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:

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by TTG

Posted a query to my host .. I'll let you know when they respond.

Cool, let me know if there's something that could be done

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Absolutely cool hack hellcat, thank you.
One question, the received messages will be stored encrypted in the database?

There are no messages at all stored in the DB - everything stays at the POP3 server and only the data/information required for the current action are retrieved, but not saved.

The only thing that gets stored to the local database is the message ID for all unread messages to be able to handle the read/unread markings.

[kurtbarker]

hey mate, I will be restricting access to the webmail client to paying club members, is there any way I can only show the webmail link in 'UserCP' / 'Quick Links' to a specific usergroup?

[Hellcat]

Hmm.... the links are currently added for any user....

You CAN specify who may use it in the usergroupmanager, all others get the "no permission" message.
Could be used to inspire ppl to become paying members

I could add a check for the link insertion if the user may actually use it and not add the links when he has no permission.... yes that could be done

[kurtbarker]

thanks mate. I feel that the standard 'no permission' message is messy, doesn't really give a reason, and could be seen as an 'error' as such...

if you could look into it, that'll be great, thanks

[Hellcat]

@kurtbarker:

Here's a quick "hack" for you:

Go to the plugin manager and open this plugin to edit it:
"Template Manipulation (Add WMail Links)"

At the very top, before anything else, add this:

if ($permissions['wmailpermissions'] & $vbulletin->bf_ugp['wmailpermissions']['canusewebmail'])
{
  // only add the links when the user actually use the webmailer

At the very bottom, as last line, add this:

}

Now, the links are only added for users who can use the webmailer.
I will include this in the next release and also make an admin option to choose between "Always add links" and "Only add links for users who have permission"

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

There are no messages at all stored in the DB - everything stays at the POP3 server and only the data/information required for the current action are retrieved, but not saved.

The only thing that gets stored to the local database is the message ID for all unread messages to be able to handle the read/unread markings.

Ok thanks, the only thing I'm not so happy about is that the passwords are stored in the db without encryption.

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Ok thanks, the only thing I'm not so happy about is that the passwords are stored in the db without encryption.

I'm not very happy with that as well....
But on the other hand, an untrustworthy admin who want's to see those can get at them even when they are encrypted since the decryption code has to be in the script as well - hashing only will not work because the PW has to be retrieved to be sent to the mailserver....

But I'm open for ANY suggestions here!

[kurtbarker]

thanks Hellcat, haven't installed yet, but will be doing so tonight for sure, thanks for the support, i'll let you know how it goes

[Ramsesx]

Don't have an idea for that my coding skills are 0
But found a bug (?)
The first 98 mails are showing correctly, after sometimes there's only the date and size visible (screenshot).

[Hellcat]

Hmm, weird thing.... that can happen when the connection to the POP3 server breaks up while getting the mail headers....

I should add some kind of handling of that.... at least some sort of notice that something went wrong there.

Did you change the server timeout? If so, try raising it again.

I'll definately add something for this situation!