[vB v2.2.1] SMTP Support and MIME/HTML Emails!

This hack adds additional email features to vB 2.2.1

• Allows you to send mail via SMTP instead of using the site wide settings
  in your php.ini.
• Allows you to send email as MIME/HTML with a plain text part allowing
  almost all email clients to view the email in a readable format.
• Any combination of the above are selectable via the control panel.

Latest version is 20020106

I initially wrote this to enable SMTP email and get around a problem I was having with my emails not being delivered to AOL users. I believe it must have something to with my php.ini. But then I decided I might as well expand on the idea.

In addition to the SMTP capability, this hack adds MIME/HTML capablities to vB. There is no need to worry whether a user can read HTML. You simply send send both versions in the same MIME mail. The email client will display whatever it can or wants.

I've noticed a couple of hacks that allow you to send HTML email from vB. Both of them simply add the Content Type: text/html in the header and send it as normal. This is all very well for a handful of the newest email clients, but if the recipient can't or doesn't want to recieve HTML mail, the message is almost unreadable. The two obvious solutions are to either make it user selectable or send both types in MIME format. This hack does both. It allows users to select whether they receive HTML or text emails via the user control panel but sends MIME as default.

This approach required a quite lot of code changes, so for those of you don't want the headache of changing all the code, this hack has two levels of install. You can do the simple install first, which gives most of the features without the user selectable option. If you like it, you can do the second level install later.

Full instructions for the second level install are in the attached zip.



Overview:
There are two levels of installation to this hack. The first method is simple. The SQL commands will make the global settings visible in the control panel under 'vBulletin Options => Email Options' section. It also creates an example template for testing the new reply notifications.

The uploaded file contains all the functions/classes required.

It is then just a case of adding a require() in both global.php files and replacing the existing mail() calls in the code with the new mime_mail(). All the other parameters in the function call remain the same. Can't get much easier than that! At this level, you will be able to opt whether to send mail via SMTP or the method specified in your existing php.ini file. HTML mail can also be sent from any form that accepts input, ie. the mass emailer. Simply enter HTML in the form and the hack will generate the plain text automatically and send a complete MIME message to all recipients. HTML is either globally on or off via the control panel with this level of installation.

The second level of installation requires that you add a few more parameters to the mime_mail() function in addition to what was there originally. This allows you to use HTML templates to send mail where appropriate. It also allows the user to select whether they should recieve HTML mail regardless of your CP settings. You can make these changes without creating additional custom templates immediately. Everything will work as in the basic install. You can then add the templates at your leisure by creating a new one with the same name and '_html' at the end. There a few more lines of code to add for this level of install but it's still pretty straightforward.


The mime_mail() function can be used in other scripts/hacks and takes the
following parameters:
Recipients email address
Email subject
Plain text message (optional) defaults to auto generated from HTML message
From Header (optional) defaults to $bbtitle Mailer <$webmasteremail>
HTML Message (optional) defaults to auto generated from text message
Force Text Only (optional) defaults to FALSE

If either the plain text or the html parameter is null, the correct format is generated automatically from the other one. Obviously at least one of the parameters must be there.



Quick Example:
These two lines will replace the existing mail() function and provide
HTML mail via a new template you created. It will also use SMTP if
specified in the control panel.

eval("\$emailmsghtml = 
      \"".gettemplate("email_notify_html",1,0)."\";");
mime_mail($touser[email], 
          $emailsubject, 
          $emailmsg, 
	  $emailmsghtml);

[nuno]

well
there are 7 new fields at email options:

• Use SMTP
• SMTP Host
• SMTP Port
• This Hostname
• Requires Authorization
• SMTP Username
• SMTP Password

where's the field to specify something like
Send Emails using MIME/HTML?

[fastforward]

Ahh... oops!

The user selectable option is in the User CP along with the other email notification settings, but it seems I left out the main control panel option.

The way it is now, means unless the user selects 'Text only emails' in their options, MIME will be sent by default.

Give me 10 minutes and I'll add the master switch to the main CP.

[nuno]

okie dokie

[fastforward]

Just run this to add the missing column

INSERT INTO setting VALUES (300,11,'Use MIME/HTML','html_use','1','This will send mail as MIME/HTML unsless the user selects otherwise.','yesno',5);

Everything else is already in place.

[nuno]

*dang*
no mails are sent now

[fastforward]

Originally posted by nuno
*dang*
no mails are sent now

No errors? or blank pages? Whic options were you using. Does it work if you don't use SMTP?

[nuno]

only works if i set "This will send mail as MIME/HTML unsless the user selects otherwise" to NO

[fastforward]

Originally posted by nuno
only works if i set "This will send mail as MIME/HTML unsless the user selects otherwise" to NO

I can't seem to duplicate this error. Which email isn't it sending and what are the user settings for the user that should get it?

[nuno]

i'm testing it with sendtofriend now
user has Text Only Emails set to NO
Under CP i have
Use MIME/HTML set to YES
Use SMTP set to Yes

If i set MIME/HTML to Yes under CP the board crashes everytime that mime_mail is called, like sendtofriend, lost password recovery, new registration, mass mail etc...
No errors are generated, the board just stalls out

[fastforward]

Hmm.. Doesn't sound good. What version of PHP are you using?
I'm using 4.0.6 and I've just tried your exact settings plus countless other combinations and I can't duplicate the error.

Double check the changes you made in sendtofriend.php. It should look like this:

  // START MIME/HTML/SMTP HACK
  eval("\$messagehtml = \"".gettemplate("email_sendtofriend_html",1,0)."\";");
  mime_mail($sendtoemail,$emailsubject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>",$messagehtml);
  // END MIME/HTML/SMTP HACK

Note: the html template does NOT need to exist even if you select MIME/HTML in the control panel.