Messages via Email like YahooGroups

[amphicar770]

OK, I am sure I am not the first person to ask this but ..

I would like to give users the option to receive all posts via email. Not just a link but the actual post. Ideally they would be able to reply via email but minimally they should be able to read the message and then have a link to respond.

And sure, the option to get a daily digest of those messages via email would be nice to have. User should be able to qucikly and easily select email notification not only for specific threads but specific forums and/or all forums as well.

[rrr]

although it's in BETA, this seems like it might fit what you need:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=68113&highlight=post+email

[amphicar770]

although it's in BETA, this seems like it might fit what you need:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=68113&highlight=post+email

Thanks for the lead, could have potential.

This enables users to post to the forum. I would think this is the more difficult part of the hack versus distributing messages via email.

What I would really like is to enable users to receive all posts from a specified forum/forums (or even the entire board) via email with a link in the email to enable replies. By default in vb users can subscribe only to a single thread and even then only get the first reply.

[DiSH]

There are MANY groups that use their boards as BROADCAST platforms to their users of announcements etc. that need to send emails that have the actual CONTENT in them, not just links to the different threads.

I don't understand what Jelsoft was thinking when it programmed individual thread subscription emails to have the actual thread content, but NOT daily digest emails. That's pointless. And it just can't be too complicated to program digest emails to contain all the threads' contents along with links!!

VISUALIZE WHAT THE END USER REALLY NEEDS: when you're subscribed to a whole forum that has, say, 10 new posts in a day, the digest only has links to all these new threads, regardless of what subforums in which they appear. How much of a pain in the butt is it to keep a browser window open along with the email window and constantly have to toggle back and forth between them to view all the new posts by clicking the links in the email?! Especially for those who aren't very computer-literate?

People simply won't do it! They are generally too lazy! You HAVE to give it all to them up front, and if they are interested in joinging a thread, then they can click on the email link to that discussion. If not, they can conveniently read only ONE email a day and delete it. That saves them a lot of time in logging into the forums and scanning all the threads.

I love vBulletin, but our group has had a LOT of problems getting people to participate and use the boards instead of sending the whole group endless emails (sometimes ~20 a day to the whole distribution list). This is especially true of older participants for whom, frankly, email is about as complicated a technology as they are willing to deal with to get news!!

If somebody can reprogram the daily digest email (it just can't be too complicated), I would BE HAPPY to discuss what compensation our group could provide!

Thanks,
Darrin Hunter

[Peter Walker]

Hi,
I am new to this forum so forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere.

I agree that a Forum Email feature where all posts are sent out like in Yahoogroups would be useful.

I had a system like this running on my phpbb based board and it worked fine. Instead of having the forum software send the same post per Email to hundreds of members which would have put a high load on the server, I simply had one Email, containing the entire post text in a structured way, sent to my own read only Yahoogroup - only the automatic posts would be accepted by the group. The Yahoogroup was then responsible for redistributing the posts to my members, who wanted this, as either individual mails or as a daily digest.

This also had the advantage that the Yahoogroup still had a copy of all the posts after my phpbb board had been hacked and the sql database destroyed. By processing the formatted messages from the Yahoogroup, it should be possible to fully rebuild the existing forum posts. I am currently rebuilding my forum using vBulletin instead aof a heavily moded phpbb board.

My question is, can vBulletin 3.5.0 be used to send all new posts in a similar way to a Yahoogroup which in turn sends out the post to my members.

[Peter Walker]

My question is, can vBulletin 3.5.0 be used to send all new posts in a similar way to a Yahoogroup which in turn sends out the post to my members.

I am now much further in implementing this idea. In fact, it is not even difficult.

vBulletin 3.5.2 has a function for automatically posting all new posts to a moderator. This function is ideal for posting all new posts to a specific Email address like a Yahoogroup for example. The Yahoogroup then handles the posting of all new messages to the members of that group. Digest messages are also possible.

First of all, I changed the text in the Phrase Type: Email Body Text, Varname "moderator" to:


Thread link: $vboptions/showthread.php?t=$threadinfo[threadid]

Posted by : $bbuserinfo[username]

$post[message]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DO NOT REPLY VIA EMAIL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Replies sent by email will go to the administrator, not the original poster!
To send a private message to the poster, click on the "Reply here" link (above) and then on $bbuserinfo[username] on the left.

and then the Phrase Type: Email Subject text, Varname "moderator" to

[Forumname] $foruminfo[title_clean] - $threadinfo[title]
Note: [Forumname] is not a function, it is the actual name of your Yahoogroup. For example, my vBulletin Board is http://www.rifeforum.com (http://www.rifeforum.com/) and my Yahoogroup handling the message notifications is called Rifeforum. I have therefore written the following in this phrase:
[Rifeforum] $foruminfo[title_clean] - $threadinfo[title]
This is the same format Yahoo Groups uses and is recognised as such.

Setup your Yahoogroup to be a notification only group where the only person allowed to post is the moderator with the Email address used by the board.

Once this is setup, all you have to do is define which forums will be sending all their posts to your Yahoogroup.

In the Forum Manager, select to edit the forum you wish to use to send notifications from.
Under Moderation Options, enter the Email address of your Yahoogroup in the field [b]Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post and then save the changes. Repeat this for all the forums you want to setup notification for.

From now on, every new post in the respective forum is automatically sent to the Yahoogroup and from there onto all the members of that group.

Members can reply by clicking on the link at the top of the Email they receive.

The only problem left to be solved is that when the members click on the link, they are always sent to the first message in the topic, not the actual post.

A workaround is to use the following:
$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?t=$threadinfo[threadid]&goto=newpost
The problem here is that only takes you to the correct post if it just happens to be the latest one.

The better answer would be to use the following in Email Body Text phrases, varname "moderator".

$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?p=$postinfo[postid]#post$postinfo[postid]

but unfortunately that command does NOT work (it returns a blank).

I have not yet found out how to fix this, I would appreciate it if someone here could point out what needs to be done to be able to specifically use the post number instead of the topic number.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Try using $post instead of $postinfo

[Peter Walker]

Try using $post instead of $postinfo

I tried that, but it did not work!

$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?p=$post[postid]#post$post[postid]
returned "Thread link: http://www.rifeforum.com/showthread.php?p=#post (http://www.rifeforum.com/showthread.php?p=#post)" in the Email, the postid is not returned.

Am I missing something? I asked about this on the vbulletin.com forum and I was told this requires code modification and I need to ask here!