have a couple of questions with regards to this mod

#1-how does this mod work for forums that are moderated. Does the new thread notification get sent after a new thread has been approved?

#2-its my assumption that only one email for a new thread gets generated? one for one? or is it like a daily digest (default built in vB)?

#3-do notifications get sent out for additional posts to a threads where a thread notification has already been sent?

#1 - Now that you mention it, no it doesn't. I'll look into dealing with that.

#2 - It's not a digest, no.

#3 - They do not, thread subscription is separate since this is actually an add-on to forum subscription.

Sweet thanks! Any idea when you might have something available?

Good to Hear!

Any idea how to easily do this. Before you answer I should explain what I'm attempting to do.
First off I run this forum for our company as an intranet app. Its small and doesn't have a huge load when it comes to volume of posts. Since our company has mail lists (where we mail one email address and its forwarded to a list of individuals) what I have done is setup a new user, which I'm kind of using like a system user as all the user has access to is this one forum. I have set the users email address to the mail list I want to send notifications to and then want to subscribe them to a forum where they will get instant notification of all new threads and post. Since this is not a real users I need to somehow how have them auto subscribe to each thread so that they get notified of any updated posts?

Hope this makes sense....sorry to run on and on. Any idea how I can do this? Your mod will work for the new thread but not sure how to tackle the new post?

Ok so what you want is essentially for every member to receive email subscriptions for everything, new threads and new posts?

in the traditional sense of vB members no. The system user I have set up has an email address associated with it that will email everyone at my plant...regardless of whether they are a member or not. So just need this for this one member which acts as a system user account(this member is only setup so that I can email all users at my plant)....clear as mud :D

Ok, so you want to set a mailing list which which receive notifications of new threads regardless of who is a member or subscribed or whatever?

ultimately that would be better then using this system account that I described...so yes that is correct. Want to send instant notification to a mail list for new threads and post's in a forum that is being moderated regardless of member or subscribe. My system account was the only way I could figure out how to kind of do what I wanted without a plugin or hack.

Ok, well that's actually very easy to do and I have to solve the moderation problem for something else I'm working on at the moment so...watch this space.

No guarantee on a timeframe though.

Thanks RedTyger!!!!!!!!!!!
:)

For what it's worth, in AdminCP, you can already do this. It's built in.

Under Forums and Moderators -> Forum Manager. Select a forum. There are fields for this:

Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post
(Separate each address with a SPACE)

Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Thread
(Separate each address with a SPACE)


Manually enter the "recipient's" email address, and notification of any new posts or threads will be sent out via email.




I would like a way for users to "subscribe via email to an entire forum" though, so they get emails of all activity, immediately if they like. All threads, all posts, all replies, etc. That way folks who don't like online forums but are more accustomed to email (ie: migrating from a Yahoo Group, for example) can still get all the same content to their in box.

Actually Tralala that is not 100% correct. yes it will email notifications for new post or new threads but the problem arise if you use these fields for something other then for moderators when a forum is under moderation. Reason being is if I place an email address in one of these fields and a notice is sent out to a group of users but the thread or post hasn't been approved by the moderator then the users get an error when they click on the link saying that the thread doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because it hasn't been approved. Then when the moderator approves the thread or post a new email is not generated and sent to the users. This becomes very confusing to the users.

I use this feature for that very reason in forums that I am not using moderation as its a great way to send notifications out immediately. Problem arises when you use it for this reason and the forum is being moderated.

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, that feature is best used for Admins only, and I suspect that's why it's hidden in the AdminCP. It's not ideal for end-user mailings. And since it pays no attention to the moderation queue... yeah, some other solution is obviously necessary for a forum that employs post/thread moderation.

Also, those fields are limited to some small number of characters, so you can't send to more than 10-15 email addresses before it starts to truncate the field

Hi,

What I would like is to auto subscribe registered users and above to every forum without them having to do anything so they will always hear about all posts.

Is that possible with this?

I'd like the same, as an option is that's possible. Asking each user to go in and manually subscribe to each is asking too much. I'd like to auto subscribe them by default!

That is also something I'm looking into.

Hmm I should have read through this whole thread before sending you a PM :)

I actualy have a working alpha script that interacts with the forums just like yahoo groups.

The email posts look like crap, and I'm currently working on the preg matches to clean that up. But I'm in the alpha already.

Perhaps we should get together and see what we can come up with?

I've got the email catch working, cron job runs every 10 minutes.

For forums that are enabled for the email integration and that a user has subscribed to when a new thread or new post is posted from the forums, an email is sent.

From email, a user can post a new thread, or replies to one of the emails they receive.

When the cron runs every 10 minutes, it'll grab those emails post them, and email the user the post just as if it had been posted from the forum.

Completely interacting just like yahoogroups :D :D

Just gotta clean up the install and stuff so a noob can install it, and clean up the emails a TON. Damn line breaks are driving me nutz on that :)

Cool... the scope for the thing I am having built did not include posting via email. I would tongue kiss you to get in on that alpha test.

