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

[AyeCapn]

Cyricx - I got directed to this thread from the custom app discussion in RedTyger's thread (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=141280) and I am glad to see how well your app has been coming along. I'll be installing and testing this afternoon sometime.

Would a modification to this app be possible taht would provide instant email notification like this:

vBulletin has a features in the AdminCP that allows administrators to be notified via email for each new post that is made. I would like to extend this functionality to all users who request it.

The current feature can be found here:

Forums & Moderators > Forum Manager > {some forum} > Moderation Options > Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post (Separate each address with a SPACE)

The space provided is finite, and I'd like it to be a profiule option instead. There would be one profile checkbox (yes to reveive or no don't receive) for each parent forum on my site.

Combine that functionality with reply by email and you have effectively rendered Yahoo groups useless

[quiklink]

If you are subscribed to the forum using this mod you receive immediate copies of all posts.

[AyeCapn]

Originally Posted by quiklink

If you are subscribed to the forum using this mod you receive immediate copies of all posts.

get the funk out!

like... for serious?

[Cyricx]

Yep! This mod is meant to completely simulate the yahoo groups and other mailing lists

Though it is a constant work in progress due to the various email processors out there

[AyeCapn]

managed to get the thread posts to generate an email, but creating a post from an email doesn;t seem to do anyhting.

When I run the CRON job manually I get this error even after testing all the 6 email types:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function imap_open() in /home/yaddayadda/public_html/forum/includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 70

[AyeCapn]

is it feasible to subscribe to a parent forum and then be automatically subscribed to all child forums? What about parent forums that do not allow posting?

[quiklink]

Originally Posted by AyeCapn

managed to get the thread posts to generate an email, but creating a post from an email doesn;t seem to do anyhting.

When I run the CRON job manually I get this error even after testing all the 6 email types:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function imap_open() in /home/yaddayadda/public_html/forum/includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 70

IMAP isn't configured in your PHP setup.

[AyeCapn]

talked to my host and he confirmed that athough IMAP is working for email, he didn;t compile PHP with te IMAP module.

self-pwned

[quiklink]

Heh, I found out the same thing from my old host. Was the last straw in a series of 'what the hell are you guys thinking' problems with them and I moved.

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by AyeCapn

is it feasible to subscribe to a parent forum and then be automatically subscribed to all child forums? What about parent forums that do not allow posting?

A separate email address is needed for each forum. Otherwise in order to start a new thread from email you'd have to do type something like [f-2] this is new thread title

into the subject line. Very inconveinant and it was not pretty when I discussed doing that with the users I was trying to convert when I was making this mod

But I'm planning a simple interface to enable people to easily subscribe to multiple forums, though it will be a ways down the pipe til I get the issues solved with various mailbrowsers.

On the parent forums that don't allow posting, I'll have to investigate if the current error checks catch that.