Can Ghost authors receive notifications when a comment is created on a post?

@adbertram I asked over at the Ghost forum: https://forum.ghost.org/t/ghost-blog-comments-reply-notifications-to-authors-in-multi-author-blogs/8671 (I hope it's ok that I linked to your blog?).

Edit: Now they've replied — and they mentioned Zapier, seems like a good approach: https://forum.ghost.org/t/ghost-blog-comments-reply-notifications-to-authors-in-multi-author-blogs/8671/2

Thanks for the help. I enabled the API and went to the link but I'm getting:

404 Not Found
No posts found, or they are private [TyE0FEEDPOSTS]

@adbertram, about: No posts found, or they are private [TyE0FEEDPOSTS] (at this url: https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/-/v0/feed ) — that is something I need to fix. It's because by default listing all topics and replies, isn't allowed, even if they're publicly visible, like blog comments. But in the case of blog comments, a better default, is probably to allow listing them, so the feeds willl work. So I'll change this (for blog comments).

Not sure if Zapier supports only RSS, or both RSS and Atom. I asked their support people. Currently Talkyard is Atom only.

(Note to self: Here's Zapier's docs for RSS:
https://zapier.com/help/create/other-functions/trigger-zaps-from-new-rss-feed-items )

Ok so there're a bit more things to do than what I thought. Likely I'll have the feed working at the end of next week, not this week.

Zapier does support RSS. If I can get an RSS/Atom feed of comments with the post URL, that's good enough for me.

Hi Adam, now I've added links in the feed to the blog article so you'll know which blog post got a comment. They're in <link rel="alternate" href="...."> links in the Atom feed. (The <id>http://....</id> links still point to the Talkyard site.)

The Zapier tech support people tested their "zaps" with Atom instead of RSS, and say it seems to work. (Although the docs mention RSS only).

To see the feed, currently you need to enable discussion forum features — here:
https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/-/admin/settings/features (don't forget to click Save afterwards),

and then make the blog comments category "listed" instead of "un-listed", by going here:
https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/categories,
clicking the Blog Comments category,
clicking "Edit Category"
and then, in the edit dialog,
change this setting: "Unlist topics or category?" to "No, show them".

Thereafter the feed will appear here: https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/-/v0/feed.

(If you want to, I can do all this for you — please let me know?)

***

Some time later, there'll be another feed: /-/v0/embedded-comments-feed that doesn't require any of the changes above, and whose <id>https://....</id> link to the blog (instead of to the Talkyard site).

I don't want to enable the discussion form. I simply need embedded comments on my blog on each post.

What will enabling the discussion forum do? I really don't want another place to check for comments.

Enabling the discussion forum, changes a bit how the topic list page looks at the Talkyard site: the category name, "Blog Comments", will be shown. Otherwise, forum features, like categories, aren't shown, for simplicity.

Anyway I can try to find time to add the /-/v0/embedded-comments-feed feed now soon, that's the "real" solution that will also work better for other people.

Thank you. If I can just get a simple feed to show comments and nothing more, that'd be great.

Hi @KajMagnus, any progress on that RSS feed? I'd love to have this.

Will be included in the next release, this weekend or next week. — I just fixed this now (or so I think), thanks for reminding me.

Did this get released? I tried to go here and it told me no posts were found: https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/-/v0/feed

Yes, the link is a bit different: https://comments-for-adamtheautomator-com.talkyard.net/-/v0/embedded-comments-feed

(sorry I forget to post an update about the release)

Did you get the chance to try this yet? How did it work? (Or please message me later when you've given it a try? :- ))

I looked at it but it's going to be tough since the blog author isn't in the RSS feed. Can you somehow include the Ghost author name or ID somehow in the entry for the post?

Talkyard doesn't know the name or ID of the Ghost author (or even that it's a Ghost blog). Those things are in the Ghost database and in the text on the blog page, but doesn't get sent to the Talkyard server.

What about looking up the blog post url path in Ghost's database, and in that way find the blog post id, and then lookup its author id?

For example, given this link in the Atom feed:

<id>https://adamtheautomator.com/pass-hashtables-invoke-command-argument/#comment-1</id>

you'd lookup /pass-hashtables-invoke-command-argument/, find a Ghost blog post id, and then the author's id.

