Major Additions - Email Integration (New Threads/Replies by and through email!)

This modification allows you to mimic email lists such as yahoo groups through your forums!

Complete with the user's receiving emails for new threads and replies AND being able to reply directly from email or sending a new email to start a new thread!

Just like email lists, you will need a separate email box for EACH forum that you have this enabled for!!

After installing this modification in the forum manager you will enter the settings for each forum to connect to it's own email box.

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 in one of two formats that you as the administrator decide. One format has a "reply box" and is the most sure fire way of not getting excess email crap ont he forums. The second format (noted as "Old" format) keeps an email in its base pure form with some attempts at quoting messages. Examples of both are 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!

IMAP
You MUST have php imap functions enabled on your server to use this modification! You do not need to have IMAP installed, just have to enable php to use the functions by recompiling it with imap enabled!

If you are upgrading from the version
for vbulletin 3.6.x , see below!

BUGS!
These are the known bugs to date:

• Unconfirmed 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!

• 2.5 Release
• • New Features
    • Email Integration now uses vbmail! This DOES require one small file edit.
• 2.5.1 Release -
  • New Feature -
    • Added some debug triggers in the cron file. Turning on debug will stop email sfrom being deleted after they are processed and if a message errors out, the error email will be sent to an admin specified email address which is set in the cron file.
  • Bug Fixes -
    • Fixed incorrect call to plain text parsing. (this is the cause of the duplicate posting/undefined function errors)
    • Corrected security hole.
    • Corrected a typo in the error message for attachments that are too large.
    • Rebuilt the method of determining attachment types vs max size to handle more then 2 attachments. Previous code would not process more then 2 attachments.
    • Added a call to determine the parentid for replies if one isn't specified prior to the post being added to the database from emails.
    • Fixed a bug where previous messages were blank in new layout for posts that didn't have a parentid specified.
• 2.5.2 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed bug with new users not being automatically subscribed to forums when it is enabled for their usergroup.
    • Added a dirty regex fix for utf-8 encoded filenames.
• 2.5.3 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed bug that displayed "Set All Instant" on User CP Subscribe Forums page when no forums were setup for Instant Email Notification.
    • Fixed bug that allowed forums that were set inactive to appear on the User CP SUbscribe Forums page.
    • Fixed bug with the how the "New Layout" processs improving how it tries to remove the first layer of > signs in replies.
  • Improvement/Bug Fix
    • Changed the field in the Forum Manager for forum['ei_usergroups'] so that it now controls not only who can reply via email. But who can receive instant notification emails. It is now titled "Please enter the usergroup IDs that can use this feature."
    • Added the phrase "You may increase the space between the above lines as needed." to the "New Layout" email templates to alleviate user confusion.
• 2.5.4 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Added a quickfix for a bug that caused a function error when replying to a thread that a user was subscribed to while in a forum that was enabled for Email Integration.
  • Error Checks Added
    • Added a function exists check to the cron file and the search settings page to warn people when they have not correctly enabled imap functions.
• 2.5.5 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Added a check to subscribeforum.php to not display subscription options for forums that are links.
    • Fixed a bug that caused the cron to incorrectly list the username and signature in the emails. (The post processed to the forums were correct, it was just the emails that were screwy sometimes.)
    • Slightly modified phrase and variables for replies so that if a post has a title, it'll use that title for the email, if not, it'll use the thread title like before.
• 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 3.7x

Upgrading from version for 3.6.x

• Due to using different product ID's due to the changes that will be coming up for the version for vbulletin 3.7.x you will need to uninstall the 3.6.x version and install the 3.7.x version in this thread. My apologies for the inconvienance, I've been unable to determine an alternative with the 3.6.x version still in development due to the last few bugs.

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

[Cyricx]

It uses the mailqueue system if you have it enabled in your vbulletin options -> email options.

Keep in mind, it can create significant stalls in emails being sent out if you enable that too well. If you set it for 5 messages at a time, and 100 people are subscribed to a forum then it can take a LONG time to get all of those messages out if your forum doesn't have alot of foot traffic.

[zhangyc]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

There is a script included that you'll find linked in your admincp that tries some of the typical combinations and tries to help you determine the settings.

Hi, Cyricx.
Where could I find this script? I tried to find in my admincp, but did not get any result. Please show me the path, thanks.

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by BustaCap

I am trying to "mirror" a mailing list that I belong to...

This is what I want to do as well. It's a PITA to check hundreds of emails from all these groups to see what they are doing. It would be so much easier to see them right inside my forum. Plus, then my site staff can see them as well.

From best I've gathered, this plugin works by comparing the sender's email with a user on the forum. If the user matches, it posts. If it doesn't, it doesn't post. So one way to get a yahoo group or google group mirroring is to create a user account for each of the users on the group, right? This way, the plugin will find the appropriate user and post under their name. Is this assumption correct?

