Major Additions - vBMS : vBulletin Mail System

vBulletin Mail System

Finally, for vBulletin 3.6, there is a port from filburt1's original hack. For those of you who aren't aware, he essentially declared it open source, and it's been a bit of a wait for someone to fix it up... I've wanted it for my site, too, so I finally sat down and just did it.

What is this?
The vBulletin Mail System is a way to give your users webmail access from your site. They can have a name@yourwebsite.com address, send and receive emails and attachments, etc. Options such as mailbox quotas, limits on numbers/types of attachments, a message trailer ("Free mail at yourwebsite.com!") at the end of each message, etc. are all available as well.

Please note: this is a pre-final version. As far as I have seen, it is working so far for me, but I have not tested it completely and thoroughly and it's very likely there'll be a number of bugs popping up. However, I have successfully been able to install this on a clean board, exchange emails regularly (including attachments), go through all the basic options/etc. without any errors popping up, so it should be fine. Still, make sure you back up your database before installing this, just due to the nature of its "beta"-ness.

To install: upload all files from the "upload" directory to your server in the proper directories. Then, navigate to admincp/vbms_install.php on your server and run the installer. It will make several template additions. If your navbar or header templates hav been modified, it will not be able to do it automatically, and you'll have to add these edits yourself.

In template navbar, find:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="usercp.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[user_cp]</a></td>

Add after:

			<if condition="$show['popups']">
				<td class="vbmenu_control" id="navbar_vbms">
					<a href="vbms.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[email]</a>
			
					<if condition="$vbms_newmessages['newcount'] > 0">
						<span style="font-weight: normal; padding: 1px 1px 1px 2px; margin: 0px 3px 0px 2px; border: 1px inset" class="alt1">
							<phrase 1="$vbms_newmessages[newcount]">$vbphrase[x_new]</phrase>
						</span>
					</if>
				
					<script type="text/javascript">
						<!--
							vbmenu_register("navbar_vbms");
						// -->
					</script>
				</td>
			<else />
				<td class="vbmenu_control" id="navbar_vbms">
					<a href="vbms.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[email]</a>
				
					<if condition="$vbms_newmessages['newcount'] > 0">
						<span style="font-weight: normal; padding: 1px 1px 1px 2px; margin: 0px 3px 0px 2px; border: 1px inset" class="alt1">
							<phrase 1="$vbms_newmessages[newcount]">$vbphrase[x_new]</phrase>
						</span>
					</if>
				</td>
			</if>

Find:

<!-- / header quick search form -->
	</if>

	<if condition="$show['member']">

Add after:

		<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="navbar_vbms_menu" style="display: none">
			<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
				<tr><td class="thead">vBulletin Mail System</td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_inbox]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms_new.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_write_message]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms_ab.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_address_book]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms_folders.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_folders]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms_filters.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_filters]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="vbms_options.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[navbar_options]</a></td></tr>
				<tr><td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="faq.php?$session[sessionurl]faq=faq_vbms">$vbphrase[navbar_help]</a></td></tr>
			</table>
		</div>

In your ACP, there should be a new set of options in a "vBulletin Mail System" category. That set of options is your main set of management stuff, and is pretty straightforward.

Feel free to post with any bugs or questions you find, etc. I'm trying to get this working again thoroughly, for all of us.

FAQ

• Is POP support available for my users?
  No, this is similar to a webmail system.
• What is a catch-all email address, and how do I set it up?
  A catch-all address is an email address that any mail sent to your server that isn't picked up by another account will go to. For example, if someone sends an email to randomgibberish@yoursite.com and you do not have a "randomgibberish" account defined, it would forward to your catch-all account that you have set up, such as all@yoursite.com.
• Can I run this if my server doesn't let me have a catch-all mail account?
  Yes, but it's not recommended. As has been suggested by a few members, you can set up one mail account to the be "catch-all" and have vBMS connect to that, then set up mail accounts for each member who wants one and have it forward to the catch-all. All this has to be set up manually with your web host, and takes a great deal of willpower and availability from the website administrator, and is thus not recommended.
• I'm receiving the following error:
  

  Fatal error: Call to undefined function: imap_open()...

