Antennapod: Default settings in Google Groups so users get notified about replies

[tonytamsf]

Problem you are having:
I noticed that when users report a problem in the Google Groups, after @ByteHamster response, the reporter usually do not response with a follow up.

Suggested solution:

1. [simple] Change the default in the group, so when the user post a message, they are automatically subscribe

Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details:

[ByteHamster]

I already discussed Google Groups with @keunes who does user support sometimes. The desktop version has different default settings and I did not find a setting for this...

• My current workaround is to post the reply to the group and additionally directly to the user (by clicking "private response" in the desktop web ui). This takes some conversations out of the public and is more work for me, so I want to change that
• We tested groups.io as an alternative to Google Groups but that service requires moderating each message from an unsubscribed user
• I implemented a little bot that automatically posts email requests as issues. While it generally works, I would prefer to not have to deal with all of that (GDPR, attachments etc) and prefer an external provider.
• When users send an email to the group without using the web interface, they don't even see the checkbox. This can be fixed by requiring to use the web interface

[ByteHamster]

Discourse looks like a nice open-source alternative to Google Groups. It's flexible and has support for Google/GitHub login. It's the software that also powers the F-Droid forums: https://forum.f-droid.org/

We would still need to host it, though.

[txtd]

I really like the idea of hosting our own discourse.
We should probably be fine with a VM with 2 GB of RAM and support for docker.

Digitalocean offers sponsorships for FOSS projects, however I don't think we qualify for that.

[tonytamsf]

I'm looking at this from a regular user who doesn't have github access and want to report a problem and how this user gets feedback that their issue is solved/ not solved?

I'm not sure yet what the best way to solve user support yet, just some thoughts

1. Users should be able to report problems as easy as possible. [Email template] would be the easiest. Right now from the AntennaPod, Report bug goes to Github issues

   • I would switch this to email template instead. Having it ultimately into Google Groups would be fine.
   • My suggest is for the following workflow
     
     
     
     1. Settings -> Report bug to capture the application information (same as now)
     
     
     2. Change Open Bug Tracker to Send Bug Report
     
     
     3. Click on Send Bug Report would just prefill the user's default email handler into Google Groups
     
     

2. View mailing list currently jumps into the Google Groups to see other issues

   • As a user, this is easy to see other users reporting problems, but because replies are done in another channel, it does seem like Hans is very active in replying. fantastic
   • I would change the word View mailing list to Discussion

3. I would add a link to the Github repo/issues in Settings -> About for the 1% of people who are developers.

[ByteHamster]

I would switch this to email template instead.

This was done on purpose. Users do not get replies if they email to google groups without using the web interface.

Click on Send Bug Report would just prefill the user's default email handler into Google Groups

We had something like that in the previous version. Users just sent the crash report email without any additional info. This is mostly useless and more work for me. I can see the same crash on Google Play. I wanted to make sending reports a little bit harder, so that they think about it before simply sending the mail without any additional thoughts.

I would change the word View mailing list to Discussion

"Visit forum" would be even easier if we decide to use a forum.

I would add a link to the Github repo/issues in Settings -> About

There is the issue tracker link in "Report bug"

[tonytamsf]

makes sense, I am closing this issue

[ByteHamster]

I set up a discourse forum. Feel free to play around with it before it goes official https://forum.antennapod.org/

[keunes]

I'm getting a 502 :)
Are you hosting it? Can't be done on GitHub, no?

[ByteHamster]

I'm getting a 502 :)

Sorry about that. I just installed the "Accepted answer" plugin and needed to rebuild the software.

Are you hosting it?

I am hosting it, yes.

Can't be done on GitHub, no?

I think that this is easier than GitHub for most users (sign in with Google etc will be added soon). Also, there are achievements :D My bot for GitHub (email notifications etc) would be additional work (especially attachments and stuff like that). It feels so much better than Google Groups!

[keunes]

Ah, sorry. No, I like having Discourse :) I was just wondering whether it'd be possible to _host_ on GH, but I guess not. Maybe a bit of a stupid question, in hindsight :P
Thanks for setting it up & hosting!

[tonytamsf]

Nice I am on there now

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/forum-templates-for-feature-and-bug-reports/37/9