User Guide: Making DPReview notifications work for you

This is the first of several guides intended to help you navigate the new website and forums. We want you to be able to quickly locate items you’re used to using, and perhaps discover an interesting new feature or two along the way. We will highlight items in both desktop and mobile views if there is enough distinction between them.

Who is this guide for

• By the end, you’ll know how to control notifications for email and on-site activity
• You’ll be able to directly set “Watch” preferences on discussions and article comments
• You’ll know what to change if you’re receiving too many notifications

For this first guide, let’s talk about receiving those important activity notifications. Take a look at the top right of the website, you’ll notice a flag icon and a message bubble icon. These are your activity and direct messages received notifications, respectively:

Notification icons

DPReview notification iconsDPReview

If there are unread notifications, the red-circled number will appear. Clicking an icon will display a summary of those notifications.

We are aware that there are still some display differences between viewing this space on the main website vs. from the forums, such as notifications being completely cleared only in the main website dropdown. Let us know if this guide doesn’t track with what you are seeing.

To the left of those icons, you’ll see your profile icon. If you are in desktop view, you will also see your account name. Clicking your profile image will open a list of settings. This guide is about notifications, so for today, let’s click on the ‘Forum settings’ option:

DPReview user profile main dropdown menuDPReview

Profile and forum notification settings

The forum settings link takes you to a detailed list of options to customize your forum experience. Near the top, you have several ways to be notified of messages via email. From there, you can set global notifications that will automatically inform you of updates to your created content. The forum system recognizes this action as a “Watch” (aka, “Follow” for the content you are interested in tracking):

Automatic watch settingsDPReview

Mobile users: Ensure push notifications are enabled on your phone. You may also need to click the ‘Enable push notifications’ button in the current forum options page you are in, before seeing the following options:

DPReview

Scrolling down a bit further (you can skip past several of the other options for now), you’ll come to ‘Settings by notification category: When someone…’ section.

If you do not see this section, keep scrolling (it’s a long list). Please check:

• Rotate your phone from portrait to landscape view.
• May be blocked if you’re using a business phone and it’s company-controlled.

Otherwise, please log in on a desktop device for now to adjust these settings:

DPReview user profile push notification settingsDPReview

There are three checkboxes available for each item, depending on how you want to receive notifications for that item.

1. Alert: Shows a number indicator on the icons at the top of the page for new unread alerts or messages
2. Pop-up Auto-read: Displays a small pop-up window that sets any unread notices to have automatically been read upon that window popping up.
3. Push: Functions just like mobile push notifications, sending alerts directly to your device

The forum system manages notifications across the site, from front-page articles to forum activity. It is designed to give you granular control over what you’re notified about in articles, including responses to your article comments.

Using Watch and Unwatch settings on discussions

DPReview thread Watch optionDPReview

Moving out of the profile settings options, the above image shows a discussion thread as viewed at the top of the thread. Clicking ‘Watch’ will set your account to receive notifications when someone posts in that thread, even if you are not contributing to that thread.

What’s the difference between this watch option and those profile settings from earlier?

• Profile settings dictate the baseline for how you receive notifications. You will use this when you want to be notified of a response whenever you, say, reply to a forum thread.
• The ‘Watch’ setting is a manual option that lets you receive specific updates for a particular thread, regardless of whether you’re actively participating in it or not. 

Receiving too many notifications

Your profile settings also have an automatic watch option for threads that you start. It’s one of the easiest ways to stay connected to a conversation without having to manually check whether someone has replied. If you feel that you are receiving too many notifications and are not sure where they are coming from, you may need to:

• Unwatch threads you no longer want to follow (click the same button, “Watch”, you initially used to watch the thread, which will now read “Unwatch”)
• Check your profile settings to ensure that automatically enabled settings are disabled
• Reduce e-mail notifications and rely more on on-site alerts

Personally, I use on-site alerts for most things and reserve email for threads I want to follow more closely. But this is very much a “set it how you like” system.

Try adjusting a notification setting today

Even if everything is working great for you right now, try using the Watch feature on a discussion you’re interested in to explore the many options available. 

If you have any concerns with the notifications system after reviewing these settings, please let us know in the comments below. Also let us know in the comments what other guides we should introduce.

We hope this guide helped your DPReview reading experience!