[chrispadfield]

Ok this whole thing about instant community is brilliant, but what is the biggest community interaction thing, email.

I know it has been mentioned before a bit but an email --> pm gateway is really a major feature that would be so so so so useful for an awful lot of us i would think.

I am going to list some features i have thought about, let me know what you think. Also a possible way for it to work. This is a big hack, beyond me (as it would need to be optimized and be very efficient):

HOW IT COULD WORK:
- I think it should work of the catch all email account. This would also mean that the catch all domain being used could be the same one as the forums use or a completly different one.
- Every 5/10 minutes a cron job is run to check a POP3 account (only 1 needed, everything in there from catch all).
- The script then runs through the email and adds to whatever new email table we are going to use, it then deletes the messages from the POP account.
- Afterwards, all outgoing messages are then sent as well. As this process is going to run quite regularly (5 mins or even quicker) it needs to be efficient!
- For the user i think the email system should be an extension (ie replication) of the pm system. The pm system has got a bit more complicated with some of the changes to it so i would think a different set of tables would be needed and in the interface emails would be clearly different from private messaging, with another "tab" for emails sort of thing but listing "new emails on homepage".

FEATURES:

Admins:
- Set number of messages to be stored
- Set freqency of email delivery/sending. If reached, an auto-reply sent
- Set a standard signature
- Set maximum number of emails a user can send in x time
- Set general spam filters
- Multiple domains?
- Allow email forwarding?

General:
- Email failed delivery sent back to originater if user does not exist

Users:
- Specific spam filters
- General features we have for pm --> folders, moving etc...
- Remote collection of other POP3 accounts (manual import).
- Have email forwarded to another email account
- Set signautre
- Address book
- Vacation reply

and I can think of more. Personally (this won't be popular with everyone) this is a hack i would be willing to pay for if it was done well (and soonish). It is a major enhancment to the system and not really part of a forum but something that would fit in very very well. A price of $50 would definitely not be unrealistic and I would pay straight away.

I would love to hear comments on this, it is a feature that would just be so useful I wonder if jelsoft have it on the "to do" list and if not is there someone enterprising out there who wants to make a product to link in with vbulletin.