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

[neil00027]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

You can already do that with default vbulletin

Though you can't reply to them straight from email, which wouldn't be possible by digest either as how would we know which one you were replying too

LOL I thought that a few hours after posting my message!!! Must admit though that it is a function I'd like to see further development on. With the Web xing software that I'm using less and less you can schedule the digest to be dispatched at a particular hour on a particular day a week.

[Cyricx]

You can do that in vbulletin too

Just go into the Scheduled Task Manager and you'll see the cron jobs located there with the times they are set to run.

Although, depending on board traffic will decide the exact moment they run.

Something I wish they would change in vbulletin is how the scheduled tasks are called. But that's my opinion.

[kube]

I tried an Update from 2.2 to 2.6...

In 2.2 it worked fine...with some little old problems.

But after that update (I think I made it after reading carefully the instructions)
I had big problems....all options I can make in my adminCP have no effects, when I change them.

example: all mails are outgoing by one adress for all (I set it to "one adress for each forum)

smilies are not shown right anymore.....


so, do anyone have an idea, what my mistake was ???

I wanted to start with that as an easter-present for my users.....but now

[Cyricx]

Did you reupload all the files?

[kube]

yes, reuploaded all the files.

but there was still the "ei_folder"(INBOX) in my adminCP...which should not be there, right ?

in the mysql database "ei_folder" was missing, so that I can`t store the changes. I made it quick&dirty and added the"ei_folder" as a new table, so that I can store my forum-changes, but nothing happened....

[Cyricx]

That should be there. You added an ei_folder field to the forum table of your database right? You didn't create a whole new table right?

Edit one of the forums and put in INBOX for that field, then save and edit it again to verify it took the change.

[kube]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

That should be there. You added an ei_folder field to the forum table of your database right? You didn't create a whole new table right?

Edit one of the forums and put in INBOX for that field, then save and edit it again to verify it took the change.

That`s exactly what I did !

In 2.2 the "ei_folder" was there, and in 2.6 not, right ?

The "ei_folder" is not the big problem....in 2.2 it`s at all working....but not so fine, like the 2.6 sounds to do.

But the upgrade to 2.6 do not send mails by the special forum-adress and the smilies are not shown...sending mails ans answering by mail is working !


So I think there are only some little mistakes...not the whole one !


Thanks for your time.

[Cyricx]

It sounds like your settings are not what you want in the vbulletin options.

First off, you are receiving plain text emails. This is not a bug, this is a feature

Go into Vbulletin Options -> Email Integration Settings

There you can select for everyone to either be able to select to receive emails by plain text and html, or you can turn that off and force everyone to receive plaintext or html.

Right now, you have it so that users can select which has the default of sending plain text emails unless they go into their edit options page and select to receive html emails.

As far as the other goes, make sure you do not have it set to send emails from a single user and that the username and from address is blank in the Vbulletin Options -> Email Integration Settings

[kube]

see the pics....but all mails are send by the mail adress from my forum

[kube]

I think I got the problem....don`t know how....but I did....