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

[FCS-Webmaster]

WOW...heres real life going on!
Go Cyricx! Go Cyricx!
Great job you`re doing here!

Can`t wait for your next release!

[abrecher]

Realistically how stable is this mod ? Can it be used on a very large forum yet ? I'm DYING for something like this and I'd really like to implement it.

[RWerksman]

I dont think it's particularly stable in the form that it's currently in. I personally am waiting for a future version that leverages the vb mail system and has a better parsing system.

[abrecher]

I'd donate to the development of this project!

[AlexanderT]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Anyway, I'm pretty damn set on this format, but did want to give everyone a chance to peek at it before it rolled out. (

It looks e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t! I am all for reliability, so I wouldn't mind the "write between the lines" thingy.

[Cyricx]

It's not completely stable now. Still has it's burps.

The next version will be SOLID if I have anything to say about it

[AyeCapn]

cyricx > *

Amazing work buddy. Amazing.

[JohnNM]

Hi Cyricx,

I need your honest evaluation. My organization is about to bolt on vBulletin all together because of the lack of a reliable email system. I have been looking through the threads, and it is clear that there is very strong demand for your work. Thanks for picking up the pieces.

I need to make an evaluation as to whether I should put your beta software on my system now, or whether I need to toss vBulletin completely. To make this decision, I need a high-level summary of the current issues with your implementation. That way I can decide whether the current problems are something we can live with, or whether the timing is not right and we need to find some other solution. Could you please help with this?

Would anone else like to comment?

John
p.s. - We would definitely pay for a stable solution to this gaping hole in vBulletin.

[Cyricx]

My honest evaluation...

I would not bolt on vbulletin.

This modification WILL come to pass. And it's very close to being stable enough for a heavy roll out.

Time table? I can't be certain. I'd love to have this rolling out in the next two weeks.

In fact I'm taking next monday off my paying job (using a vacation day) to dump a significant amount of time into this modification to try to finish resolving a few of the problems remaining.

The current version her eon vborg, is "okay". Sometimes the parsing is crappy and it'll show extra = signs, and attachments aren't handled very well.

The version I have built so far is pretty solid.

I can promise a new version in 2 weeks that may not use vbmail.

However, I'm hoping to get one that uses vbmail by that same time frame.

I know this isn't the definitive concrete answer you were hoping for.. but it's an honest one

[JohnNM]

Cyricx,

Thanks for your quick response and your frank evaluation. I will download and install your code to see where it stands. It sounds to me as if it is my best bet at the moment.

From what I can see, many people are rooting for you (myself included). Thanks for the great work thus far. I would be happy to report back any issues I may find if that would be helpful to you.

John