I've still got alot of bugs to fix, and I'll need RedTygers permission too as I used some of his code for parts of it.

(I've already got Colin F's permission as I used his vbmail reply as the skeleton)

Once the code is posted in beta, I'm sure I'll get a few chime ins on how to code it better and reduce some queries as my php expertise is stumbling ;)

This sound incredibly cool. Even better than I was looking for.

Please keep us informed on progress.

I so need this functionality :D

Ah. Shucks. Somethings tells me I might be writing this one off to experience.

My PHP is not stumbling! I'll help, sure thing. At first it sounded like you were doing what I'm doing but it sounds quite different now I read it back. The posting-by-email is a very smart touch.

The code for this thread was freely released so you can use it. It's all pretty generic stuff, there's no real need for permission anyway. But it is a bit rough and I've redone it since, so I hope you do the same!

Wow, Cyricx. That sounds fantastic. Just this week I am migrating users from a Yahoo group to vBulletin, and they're groaning about what they'll miss out on (notably, the ability to get *all* messages emailed to them.)

Sounds like you've bridged that gap and then some. The ability to post via email is just gravy on top.

I can't wait to see this in action!!

Awesome RedTyger :)

I've got just a few more bugs I want to fiddle out before I create an installable product, then I'll release a beta version.

I've really tried to optimize my code, but I'm certain there is crap I've missed :)

I love it, but for some users, not all, They get the new thread notification, but the do not get emails in that thread. I have logged on as many users and I know they are subscribing to instant email notification. I basicially have 3 user accounts, all with the identical settings. 2 of the users get every email. The other 2 get new threads notifications only.

Our board consists of about 100 Yahoo converts, so this is critical it works across the board. I have played with the mail settings in the CP, no difference.

Please help.

The code in RedTyger's mod only emails when the new thread is created.

The users that are getting every email must be subscribed to the thread as well.

Thanks. So how do I have subscribers subscribe to get every e-mail instantly to the forum they subscribe to? This is critical to my forum.

Let me know when you've got something I can take a look at Cyricx, might be able to put our heads together on this.

I'll try to bundle it up and send it to you tonight or by Sunday. I have a few meetings this weekend for a not-for-profit org I do work for. :)

You have emails disabled on the site here, so send me an email through the board and I'll send you the alpha bundle when I've got it ready.

~ Cyricx

That is EXACTLY what I came looking for....

Bill

Yes, that'd be nice, a way to set this "Instant Forum Notification" as a default for all existing and new users.

I think that this has been a long-ignored feature that was overlooked with good intentions by Jelsoft. Implementing something like this on somethingawful.com or any big board would easily crash their email servers.

For smaller communities that don't aspire to that size, it isn't an issue.

Agreed. Small membership communities could *especially* use this, because forum activity is sometimes slow, so users don't visit... which perpetuates the cycle.

It's been overlooked too long. It's one area where other forum implementations are actually better than vBulletin, and that should be corrected.

For now I am paying for the commercial version of CommBull and plan to send out a bulletin/newsletter with the latest threads. But it sure would be a lot nicer if we could set default subscriptions...

I hadn't come across CommBull, so thanks for this.

Before I commit to purchasing this though, can you tell me if it supports some sort of automation or do you need to manually specify that you want to create a newsletter etc and define the thread date ranges every time?

I am really looking for a 'set it and forget it solution' where a summary will be sent to everyone at a set interval.

Thanks.

The latest commercial version has a cron job you can set for whatever interval you want. I haven't tested it long enough, but the feature list promises it's a "set it and forget it" type of thing.

bumpity bump. Any news?

I'm down to:

Bug with usergroup posting permissions
Conflicts with thread subscription and forum subscription
Better interface to add/remove/modify forum subscriptions

Then it'll be ready for beta :)

Thats very good news. Can not wait to see this once its done.. Thanks keep up the good work

Our forum also would greatly benefit if the Admin could simply take a list of current users and

1. switch their current forum subscriptions to Instant Email. (we've installed the mod, and it works well.)

2. easily subcribe current users to all (or some, as dictated by the Admin) forums to receive Instant Email Notification

3 And if there was a way for new users to automatically be defaulted to Instant Email Notification for all (or some, as dictated by the Admin) forums.

Has anyone fully, or partly, solved these yet?

Thanks.

Bob B

I too would love to have a hack to use vbulleting exaxtly like a mailing list!

A user subscribes to a forum and gets all the content of each new posting & get delivered instantly, no more clicking on a link to be able to get another email...

So please keep up the work!

The reply by e-mail features is available discus 4 pro at discusware.com. So there must be also a working solution possible for vB...

Does the instant email mod work with VBULLETIN 3.6.7 PL1 ?

Thanks.

Bob B