My thoughts on how to get a email list posting is to forward the originally received email, which has the original sender's email addresss (not a forum user by default), to an account which is a valid forum user, a "bot" for all practical means, which then forwards it to the forum email. Because the "bot" is a valid user on the forum, the plugin will check the originating email and find it to be a valid user, but the content of the email will actually be from the email list. Does this make sense? Would this work?

[Cyricx]

Most mailing lists send the email as coming from the individual user. so all of those users would have to be added.

This plugin is not built or made to be able to mirror a list.

It's made with the sole intention of replacing one.

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

This plugin is not built or made to be able to mirror a list.

It's made with the sole intention of replacing one.

I really wish I could get these groups to get off of these cheesy free hosts, but I can't. I've even offered them their own sub-forums and forums, but still nothing.

So until I figure out a solution to consolidate each of these groups' postings into a place, I have to wade through all the emails on the lists via email versus searching forums.

Do you believe my system of forwarding would accomplish what I wish to do? This will require a lot of forwarding and auto-responders to be set up and tested, but does it at least look good in theory?

And after thinking about the plugin, I'm planning to also run it as-is for having my own site's very own email list.

[Cyricx]

As mentioned, it will not work unless as someone is added to the mailing list.. they are added as a user.

This would be a management nightmare.

If any email address was not a valid user, they would get email messages from the site.

The mailing lists you encounter set the reply-to, but they do not change the "from" sometimes they will change the representation of the from. But typically, in the header information, that is not changed.

So. No. It would not feasibly work and unfortunately it's not something I plan on coding as it would be irrational to have both running. Those free hosts all have a board system there.

The primary argument I've used in convincing those that use them to switch is who owns the servers.

They may be using those boards but the servers are owned by that free host and they can allow that information to be released to anyone at any point in time.

In moving to a vbulletin hosted mailing list, you have sole control over the information and who can access what.

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by zhangyc

Hi, Cyricx.
Where could I find this script? I tried to find in my admincp, but did not get any result. Please show me the path, thanks.

In your admincp, you should have a box on the left side for "email intetration" click on the arrow to open that up and click "forum settings help".

If you do not see that in your admincp, you did not upload all of the files.

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

As mentioned, it will not work unless as someone is added to the mailing list.. they are added as a user.

This would be a management nightmare.

If any email address was not a valid user, they would get email messages from the site.

The mailing lists you encounter set the reply-to, but they do not change the "from" sometimes they will change the representation of the from. But typically, in the header information, that is not changed.

I think I may not have explained what I was trying to do thoroughly. I really don't care about replying back from the forum or having any of my forum members even see the postings. I just want to have the emails in the email list post into a forum so that way I don't have to check them in my email.

There are several groups that I have to keep tabs on that use email lists, and if I was able to have their emails come directly into a forum, I'd never have to leave my main site to read everything. Your plugin introduces the possibility of doing this since an email can post to a thread/forum.

Based on this idea, do you think that the system of forwarding emails from the list would get them simply posted into the forum?

Originally Posted by Cyricx

The primary argument I've used in convincing those that use them to switch is who owns the servers.

They may be using those boards but the servers are owned by that free host and they can allow that information to be released to anyone at any point in time.

In moving to a vbulletin hosted mailing list, you have sole control over the information and who can access what.

I completely agree with this arguement, and the subject of intellectual property rights is overlooked by so many. But I'm in the southeast US and these people really don't understand the implications until it hits them. Today, I even had a staff member post our unique and original material on youtube.

[Cyricx]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

As mentioned, it will not work unless as someone is added to the mailing list.. they are added as a user.

This would be a management nightmare.

If any email address was not a valid user, they would get email messages from the site.

I'm sorry..

I really don't know how I can be more clear then that.

If everyone on the list was not a registered user on the forums. It would NOT post to the forum and they would get an email with an ERROR.

If you want to go through and create a user for every single person on the list and each time someone is added create a new user. More power to ya. However...

This would be a management nightmare.

This system is not made, and I personally will not be coding it in such a way as to accomplish what you are asking.

*shrug* I'm kinda at a loss for how to explain it any better. Feel like I'm just repeating myself endlessly hehe

More power to ya in your struggle with them though

[SamirDarji]

I think I'm still not getting my point across. I'll make an example.

Let's call a group "A". This group has an email list. I set up an email address that will subscribe to the group on my server, let's call it "eA". This email address does not tie to a user in vB. I have eA subscribe to the email list of group A. So the email address eA is receiving the emails from the email list of group A.

I completely understand that even if the email addresses eA is a user on vB that it will not post because the send to header on the email list of group A contains the real address of the sender, who more than likely is not a registered user on vB.

So to circumvent this problem, I set up a user on vB called robotA. This user has their own email address, rA. Now, because rA is an email address with a valid user on vB, rA can post via email to the forum that uses EI.

Then I set up a forwarding on my server that forwards the emails that eA receives to rA. This changes the send to header. Then rA forwards this email to EI, which also changes the send to header. Because the send to header now matches a valid vB user, EI will process the reply.

Thank you for the previous quick replies and I look forward to your thoughts.