Someone sent me an email last evening saying they PM'd (Personal Messaged) me at cs.org several days ago and that I hadn't gotten back to them. PM me??? Oh, that Inbox top right-hand link at CommunityServer.org. So I thought I'd better open it. Thirty-eight messages! Geez, apologies to everyone who didn't get a response. I answered those that I hadn't already responded to in a forums post or some other means, and for those over two months old I figured I'd let go since they already think I'm a schmuck and it's too late to do much about that.
Community Server needs some sort of animated icon instead of a static "inbox" link, an icon that does something to get your attention when you've got mail, something like an icon that Eric Duncan used in an email the other day with a fat jolly smiley rolling on the floor in hysterics. Or maybe the icon could be user-defined. I recently saw an animated icon of a female jogger that was rather, umm, bouncy. I'd like to use that! Anything to provide a better UI indication that other members in the community want to talk to you.
But wait, thanks to the open architecture of Community Server (why we love it so, don't ya know), anyone can add functionality they think is missing from the base package. And with Personal Messages, Rich Mercer, a former Community Server MVP and now with Telligent, has written an excellent Notifications module that extends the Community Server PM function. I don't know if it supports user-defined notification icons or not though.
Postscript: I promise to do better checking my PM inbox, but the behavior of old dogs is hard to change. Please email me at davebu at telligent.com to make sure I get your message.