***

I'm wondering if there's some way to write a Ghost <—> Talkyard plugin, so Ghost authors get auto-inserted into Talkyard's database, and configured to get notifications for their blog posts. Then, the authors could also choose to stop receiving notifications (by unsubscribing, via Talkyard), ... And to start receiving notifications for other things at your blog, e.g. other authors they might like.

I would love some kind of Talkyard Ghost integration. https://ghost.org/integrations/

I can make it work somehow with my current workflow but it's going to be a little hacky.

I'm still something missing... I've tried the following two options:

➜ ~ curl --user tyid=2:xyz https://x.y.z/-/v0/feed
404 Not Found
No posts found, or they are private [TyE0FEEDPOSTS]% ➜ ~

➜ ~ curl --user tyid=2:xyz https://x.y.z/-/v0/embedded-comments-feed
404 Not Found
No posts found, or they are private [TyE0FEEDPOSTS]%

Do I need to activate something else?

Your site has some contents, visible for not logged in people?

That 404 message means that access permission settings don't let not-logged-in people see any pages. Or that the site is empty.

This: --user tyid=2:xyz is currently ignored for these endpoints — the feeds are intended for not-logged-in users (at least this far).

B.t.w. currently the feeds look only at the most recent 25 posts. And if all of them are access-not-allowed unless logged in, then you'll get this 404 Not Found.

None of the content is visible for not logged in people :-) I would like to write a script which syncs threads to issues in my issue tracker (one way). I though that listening for the feed might be a good idea to do so. Do you have a better approach for me?

Maybe it'd be good if what you tried to do, did actually work. I'm looking into that now. I mean --user tyid=2:xyz to list restricted contents. — Some time later, maybe webhooks could be a better way to sync threads.

a script which syncs threads to issues in my issue tracker

This means that new topics in Talkyard (thread = topic? e.g. a Question page or a Problem or Idea page, or Discussion page),
should create issues in the issue tracker?

The topic title and topic text ( = original post) should get copied? But not the replies?

There's a List API that returns JSON and that I think is actually better for this. It's not completely implemented for your use case, but almost. You would call it like this:

/-/v0/list  {
  listQuery: {
    findWhat: 'Pages',
    sortOrder: 'NewestFirst',
  }
}

And you get back:

interface ListQueryResults<T extends ThingFound> {
  origin: string;
  thingsFound?: T[];
}

// where  T = PageFound:

interface PageFound {
  pageId: PageId;
  title: string;
  // Prefix with the origin (included in the response) to get the full URL.
  urlPath: string;
  excerpt?: string;    // <—— maybe you'd want the complete text instead, as HTML?
  author?: ParticipantFound;
  categoriesMainFirst?: CategoryFound[];
  postsFound?: PostFound[];
}

Basically I do need to implement the following two tasks:

• When a new topic is created a new ticket should be created in my tracker
• When a comment is added to a topic a comment should be posted to an existing ticket.

So pages/topics alone are not enough.

Ok. That will work via the same API, just 'Posts' instead of 'Pages', see below. (This also not yet completely implemented.)

/-/v0/list  {
  listQuery: {
    findWhat: 'Posts',
    sortOrder: 'NewestFirst',
    limit: number,
  }
}

Some time later: Maybe in your case it could be good with sth like: newerThan: <date-time>, instead of limit: number. Maybe combined with webhooks.

I would be happy with this. Now I know what you mean by "not yet completed implemented".

curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --request POST \
  --data '{"listQuery": { "findWhat": "Pages",   "sortOrder": "NewestFirst" }}' \
  --user tyid=2:xxxx \
  https://xxx.yyy.zzzz/-/v0/list
501 Not Implemented
Currently lookWhere.inCategories needs to be one category [TyE205KDT56]%   

What do you think when it will be fully implemented?

While a newerThan and webhooks would be great, I would be fully happy with the API calls named by you.

What do you think when it will be fully implemented?

I might be done with this already; I'm adding end-to-end tests now. Will probably be included in the upcoming version, some time next week. (Needs some testing first here at Ty .io.)

501 Not Implemented \n Currently lookWhere.inCategories needs to be one category

That because I previously implemented as little as possible, namely one specific use case someone asked about: Listing the popular topics in one specific category.
I'm adding more use cases when needed (like now, when you mention listing all posts).

I asked about what details you need for your tracker, here: https://www.talkyard.io/-390#post-2 — we can continue in that other topic (since this is no longer about Ghost).