I looked around and struggled to find out what it does?
My guess would be that it notifies you of when new posts are made to communities you subscribe to. But that sounds like a lot, so I’m really not sure.
Otherwise, is it me or does the wording here not speak for itself?
From what I can tell, it seems to be notification of new posts in your subscribed communities. I know it seems like a lot, but remember that Lemmy used to have about 100 active users 18 months ago. Having 50k users is a pretty recent thing, and definitely happened after this option was added.
I’ve enabled it and will report back once I get a notification.
Came to post that I just tried to activate the setting out of curiosity (on lemmy.ml and lemm.ee), and there seems to be a block against it.
The following message appeared in the browser console:
The Notification permission may only be requested from inside a short running user-generated event handler.
So I’m guessing it got turned off at some point or it’s optional for instance admins?
How certain are you of what it’s supposed to do?
Did it actually register in the settings for you? (When I tried to activate it and save, lemmy sort of updated itself without the setting on … that may have happened to you too)
The following message appeared in the browser console:
I don’t get this, but also I have already blocked browser notifications so maybe that’s why I don’t see it. My assumption though is that the notifications aren’t only browser notifications, but follow the normal Lemmy notification process of browser (if enabled), notification icon, and email (if enabled).
Did it actually register in the settings for you? (When I tried to activate it and save, lemmy sort of updated itself without the setting on … that may have happened to you too)
It didn’t! It clears when I try to turn it on. I didn’t notice the first time!
How certain are you of what it’s supposed to do?
Not at all! I just read around some old github issues, but to be honest I never saw anything concrete.
So I’m guessing it got turned off at some point or it’s optional for instance admins?
I’m an instance admin, so it’s not that. On Beehaw (running previous version of Lemmy, 0.18.4 instead of 0.19.5) it lets you enable it, so it must have broken somewhat recently (in the last 6 months). But I didn’t seem to get a notification despite a new post appearing in a community I’m subscribed to.
So now I’m even less certain of what it is than I was in my first post, when I wasn’t very certain.
I don’t get this, but also I have already blocked browser notifications so maybe that’s why I don’t see it.
I’m talking about the dev tools in the browser, not any notifications or anything. That this message appears in the console indicates that it’s broken in some way, as it’s an error message.
In fact my guess would be that the option is a vestige from back when lemmy kept the page constantly up to date with live updates. It’s was way too resource intensive so they let it go and maybe didn’t clean this up.
I’m talking about the dev tools in the browser, not any notifications or anything. That this message appears in the console indicates that it’s broken in some way, as it’s an error message.
Yeah I understood that, but I don’t see that error. I do see like 10 other ones though, but not related to this setting!
In fact my guess would be that the option is a vestige from back when lemmy kept the page constantly up to date with live updates. It’s was way too resource intensive so they let it go and maybe didn’t clean this up.
I think you’re right. I found it on this page in the docs. It talks about it being a pop-up notification, which used to happen back when Lemmy used websockets to update the page in real time.
This docs seem to nail it down. Couldn’t find that. Thanks!
I had searched yesterday and couldn’t find it, but had another go and managed to find it.
I also asked in the Matrix lemmy general chat but no one seemed to know. Might get an answer from a dev at some point but I’m beginning to suspect it does nothing anymore.
Well the error I got in the browser suggests it needs to be in a web socket session or something, so there’s a chance the underlying backend code is still around and functional.
I’ve actually figured bringing the live updates thing back for temporary live chats could be an awesome feature.
FYI, a Lemmy dev confirmed this setting doesn’t actually exist in the database anymore. A relic of times gone by, and it’s going to be removed in the next version.
