendernation.com on a Linux machine and we didn't have any issues. We were able to see the red bell icon on the bottom right corner, subscribe to notifications, and receive a welcome notification upon subscribing.

          Could you let us know whether you see a red bell icon on the bottom right of the site in Firefox or Chrome? Are you seeing the icon, subscribing, but not receiving notifications? Or are you not seeing any icon at all?

          Could you also let us know the browser versions you're using?

          Here's a couple things I can think of:

          For Firefox:
          - Our web push product doesn't work in Firefox's private browsing mode because Firefox doesn't allow access to some web storage we need
          - Make sure you're using v44+
          - Rare issue with Firefox profiles being bugged when switching between multiple versions of Firefox that can be resolved by creating a new Firefox profile

          For Chrome:
          - Don't use full-screen mode in Chrome when testing out notifications because notifications are not displayed while in full screen
          - Don't use Incognito private browsing mode while testing this feature out
          - Make sure your cookie settings are either NOT blocking third-party cookies, or have an exception set to "blendernation.onesignal.com"
          - Make sure you're using v42+

          Reply
  4. Kesshoo on

    I didn't subscribed to the push notifications, but I go on the website every day, checking every new article and I was wondering if there is a way to make a selection in the email notifications (for exemple I don't use BGE so I am less interested in the articles about it), with a system of tags or categories ?
    Anyway, the site is great, I love it !

    Reply
    • Jason on

      Hey Klikmaker,

      This is Jason from OneSignal. For the Android platform, we only support the "Chrome on Android" browser from Google. Can you make sure you're using Chrome on Android and not another browser?

      A couple of other things I can think of:

      - Make sure you're using Chrome on Android v42+.
      - On Chrome on Android, tap the 3-dot menu, Settings, Site settings (under Advanced), Notifications, make sure it's set to "Ask before sending (recommended). On the same menu, go to "All sites", find this site and make sure notifications aren't blocked.

      Reply
  7. Brian Lockett on

    You're always looking for ways to improve BlenderNation's user experience. Nice touch, Bart.

    (For the record, I'm using Firefox (on Windows) and it's working fine for me.)

    Reply

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