I would like to create a notification system for my forum that tells each user when there is a new topic, or a new one in a topic that they have not yet viewed.
My forum operates with two levels. Exactly like on this forum = on the left each “category” is marked with a blue dot if new topics/messages are present in the category. Then this blue dot is found next to the subject titles.
The majority of the logic will happen on your backEnd.
Here are a couple posts of members trying to figure out a solution:
Using a third party service:
Other than that I tried asking ChatGpt on how you could start to create this system and this is what it came up with:
ChatGPT Answer
How to build a Discourse-like notification system with Xano + WeWeb
To build a forum notification system like Discourse (blue dots for new topics or unread replies), you’ll need:
1. Backend data model (Xano)
Make sure you have:
• Users table
• Topics table
• Posts table (each topic can have multiple posts)
• UserTopicView table (logs when a user last viewed a topic)
• UserCategoryView table (optional, for category-level dots)
2. Logic to check unread content
When user loads the app, run a query:
• For each topic in a category → check if the last_post_date is after the last_viewed_date in UserTopicView
• If yes → mark as unread
• Sum up unread topics to show a blue dot on category
• For each topic → show a dot if there are unread posts
3. On topic visit
• When user visits a topic, call a Xano function that updates or inserts the UserTopicView record with the current timestamp
4. In WeWeb
Use conditional logic:
• Show the icon if topic.last_post_date > user_view.last_viewed_date
• You can use a custom query that fetches both the topic list and the user views (via Xano joins or post-processed logic)
5. Performance tip
For scale, avoid calculating everything in real-time on the frontend. You can:
• Precompute unread status in Xano responses
• Or store a boolean has_unread_posts in your UserTopicView, updated via backend workflows or CRONs
Bonus: Starter logic for Xano functions
GET unread topics: Join Topics with UserTopicView using user_id. Return only where Topics.last_post_date > UserTopicView.last_viewed_date OR UserTopicView record doesn’t exist.
Mark topic as read: On topic page load, send a POST to update or insert the UserTopicView.
Hi Augustin, and thank you for these links! I will investigate on this base, and if i’m stuck on something more specific i’ll be back here to reach some help !
Here’s just a quick update that might be useful to someone else. I finally succeeded, and indeed it was “quite complex” for a beginner like me.
The hardest part was creating the query that retrieves the information on the last visit of a subject, to then compare it to the date of the last message posted and return to “unread” if this is the case.
In the same query I also counted the “unread” subjects for each category to return the categories to “notify”.
I share this request if it can help someone later…
It was difficult, but I learned a lot. Thanks for the initial help!
How to build a Discourse-like notification system with Xano + WeWeb
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Bonus: Starter logic for Xano functions
