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

[mykkal]

I have some users on my site that intiate posts throigh the email intergration.

It works perfectly for me... But only me. Some other users (especially the newer ones) cannot create new posts using the module.

Whenever a few of these users attempt to start a new post it just basically sits in the inbox of the email account assigned to that forum.

Whenever I forward a email to the address it is picked up right away and posted. That email is also deleted from the mailbox I sent too.

Just curious if anyone else has had this issue.
The name of my site is http://mymodeltalk.com
the forum board is http://mymodeltalk.com/jobs

Thanks
-Mike

[media_guy]

Hi Cyricx,

Email integration has been working great for us.

Is there a way if some user attach a (allowed) file with the message then email integration patch also send out this attachment?

Having this function would be of great help. Thanks.

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by mykkal

I have some users on my site that intiate posts throigh the email intergration.

It works perfectly for me... But only me. Some other users (especially the newer ones) cannot create new posts using the module.

Whenever a few of these users attempt to start a new post it just basically sits in the inbox of the email account assigned to that forum.

Whenever I forward a email to the address it is picked up right away and posted. That email is also deleted from the mailbox I sent too.

Just curious if anyone else has had this issue.
The name of my site is http://mymodeltalk.com
the forum board is http://mymodeltalk.com/jobs

Thanks
-Mike

First question would be, is their usergroupid in the list of allowed to post in the Forum Manager?

Specifically this setting:

Please enter the usergroup IDs that can post and reply by email.

Originally Posted by media_guy

Hi Cyricx,

Email integration has been working great for us.

Is there a way if some user attach a (allowed) file with the message then email integration patch also send out this attachment?

Having this function would be of great help. Thanks.

I had considered this but haven't thought about working it in yet as if someone sent outan attachment and you had 200 people setup for the emails. I would tend to think that sending out 200 emails with attachments could be a real stress on the servers.

That was the reason for going with the links to the attachments.

I'll have to put some more thought into this one.

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by popmyzit

Hello guys, great to hear this is progressing and thanks.

Any ideas on if there will be support for vb 3.7 ?

Right now it still doesnt work with new registrations in 3.7.

Now that I have a solid version for 3.6 that I'm happy with I'll work on the version for 3.7

[mashby]

I need some guidance on where to look for the problem I'm having.

Installed version 4.6 and have been able to post to the forum via e-mail perfectly. I tested invalid addresses and those have not posted, as expected, just happy it's working. For all intents and purposes e-mail to forums is working perfectly.

What's not working is e-mail notices going out.

1. Checked the forum and group settings to ensure that they are setup properly.

2. Tested sending e-mail out from vB through Maintenance > Diagnostics and that works just fine.

But when a post is added to the forum, either directly or through this Add-on, zero notifications are going out. I don't know if this is a vB problem, or if this is an Add-on problem, so I thought I'd just post it here and see if anyone has any suggestions. I'm at a loss.

Help! Thanks in advance.

[Cyricx]

Are the individuals subscribed to the forums?

Go to your admincp -> email integration -> auto subscriptions:

And run the scripts there to ensure all the forum subs are updated

Lastly, double check your Vbulletin Options -> vbulletin options -> Email options and verify that you do not use the smtp authentication.

If after following those steps you still have issues, please PM me and admin login and I'll happily check out whats going on

[mashby]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Are the individuals subscribed to the forums?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Go to your admincp -> email integration -> auto subscriptions:

And run the scripts there to ensure all the forum subs are updated

Done that as well.

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Lastly, double check your Vbulletin Options -> vbulletin options -> Email options and verify that you do not use the smtp authentication.

SMTP is not being used.

Originally Posted by Cyricx

If after following those steps you still have issues, please PM me and admin login and I'll happily check out whats going on

Thank you for the offer! I'm stepping out for lunch at the moment, but I may PM when I get back in a short while. You're definitely going out of your way to help me like this. Thank you.

[Cyricx]

Not a problem. I am completely devoted to this modification coming across as A+

Only other thing I can think of is to ensure you have enabled Email Integration and have fully filled out the email address user's should reply to as a full email address in the Forum Manager.

Anyway, if you'd like, pm me with an admin login. I'll need access to the vbulletin options (to verify the settings for EI), forum manager (to verify the forum settings), plugin manager (to make sure there isn't any problems with other mods messin each other up) and what forum you have enabled

With the problem your describing that should let me resolve this problem and confirm if this is a bug or a issue between two mods.

[JohnNM]

Cyricx,

It is fantastic to see so much activity here. Kudos for getting another release out over the weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

I am getting ready to install 2.4 on a backup Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 box (probably tomorrow). I will need to test it before I take it live. If you need to do any testing on my system, or if you have any specific tests you need done, let me know.

John

[Cyricx]

Thanks John, but I do believe this one is issue free

[high]* Cyricx KNOCKS ON WOOD... HARD...[/high]

I had a report with a bug with event forums, but loaded up both mods and tested fully. Found no compatability issues.

The smtp authetication doesn't work, but I haven't had a chance to try Alex's suggested code above

Tek put it through the ringer with php 4 so I'm solid on that.

I'm actually very confident on this code

The only thing people might experience a burp with is when they install this, if they have been using the old versions, and they start to use the "New Email Layout", the old formatted emails won't go through.

But if your started out on 2.4, or choose to use the old layout for emails. Your set to rock and roll


I'll be working with mashby tonight to determine what he's got going on, but I believe that will be a isolated issue