Major Additions - Email Integration (New threads/replies by email)

This mod is based off of the Mail Reply modification by Colin F to which I have obtained permission to rewrite and release.

This modification allows you to mimic email lists such as yahoo groups through your forums!

After installing this modification you will have new settings in your forum manager where for each forum you can enable this modification and setup a separate email address to use for each forum that you have this enabled for.

Just like how there is a separate email address for each yahoo group.

After doing so, members can subscribe to each forum that this mod is enabled for to receive notifications for new threads and replies.

Any posts in that forum, will be sent to them via email. (Example email attached below). The users can then reply to that email (which will then be processed and posted to the forums through the cron job that runs every 10 minutes), or they can send a new email to the email address and a brand new thread will be created!

Essentially mimicing an email list! Suddenly those users that hate forums, can still be dragged into the conversations and help keep the forum's activity level up!


BUGS!
These are the known bugs to date:

• Confirmed bug that email processing does not handle Japanese characters.

Unsupported Items
These are the items that are not currently supported:

• Some custom bbcode modifications will not display like they do on the forums in the html emails. Like glow, and the table mod.

TO UPGRADE

• Please see the file in the zip for upgrading!! If your upgrading from version 2.3.X you will need to reverse some file edits that are no longer nessecary!

NEW INSTALL

• See instructions in the zip file.

VERSION HISTORY!
(See the file in the zip for a complete history!)

• 2.6 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Joining an unmoderated public group will now auto subscribe you per the usergroup settings.
    • NO CONFLICTS with Instant Thread Subscription! See details in below post.
  • New Stuff
    • User Option Allow Auto Subscribe - This is an admin allowable, user option that let's the user choose to not be auto subscribed.
    • User Option not receive own posts - A new user option that lets them select to NOT receive their own posts via email.
    • Editted the phrase for the Auto Subscription script to tell people what to do if there are no listings.
    • Added error checks when saving a usergroup for if auto subscriptioin is entered with a forumid for a forum that does not have email integration enabled and also checks that the usergroup you are saing is entered in the forum manager as allowed to use email integration.
• 2.6.1 Release (BETA VERSION)
  • Hot Fix
    • It appears I was unseting a variable too soon. I've corrected this and it has resolved the issue with multiple posted replies on my test server.

Most of these will be slow to make it in til I know I've got the code to handle just about every type of email we could receive But in anycase, here are the ideas for future versions!

• End User Option to subscribe to just receive new thread emails, or receive all new thread & reply emails (current version does all new threads & replies).

Thanks to RedTyger, Bob Denny, Ed Kohwley and Chris McKeever for their additions and assistance with portions of this code.

Huge thanks also goes to the many individuals that have helped test various incarnations of this mod.

MAD PROPS TO: cgmckeever for a great quoting regex for the old format, and all the mods at www.4winmobile.com for helping test version 2.4 prior to release!!

You guys rock!

Please feel free to donate to my continued work on this modification!! It let's me spend more time on it!
Make a Donation!

Version 2.6 will work with both 3.6.8 and 3.7!

The #.X versions are the solid tested versions.

The #.X.X versions are the beta versions. New features and bug fixes will be worked in there and then when I have a solid version it'll be released as the next #.X

Thank you!!

~ Cyricx

[toivo]

Hi Alfa1,

You are using vB 3.7 and have followed the installation instructions of EI and uncommented line 41. However, your system does not seem to have the file includes/functions_threadprefix.php or the path is wrong.

Try commenting out line 41 and see what happens.

Regards,
toivo

[Alfa1]

I am using vb 3.7. I have now uncommented line 41. Now I am getting this error:

PHP Code:

Email Integration

Warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn't open stream {gmail.com:143/novalidate-cert}INBOX in [path]/includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 98

Failed to connect to the mailbox for forum - Forum A

Warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn't open stream {gmail.com:143/novalidate-cert}INBOX in [path]/includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 98

Failed to connect to the mailbox for forum - Forum B

Done 


[toivo]

Hi,

You can check the settings of the mailbox in your Gmail profile - IMAP Access - Configure your email client:

- the name of the incoming server is imap.gmail.com
- encrypted connection (SSL) is selected
- the incoming server (IMAP) uses port 993

Transfer the first two settings to the EI configuration of the forum in Forum Manager.

In the Forum Manager you also have the choice between SSL (official certificate) and SSL (selfsigned certificate). Chose one of them, depending on the configuration of your server. If your server does not have an SSL certificate, it may be best to change the Gmail mailbox to accept POP connections and change the EI settings for the forum accordingly.

If you get an error message for example because of an incorrect password, the error message should show the IMAP connection stream as:

{imap.gmail.com:993/SSL}INBOX

That combination is one of the choices in emailintegration.php and it is listed on line 86.

Regards,
toivo

[itconsultingnv]

I am getting the same issue as other users. Tthe messages get posted via email but not deleted from the mailbox (pop or imap doesn't matter), which results in multiple postings, until I log in and delete those emails manually. Argghhh.

Also after the upgrade I do not have the Admin CP -> Email Integration sidebar option. Just doesn't show up. Actually uninstalled and reinstalled and still can't see this option any longer.

Everything works as advertised (was waiting on my host to enable IMAP for a while) but since the 2.6.1 I am getting the email posts repeatedly posted until I manually delete. Saw several posts referring to this but no final advice on how to repair this issue. Can't go live on the rest of the forums until this is resolved.

Any advice? Frustrating, love the mod just need this final issue resolved. Thanks in advance.

[toivo]

Have you checked the PHP error log for error messages caused by emailintegration.php? It may be the same error I developed a workaround for and got the deletion working. See my post from 18 April https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=809

[itconsultingnv]

Saw that post but not sure where to find this error, or which file to make the edit to. Line 1615 of which file? Please advise, would love to try this fix. Thanks for the quick response!

[itconsultingnv]

Thanks again toivo for the quick response. A couple questions.
1. How do I find my PHP error log? Looking in all my logs and nothing specific to PHP. Just my http error logs. Running cpanel on a hosted installation so... perhaps I don't have access to the log.

2. What file do I edit line 1615 in? Do I replace the line with the text you showed?

Thanks in advance.

[itconsultingnv]

Sorry idiot question, so tired today. Ran it with the mod to the file and it appears I am still getting repeat emails and multiple posts on the forum. The emails show as read but not deleted in my webmail access and each time the cron runs t repeats the email and post for this reply. hmm. Any ideas?

[toivo]

The location of the PHP error log is dependent on the type of server and you will need to talk to your hosting provider.

The line 1615 is in the file /includes/cron/emailintegration.php:

$plaintext_parser->set_parsing_language($touser['languageid']);

Workaround:

$plaintext_parser->set_parsing_language( 1 );

The idea of the workaround is to use the default language code 1. The original code depends on the contents of the $touser array which is for some reason incorrect.

Cheers,
toivo

[toivo]

You have not by any chance turned on the $debug option on line 45? If the value is 1 instead of 0, the messages will not be deleted.

Originally Posted by itconsultingnv

Sorry idiot question, so tired today. Ran it with the mod to the file and it appears I am still getting repeat emails and multiple posts on the forum. The emails show as read but not deleted in my webmail access and each time the cron runs t repeats the email and post for this reply. hmm. Any ideas?