WMail - a POP3/SMTP Webmailer for vBulletin

What is this?
---------------
WMail is a "webmail client" - a front end, like a mail tool installed locally on your PC, for using POP3/SMTP mailboxes.

In short:
WMail adds POP3/SMTP access to vBulletin.

A live demo can currentliy be found on my testing board here:
http://vbdev.area-42.net/wmail.php


Key features:

• The obvious: Getting mailbox content, reading mails from every POP3 mailbox and sending mails through any SMTP server (configurable in the user options)
• written from scratch, spezificially to be used with vBulletin 3.5.x - not a port of something
• fully phrased and templated down to the last bit
• Full multipart support for downloading (and sending) attachments
• When reading mail the mail text is parsed for BB-Codes, so you get the graphical smillies from the forum, text formatting and URLs automatically become clickable links
• When replying to, or forwarding, mail the text of the original mail is quoted, propper quotemarks are added and a quote-header is added (customizable via template)
• various options for admin and users to customize the webmail client
• Does NOT require any special modules to be compiled into your PHP installation (like the IMAP libraries)
  (for techies: this uses basic socket connections instead of special PHP function calls)
• Admin can override certain aspects of the user config (forcing to use a given mailserver, force using forum email address and such)
• Write your mails using vB's WYSIWYG editor
• buildin (yet simple) addressbook for your E-Mail contacts
• Read/Unread markings - unread mails are highlighted, options for "mark selected read", "mark all read" and "mark selected unread"
• custom hooks to make it easy to develop addons for it
• automatically adds links to the webmailer in "Quick Links" menu, navbar and UserCP. Usualy no template edits needed when using default ones (can be disabled for each link in admin options)

Planned features:

• Support for multiple config sets per user
  (and so multiple mailbox accounts that can be querried)
• Sort mails into folders
• User configurable filters (for automatically sorting mails into folders)
• Preview of mailtext in inbox view (bellow subject)
• Forward mails as PM / Forward PMs as mail
• Reply to threads and PMs by mail
• Give/Provide your members an own eMail adress and inbox on your forums!
  • Members can recieve and send mails as "username@forumdomain.tld" without the need for an own POP3 account anywhere
  • Admin only needs ONE "real" POP3 box as "catch all".

Installation
--------------

Level : EASY
Duration : a minute or so
Files to upload : yes (11)
Products to import : yes (1)
Templates to edit : usually none


ChangeLog
===========
1.00 - first final release

• Fixed some minor bugs
• Login details are no longer stored as plain text in the database (*see note bellow!)
• Added option to save login details in a cookie on the users local computer instead of storing them in the forum's database

* Note on storing the login details in the database:
The login details are only base64 encoded when stored in the database.
A more secure encryption would make no sense anyway, the login details must be decrypted to be passed to the POP3/SMTP server - one well placed line of additional code in the POP3 or SMTP class could save the decrypted info anywhere the admin likes.
This "encoding" is only meant to prevent login details to be read (in plaintext) when doing maintanance to the database and stepping over it.
For fully securing the login details the "Save in cookie" option has been added.

Known Issues:

• On some installations mass deletion of mails (via "Delete Selected" from the inbox view) does not delete all mails
• Sometimes you get "-4 mails in inbox" - reloading the page then shows the correct inbox again

Besides of those two issues, that do not really break the function of the webmailer, it seemed to run pretty stable so far - that's why I decided to release 1.00 without having them resolved.


(more changelog entries in the readme)

____________________
This vBulletin extension is FREE! Be welcome to download and use it.
However, if you feel like supporting further development any donation is appreciated :bunny:

[Cybertims]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

The only stupid question is the one not asked

Usually the members need to enter the SMTP server address of "THEIR" SMTP server, the server of the ISP or host who is serving/hostin the e-Mail address of them.

You can set up your own SMTP to allow relay for your members as a service.
This option would come into play when the "An E-Mail Account for every board member" feature is finished.

Cool......just awaiting a fix for the SMTp problem...I also tried all options to no avail.

Is it not possible to use PHP to send the email rather than SMTP? Just wondering.

Cheers.

[Hellcat]

Using PHP's mail() function has a downside for this:
It sends the mail over YOUR server. Depending on your config your server won't allow that and some more problems that might arise.

Using the IMAP function has the (IMO mayor) downside of needing the IMAP libraries compiled into PHP (not everyone has those, incl. me )

[EDIT]
I just found a detailed example "dialog" Mail-Client <-> SMTP-Server on Wikipedia.
Perfect, now I can modify my "LOGIN" auth method based on this.

The "LOGIN" auth method is the one we need!
And it's almost correctely implemented, I just need to send a "EHLO" instead of a "HELO" at the beginning.
Yay,
[high]* Hellcat checks....[/high]

[TTG]

Updated and still having the same auth problems ..

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by TTG

Updated and still having the same auth problems ..

Yop, see above post (the edit).
I think we're closing in

[dacho]

Get ERROR

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.4:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT data FROM wmail_settings WHERE userid=0;

MySQL Error  : Table 'dachowe_forums.wmail_settings' doesn't exist
Error Number : 1146
Date         : Tuesday, May 16th 2006 @ 02:13:47 PM
Script       : http://forums.dacho.co.il/admincp/wmail_admin_global.php
Referrer     : http://forums.dacho.co.il/admincp/index.php?do=nav
IP Address   : 84.108.68.127
Username     : admin
Classname    : vb_database

[Hellcat]

- Go to the product manager and choose "edit" for WMail.
- Delete out everything in the "Uninstall code".
- Uninstall the product (should go without errors after the delete)
- Re-Import the product .XML - now all tables should be created as required.

I am about to upload another update, where the install/uninstall code is patched again, so the uninstall doesn't give any errors anymore.
So a simple uninstall/reinstall now does the trick with rc2pl2.... hopefully....

[edit]
can some1 with the SMTP issue try out the attached wmail.php and see if there's anything different now....

[Snake]

So Hellcat, when do you think you are going to release the Final version? Do you have any idea?

[PtP]

Originally Posted by Lil Ripsta

So Hellcat, when do you think you are going to release the Final version? Do you have any idea?

When it works for everyone would be a good guess

[Cybertims]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

- Go to the product manager and choose "edit" for WMail.
- Delete out everything in the "Uninstall code".
- Uninstall the product (should go without errors after the delete)
- Re-Import the product .XML - now all tables should be created as required.

I am about to upload another update, where the install/uninstall code is patched again, so the uninstall doesn't give any errors anymore.
So a simple uninstall/reinstall now does the trick with rc2pl2.... hopefully....

[edit]
can some1 with the SMTP issue try out the attached wmail.php and see if there's anything different now....

No change here....

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by PtP

When it works for everyone would be a good guess

Hehee, yeah
I hope to get it working this week.... a 1.0 final by the weekend would be nice....