Hi all, We are wanting to use a Liql Query like 'Select * from messages where user_context.read = false and board.id='boardid'' Essentially what we want to do is be able to list only unread messages for the user in a give board but I cant find a way to do that, any suggestions?

DougS This would be a very useful feature for either version of the API. We often have requests to build custom components based on unread messages in topics, often for super users who want to keep track of new comments in topics they are participating (at least that's what we know, the other users might use it as well). Unfortunately it is very (very) bad for performance to fetch entire sets of messages, looping over them just to see if they are already read, fetching another set to get more in case the desired amount is not reached yet etc. etc., caching can help a bit, but still the entire use case is very inefficient to implement. Maybe something for the backlog (on top please =D)?

I did a search in the Li Product Ideas board and found this thread: https://lithosphere.lithium.com/t5/Li-Product-Ideas/Get-read-unread-topics-messages-using-REST/idi-p/160058 It looks like it was archived due to not getting enough kudos to make it onto the product roadmap. I'd like to see this make it onto our roadmap, but unfortunately it is not my call. I'd recommend either lobbying to re-open this idea, or add a new idea for this (and maybe link to the old one) and getting some users to kudo it. I agree that it's not ideal to have to code something to keep retrieving more messages when not enough unread messages are retrieved, and that seems like it gives us some more weight to implement this. VinhJ RahulHa

Most LiQL calls that look up messages go to a search index that stores various fields about the message, and does not store per-user values for any fields. We could send a query like you are making to the database instead, but we only store read state per user per board (we can't get you all of the read/unread messages for a category or the community). We would not be able to filter the query any further (by adding additional constraints). So if we add support for doing a LiQL query that looks up unread messages for the calling user, we have to support special logic: if you use the user_context.read constraint, you must also use the board.id constraint, and cannot use any additional constraints (if those 2 constraints are passed we will query the database instead of hitting the search index) -- we'll need to enforce that and return an error if you use the user_context.read constraint and either use other constraints, or if you don't use the board.id constraint. I hope that clarifies things a bit with respect to the complexity this adds. I still agree that it's probably better to do it this way then implementing logic that checks results for read/unread state and does additional queries to fill in the result set. -Doug

Hi Allen, We don't currently have a way via the API to do look up messages that have been read by the current user in a given board. We do have a way in REST V1 to get a count of read messages for a given board (see the /boards/id/[id]/messages/read/count call), but no way in REST V2 or REST V1 to get only the unread messages in a board. To list only the unread messages for a given user in a custom component or endpoints, you would need to get the first set of messages for the given board and then check if the message has not already been read (by checking the user_context.read property). You'd need to keep track of how many unread messages have been processed and then make another call to get the next set, until the target number of messages you want to display has been met. -Doug

Yeah its probably taken everyone longer to type the replies here than to implement this.Given the field already exists in the message collection it would just simply be allowing it to be a constraint in a Liql query.

Using user_context.read as a constraint on messages collection

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DougS
Khoros Alumni (Retired)
7 years ago
Hi Allen,

We don't currently have a way via the API to do look up messages that have been read by the current user in a given board. We do have a way in REST V1 to get a count of read messages for a given board (see the /boards/id/[id]/messages/read/count call), but no way in REST V2 or REST V1 to get only the unread messages in a board.

To list only the unread messages for a given user in a custom component or endpoints, you would need to get the first set of messages for the given board and then check if the message has not already been read (by checking the user_context.read property). You'd need to keep track of how many unread messages have been processed and then make another call to get the next set, until the target number of messages you want to display has been met.

-Doug

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Using user_context.read as a constraint on messages collection

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