Notifly in Joomla

In Joomla everything is extended through plugins. A small system plugin subscribes to events (onUserAfterSave, onContentAfterSave, onContactAfterSubmit) and sends a push to Notifly. No third-party libraries are needed — the built-in HTTP client of the Joomla framework is used.

We reuse the shared notifly_send() helper — the same one as for the other CMSes. Inside the plugin it is easiest to wrap it in a private method and keep the token and URL in the plugin parameters.

Plugin structure

plugins/system/notifly/
├── notifly.xml
└── src/Extension/Notifly.php

notifly.xml — the manifest with url and token parameters:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<extension type="plugin" group="system" method="upgrade">
    <name>System - Notifly</name>
    <author>Notifly</author>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <namespace path="src">Notifly\Plugin\System\Notifly</namespace>
    <files>
        <folder plugin="notifly">src</folder>
    </files>
    <config>
        <fields name="params">
            <fieldset name="basic">
                <field name="url" type="url" label="Notifly URL"
                       default="https://your-notifly.example.com" />
                <field name="token" type="text" label="App token"
                       default="AGdjfk_L.dKe8q" />
            </fieldset>
        </fields>
    </config>
</extension>

Plugin class

src/Extension/Notifly.php — this is where our notifly_send() lives (as a private method) together with all the event subscriptions:

<?php

namespace Notifly\Plugin\System\Notifly\Extension;

\defined('_JEXEC') or die;

use Joomla\CMS\Plugin\CMSPlugin;
use Joomla\CMS\Http\HttpFactory;
use Joomla\CMS\Uri\Uri;

final class Notifly extends CMSPlugin
{
    /** Universal helper (same logic as in /cases/cms/). */
    private function send(string $title, string $message, int $priority = 5): void
    {
        $url   = $this->params->get('url');
        $token = $this->params->get('token');
        if (!$url || !$token) {
            return;
        }

        try {
            HttpFactory::getHttp()->post(
                "$url/message?token=$token",
                json_encode([
                    'title'    => mb_substr($title, 0, 200),
                    'message'  => mb_substr($message, 0, 1500),
                    'priority' => $priority,
                ], JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE),
                ['Content-Type' => 'application/json'],
                5
            );
        } catch (\Throwable $e) {
            // Never break the site request because of a notification.
        }
    }

    /** New registration or user change. */
    public function onUserAfterSave($user, $isNew, $success, $msg): void
    {
        if (!$success || !$isNew) {
            return;
        }
        $this->send(
            "👤 Новый пользователь: {$user['username']}",
            "Email: {$user['email']}\n" .
            "ID: {$user['id']}\n" .
            "Профиль: " . Uri::root() . "administrator/index.php?option=com_users&task=user.edit&id={$user['id']}",
            4
        );
    }

    /** New or edited article / content item. */
    public function onContentAfterSave($context, $article, $isNew): void
    {
        if ($context !== 'com_content.article') {
            return;
        }
        $action = $isNew ? 'создан' : 'обновлён';
        $this->send(
            "📄 Материал $action: {$article->title}",
            "ID: {$article->id}\n" .
            "Категория: {$article->catid}\n" .
            "Открыть: " . Uri::root() .
                "administrator/index.php?option=com_content&task=article.edit&id={$article->id}",
            $isNew ? 5 : 4
        );
    }

    /** Form submission via com_contact. */
    public function onContactAfterSubmit($contact, $data): void
    {
        $this->send(
            "✉️ Обращение через контакт: {$contact->name}",
            "Тема: " . ($data['contact_subject'] ?? '—') . "\n" .
            "Сообщение:\n" . mb_substr($data['contact_message'] ?? '', 0, 1000),
            7
        );
    }
}

PHP errors

The system plugin is loaded very early, so it is also a convenient place to catch fatal errors via register_shutdown_function — for example, in onAfterInitialise:

public function onAfterInitialise(): void
{
    register_shutdown_function(function () {
        $err = error_get_last();
        if ($err && \in_array($err['type'], [E_ERROR, E_PARSE, E_CORE_ERROR, E_COMPILE_ERROR])) {
            $this->send(
                "🔥 Fatal: {$err['message']}",
                "Файл: {$err['file']}:{$err['line']}\n" .
                "URL: " . ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '-'),
                10
            );
        }
    });
}

Where to enable the plugin

1. Zip the notifly folder and install it via System → Install → Extensions.
2. Open System → Plugins, find “System - Notifly”, set the URL and token, and enable the plugin.

System plugins fire on every frontend and admin request — that is enough to catch all of the events listed above.

Throttling

To keep the contact form or bot registrations from flooding the channel, cache the sending via the built-in \Joomla\CMS\Cache\Cache:

$cache = \Joomla\CMS\Factory::getCache('notifly', '');
$key   = 'throttle_' . md5($title);
if ($cache->get($key)) {
    return;
}
$cache->store(1, $key);

Benefits

• Instant reaction to enquiries. A com_contact enquiry — a push before the email even reaches the mailbox.
• Content control. Every article edit is visible to the editor right away.
• A cheap error monitor without Sentry for a small Joomla site.

What to improve next

• Separate Notifly channels for content, users and errors.
• Priorities by content category via plugin parameters.
• Passing the article/user id into extras for a deep link.