Implement Forum subscription in Sitefinity 3.x

In this post I will show you how you can implement Forum subscription in Sitefinity. Instead of going each time to a given post you can just subscribe to the forum post and receive email notification once someone reply to you or you just want to stay informed about the progress of a post.

1. I created a database table where I will persist the subscriber - threadID data. You can use the code below to create the same table at your end.

SET ANSI_NULLS ON

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[ForumSubscribers](

[ThreadID] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,

[UserID] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,

[UserEmail] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,

CONSTRAINT [PK_ForumSubscribers] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

(

[ThreadID] ASC,

[UserID] ASC

)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]

) ON [PRIMARY]

2. I created a simple LINQ-SQL class called ForumSubscriptionDataContext

3. I modified templates below.

~/Sitefinity/ControlTemplates/Forums/SingleThread.ascx - this template list all post in a thread. Here I will add "subscribe" and unsubscribe links.

<asp:LinkButton ID="deleteThreadButton" runat="server" Text="<%$Resources:DeleteThread %>"></asp:LinkButton>

<asp:LinkButton ID="subscribeBtn" runat="server" Text="Subscribe to this thread" ></asp:LinkButton>

<asp:LinkButton ID="UnSubscribeBtn" runat="server" Text="UnSubscribe to this thread" ></asp:LinkButton>

</div>

Now I have to create a code behind of this template and subscribe for Click event of each link, so that I can execute our logic.

- Page_Load - subscribe for click events of our buttons.

- OnPreRender - here I am getting the thread ID from the QueryString. ForumSubscriptionDataContext class is used to manage the data from my custom tablet. Here OnPreRender I check whethet the current user is subscribed to this thread or not and show/hide Sibscribe and Unsibscribe links.

- UnSubscribeBtn_Click - remove the user from the datasource

- subscribeBtn_Click - add new subscriber to the datasource

public partial class Sitefinity_ControlTemplates_Forums_SingleThread : System.Web.UI.UserControl

{

public void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// subscribe for click events of our buttons

this.subscribeBtn.Click += new EventHandler(subscribeBtn_Click);

this.UnSubscribeBtn.Click += new EventHandler(UnSubscribeBtn_Click);

}

// Here we have to check whether the user is subscribed to the forum or not

// and hide or show - subscribe and unsubscribe links

protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)

{

base.OnPreRender(e);

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["mode"]) && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"]))

{

Guid ThreadID = new Guid(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"].ToString());

ForumSubscriptionDataContext dataContext = new ForumSubscriptionDataContext();

//we are sure that this query it will only result in one record - the current user email. So we use

// SingleOrDefault(); Returns the only element of a sequence, or a default value if the sequence is empty;

//this method throws an exception if there is more than one element in the sequence.

var query = (from sub in dataContext.ForumSubscribers

where sub.ThreadID == ThreadID

select sub.UserEmail).SingleOrDefault();

if (query != null)

{

subscribeBtn.Visible = false;

UnSubscribeBtn.Visible = true;

}

else

{

subscribeBtn.Visible = true;

UnSubscribeBtn.Visible = false;

}

/// <summary>

/// remove an user from the database

/// </summary>

/// <param name="sender"></param>

/// <param name="e"></param>

void UnSubscribeBtn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

Guid ThreadID = new Guid(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"].ToString());

string uName = Telerik.Security.UserManager.GetCurrentUserName();

MembershipUser user = Membership.GetUser(uName);

Guid userID = new Guid(user.ProviderUserKey.ToString());

string eMail = user.Email;

ForumSubscriptionDataContext dataContext = new ForumSubscriptionDataContext();

var query = from sub in dataContext.ForumSubscribers

where sub.ThreadID == ThreadID && sub.UserID == userID

select sub;

var record = query.First<ForumSubscriber>();

dataContext.ForumSubscribers.DeleteOnSubmit(record);

dataContext.SubmitChanges();

subscriptionMessage.Text = "<span style=background-color:Red;>YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY UNSUBSCRIBED</span>";

}

/// <summary>

/// add user to the datbase

/// </summary>

/// <param name="sender"></param>

/// <param name="e"></param>

void subscribeBtn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["mode"]) && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"]))

{

// get the thread ID.

Guid ThreadID = new Guid(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"].ToString());

string uName = Telerik.Security.UserManager.GetCurrentUserName();

MembershipUser user = Membership.GetUser(uName);

Guid userID = new Guid(user.ProviderUserKey.ToString());

string eMail = user.Email;

// subscribe this user

ForumSubscriptionDataContext dataContext = new ForumSubscriptionDataContext();

ForumSubscriber newSubscriber = new ForumSubscriber();

newSubscriber.ThreadID = ThreadID;

newSubscriber.UserID = userID;

newSubscriber.UserEmail = eMail;

dataContext.ForumSubscribers.InsertOnSubmit(newSubscriber);

dataContext.SubmitChanges();

subscriptionMessage.Text = "<span style=background-color:Green;>YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY SUBSCRIBED</span>";

}

~/Sitefinity/ControlTemplates/Forums/EditPost.ascx - I use this template to get the newly added content and all previous posts and send an emil to the subscribed user. Here I created a code behind of the template and on Page_Load I subscribed for save button click.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Data.Linq;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using Telerik.Forums.WebControls;

using Telerik.Forums;

using Telerik.Security;

using System.Web.Security;

using Telerik.Web.UI;

using System.Net.Mail;

using System.Collections;

using Telerik.Forums.Data;

public partial class Sitefinity_ControlTemplates_Forums_EditPost : System.Web.UI.UserControl

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

this.saveButton.Click += new EventHandler(saveButton_Click);

}

void saveButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["mode"]) && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"]))

{

// get the thread ID.

Guid ThreadID = new Guid(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["thread"].ToString());

ForumSubscriptionDataContext dataContext = new ForumSubscriptionDataContext();

string uri = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.ToString();

// get our subscriber

var query = from sub in dataContext.ForumSubscribers

where sub.ThreadID == ThreadID

select sub.UserEmail;

// send email to our subscriber that there is a new post

foreach (var email in query)

{

MailMessage message = new MailMessage("yourhost@here.com", email);

message.IsBodyHtml = true;

message.Body = "<b>ThreadConversation</b>:" + tbQuote.Content + "<b>LastReply is:</b>" + editor.Content + "<br />" + "<i>Click the link below to reply</i>" + "<p>" + uri;

message.From = new MailAddress("yourhost@here.com");

message.Sender = new MailAddress("yourhost@here.com");

SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient();

client.Send(message);

}

dataContext.Dispose();

}

Core Sitefinity

Implement Forum subscription in Sitefinity 3.x

The Progress Team