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

[Renada]

Hi Cyricx,

I'm now getting this error when running the scheduled task.

Email Integration 

Fatal error:  Call to undefined function:  htmlspecialchars_decode() in /home/sites/thinkstop.com/public_html/community/boards/includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 130

Any ideas what is causing this? I think this is what is now stopping me receiving an email notification.

Regards,
Renada

[Cyricx]

On line 130 of the emailintegration.php find:

   $title = htmlspecialchars_decode($title);

and change it to

//   $title = htmlspecialchars_decode($title);

It appears that those running an older version of php do not have that function defined. Tonight when I work on one of the preg_replaces for outlook emails I'll also look for a function that will work better with older versions to remove the html stuff.

without the decode a title with & will come up as amp;&

Can you confirm if you are running php 4.x?

Be back in 5 hours!!!

Please test it and let me know what you find!! I'll be working furiously smashing squashing and demolishing any issues!!

[Renada]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

On line 130 of the emailintegration.php find:

   $title = htmlspecialchars_decode($title);

and change it to

//   $title = htmlspecialchars_decode($title);

It appears that those running an older version of php do not have that function defined. Tonight when I work on one of the preg_replaces for outlook emails I'll also look for a function that will work better with older versions to remove the html stuff.

without the decode a title with & will come up as amp;&

Can you confirm if you are running php 4.x?

Be back in 5 hours!!!

Please test it and let me know what you find!! I'll be working furiously smashing squashing and demolishing any issues!!

Hi Cyricx,

Ok fixing the special characters gave me back the following error message:

Email Integration 

Warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn't open stream {mysite.com:110/pop3/notls}INBOX in /includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 70

Warning: imap_headers(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 73

Warning: imap_close(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /includes/cron/emailintegration.php on line 799
Done

That mentions pop3 in the error but I've got it as IMAP in the settings - could it be that it wants pop3 instead?

PHP version is 4.4.7

Hope this helps and will provide a stronger hammer for smashing and demolishing if needed

Regards,
Renada

[Renada]

Hi Cyricx,

I'm receiving Email notifictions from the forum that I've enabled this in but every time I reply to one I get the following message:

Dear Unregistered User,

                We're sorry, but for the reason stated below we could not process your e-mailed reply.

                The error that occurred was:

               
Message too short: your message does not have the required minimum amount of characters.
                               

                Sorry,
                Web Team

Not sure why it's saying "Unregistered User" as this is posted in a Staff only forum. What is the required minimum amount of characters? It's not pulling this from my forum settings as I deliberately posted an lengthy reply to see if I'd still get this error.

Curiouser and curiouser

Regards,
Renada

[shortbus1662]

I can't wait until I can reply to email alerts like the one I just got about this topic via email haha!

Throw in an advertisement in the email alerts that go out and cha ching!

I'm very excited about this thing!

[txspaderz]

Originally Posted by Renada

Hi Cyricx,

I'm receiving Email notifictions from the forum that I've enabled this in but every time I reply to one I get the following message:

Dear Unregistered User,

                We're sorry, but for the reason stated below we could not process your e-mailed reply.

                The error that occurred was:

               
Message too short: your message does not have the required minimum amount of characters.
                               

                Sorry,
                Web Team

Not sure why it's saying "Unregistered User" as this is posted in a Staff only forum. What is the required minimum amount of characters? It's not pulling this from my forum settings as I deliberately posted an lengthy reply to see if I'd still get this error.

Curiouser and curiouser

Regards,
Renada

My Co-admin had the same problem. He said he sent a total of 5 emails, with the last one being a novel. However he was sending the email through a Microsoft Exchange Web Access Server, so I was thinking it might have something to do with that. It will also show unregistered user if your not sending the email from the email address in your user profile.


Also, can you try and change the mail settings to Pop3? That might clear up that IMAP error.

(I'm in NO way affiliated with the coder, however he's spent a lot of time working out some bugs on my forum, and I'd like to help him while he's offline)

[rustybones]

Hi Cyricx,
firstly congrats on releasing this great mod!

Some problems I'm having is everytime I run the cron job I get this error

Email Integration

Warning: imap_open(): Couldn't open stream {203.17.68.100:110/pop3/notls}INBOX in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 70

Warning: imap_headers(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 73

Warning: imap_close(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 799

Done

I take it, it is required for IMAP to be enabled on the mail server that we are trying to use (even though I had the POP3 option selected)? Being in a corporate organization I have to lodge a request to get them to do it .

Also I noticed "quick reply" will throw an error when this product is enabled, but if I refresh the page the post is displayed. I would give you the error it throws but it just says there was a problem with no other information.

thanks again

[Renada]

Originally Posted by txspaderz

My Co-admin had the same problem. He said he sent a total of 5 emails, with the last one being a novel. However he was sending the email through a Microsoft Exchange Web Access Server, so I was thinking it might have something to do with that. It will also show unregistered user if your not sending the email from the email address in your user profile.


Also, can you try and change the mail settings to Pop3? That might clear up that IMAP error.

(I'm in NO way affiliated with the coder, however he's spent a lot of time working out some bugs on my forum, and I'd like to help him while he's offline)

Hi,

Thanks for trying to help. I don't use anything Microsoft for Email - I use a programme called Pocomail and it is sending mail from the address that is in my profile. I also changed to Pop3 mail and still get the same error when running the cron job.

Any other idea?

Regards,
Renada

[txspaderz]

Try sending from the web-based email. (I take it Pocomail is a form of email program like Outlook or Thunderbird). The mod might not be able to 'read' pocomail's email format correctly.

Does your server have IMAP available? I set mine on pop3 and it worked, however I do know my host has IMAP turned on, as I can setup an IMAP email account and connect through my Outlook.

[txspaderz]

Originally Posted by rustybones

Hi Cyricx,
firstly congrats on releasing this great mod!

Some problems I'm having is everytime I run the cron job I get this error

Email Integration

Warning: imap_open(): Couldn't open stream {203.17.68.100:110/pop3/notls}INBOX in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 70

Warning: imap_headers(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 73

Warning: imap_close(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in \includes\cron\emailintegration.php on line 799

Done

I take it, it is required for IMAP to be enabled on the mail server that we are trying to use (even though I had the POP3 option selected)? Being in a corporate organization I have to lodge a request to get them to do it .

Also I noticed "quick reply" will throw an error when this product is enabled, but if I refresh the page the post is displayed. I would give you the error it throws but it just says there was a problem with no other information.

thanks again

I see your using an IP as your mail server. Is that what you would use in Outlook / Outlook Express or any other POP3 reader? Try the DNS form of that IP and see if that helps!