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

[bellsh83]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

None of the plugins, intereact at all with the registration system.

I'd suspect this problem would have more to do with issues with other plugins you might have installed.

The best way to test this is to disable the prodcut and see if the bug still occurs.

Or post up the database error you are getting.

In my database a forum id was missing show it showed error.

[lbernstein]

Is there a way of increasing the number of forumids that can be added to the "Email Reply Integration Settings" from within the Usergroup Manager? I seem to be able to add only 100 characters (which include commas and spaces).

I am also wondering when configuring the settings within the Forum Manager, whether the "Hostname of the above email" should be pop.ambersight.com or smtp.ambersight.com?

Thanks

[mjname]

I'm being told by my host provider that IMAP is not available for PHP5. does anyone have a clue what I can do? I'm a little lost in what to do next. I would really like to have the ability to email some of my forums.

[mykkal]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

None of the plugins, intereact at all with the registration system.

I'd suspect this problem would have more to do with issues with other plugins you might have installed.

The best way to test this is to disable the prodcut and see if the bug still occurs.

Or post up the database error you are getting.

can i get some help please? I've asked a million times.

[lbernstein]

Is anyone interested in a quick consulting job to help me fix my Email Integration problems? Please PM me if you are.

[joyfulmiller]

I have vBulletin installed in a folder that is protected with aMember. Will this mod work with my 3.8.3 vBulletin since it's located in a protected directory? I imagine the emails will send okay, but will the replies by email work?

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by mjname

I'm being told by my host provider that IMAP is not available for PHP5. does anyone have a clue what I can do? I'm a little lost in what to do next. I would really like to have the ability to email some of my forums.

I suspect your host is blowing smoke.. I'm running PHP 5.2.6, MYSQL 5.0.27 and IMAP Server 1.0 with no issues at all.

You don't have to use IMAP though. You can connect with pop3 as well.

Originally Posted by lbernstein

Is there a way of increasing the number of forumids that can be added to the "Email Reply Integration Settings" from within the Usergroup Manager? I seem to be able to add only 100 characters (which include commas and spaces).

I am also wondering when configuring the settings within the Forum Manager, whether the "Hostname of the above email" should be pop.ambersight.com or smtp.ambersight.com?

Thanks

Database field overlook. Use phpmyadmin or something similar to go into your database, go into the usergroup table and edit the ei_forumid field to set the character limit to 250. This will be fixed in the next version, or I'll have an alternate way for the system to handle this. Not too happy with how it does it now with typing in IDs. *shrug*

As for the hostname, try both. It depends on what you need to use to connect to the box. You can always use the Email Intergration -> Forum Settings Help to test your suspected settings.

Originally Posted by joyfulmiller

I have vBulletin installed in a folder that is protected with aMember. Will this mod work with my 3.8.3 vBulletin since it's located in a protected directory? I imagine the emails will send okay, but will the replies by email work?

That shouldn't affect things at all. It should work just fine.

Worst case scenario.. fire up a test board and try it out. I always strongly suggest testing new mods on a test board before using them on a live board anyway.

[Cyricx]

Just a quick note for those stating they are having problems running the mod on 3.8

I just copied my board to a test server, upgraded it to 3.8.3, redid the file edit to class_mail.php

And it's working just fine..

[mykkal]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Just a quick note for those stating they are having problems running the mod on 3.8

I just copied my board to a test server, upgraded it to 3.8.3, redid the file edit to class_mail.php

And it's working just fine..

I still need the same help I need 4 months ago and have been begging for.

Cyrix reinstalling did not work. Will you ever help me?

If not... just let me know and I will stop asking completely.

[Cyricx]

You'll have to repeat your problem.

The biggest problem people have had is not redoing the file edits after they upgrade vbulletin *sigh*