  If you're getting an error similar to this, you do not have IMAP functionality available in PHP. Find your php.ini file on your server (usually /usr/local/lib/php.ini on Linux, C:\Windows\php.ini on Windows), and find the extensions section. Uncomment the line ";extension=php_imap.dll" (that is, remove the semicolon at the beginning) and restart your web server. If you don't have access to your web server to do this, contact your web host about installing IMAP support for PHP. If they won't do it, then this hack is not for you.
• I can't connect to the mail server, with this error:
  

  Warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn't open stream {localhost:110/pop3}INBOX in /includes/vbms_class_installer.php on line 791

  First, make sure that your port number and server information are right. Some mail servers are on non-default ports (this is common), and some you may have to connect to a different host besides localhost (this is very rare). Also, try using the "Force no-TLS connection" option in the vBMS Options in the ACP.
• I can connect to the server just fine, but it won't get any email!
  Check the "Mail checking logs" in your ACP (under the vBulletin Mail System area). If there are no logs, then the cronjob probably isn't running. If there are logs, see if there are any errors in there. If it's checking the mail account fine and simply says there are no messages, check with a webmail to see if the catch-all account is even receiving mails. If the webmail shows that the account has mail stuck in it and vBMS isn't picking them up, but vBMS is saying it's checking the account alright and finding 0 messages, then you're likely connecting to the wrong account. By doing these steps, you should at least be able to figure out where the problem is occurring.

Install clicks, donations and HotM nominations are always welcome.

[T_Richardson]

Nice mod, good work! :up:

Works fine, just one thing, (probably something i missed) when I attach an image ie; .gif .png, it displays all the image code in the email message. See attached .txt

[Krofh]

Originally Posted by T_Richardson

Works fine, just one thing, (probably something i missed) when I attach an image ie; .gif .png, it displays all the image code in the email message. See attached .txt

Is this something sent from vBMS or received by it? And what other email address was it sent to/from? I made some changes to the original mail code regarding attachments because otherwise I kept seeing delimiters showing up in my email box. Perhaps I'll have to keep messing with that >.<

Originally Posted by abroad

Ok, I have one more kindergarten question, as I also want to play sexy games.

If you cant use gmail, hotmail etc...which values are you entering in those fields (see attachment).

Usually you're supposed to just leave "localhost" and "110", then set up a catch-all email account on your website and use the username/password for that in the other fields. Basically, in your case (judging by the screenshot), you're offering users addresses of somebody@finlandlive.info; that address doesn't really exist, so it needs to forward to your catch-all account, which the vBMS checks, picks up, and delivers to the users on the forums.

[succo]

btw, my forum is vba-wrapped, so the newmail template breaks, as there is an headincluded javascript... what i did (and what would be good that any coder would do just as i don't think i'm the only one running in this kind of problems) is to write a new template for the script to be included and insert the command to include that script in headinclude in the plugin which runs at global_start, so that when vbms_new.php is called, the script is inserted in headinclude regardless of me using 'normal' forum view or vba forum view... couldn't this way of inserting scripts be used as a default by coders? i had to use this same behaviour with vbgooglemapme/se and many others, all products which use 'full page' templates with scripts in the head portion

please Krofh let me know if you're interested in having my modded version of the product, thanks

[abroad]

Thank you Krofh. Would you recommend to wait a bit until this product is tested a bit more and just use it on a test server at the moment?

[succo]

another little request... would it be possible to use vbulletin_ajax_namesugg.js when choosing recipients?

i'm trying to do it (in fact, somehow did it), but it would need the comma to be changed in a semicolon as a recipient separator and the spaces (as namesugg uses '<space>;<space> ' as a separator) to be trimmed off from names, so too much code to go into a fast patch

again, great work, indeed !

[T_Richardson]

Originally Posted by Krofh

Is this something sent from vBMS or received by it? And what other email address was it sent to/from? I made some changes to the original mail code regarding attachments because otherwise I kept seeing delimiters showing up in my email box. Perhaps I'll have to keep messing with that >.<

It's an email that i sent from this mail system to one address. I tried different addresses and image formats with the same results.

[bluechris]

Originally Posted by Krofh

bluechris: I'm still working on the issue with the foreign characters, haven't quite figured that one out yet.
To those of you having connection problems: try upgrading to the newer uploaded version, then use the "Force no-TLS connection" option in the ACP.
To the rest of you: I'm going out of town for a few days, hopefully I'll be able to get more of this fixed up when I get back.

M8 here we are used to live with problems as matter greek characters... take your time and there is no rush honestly.... its a great addon either way.

BTW i have a error if from the forum i attach anything to a composed message .. it goes to outlook express (my test receive mail) as text , seems that either outlook express cannot recognize the attachment or VBMS sents it with problem... i tested with rar, zip, jpg ... in the opposite direction whatever i sent to my VBMS account comes fine in forum as attachment.... anyone else having it or its me?

[succo]

yes, there must be something wrong with the construction of the message with attachment... right now i'm trying to look at this

wish me good luck


edit: solved

the html portion of the message wasn't closed with the correct boundary, so the receiving client thought that the whole attachment was part of the html portion of the mail

to solve this issue, edit includes/vbms_class_mail_message.php, search for

PHP Code:

        if (!$hasattachments) { $headers .= VBMS_CRLF . "--$delim--" . VBMS_CRLF; } 


and change it to

PHP Code:

        $headers .= VBMS_CRLF . "--$delim--" . VBMS_CRLF; 


[scan-pa]

Everything works on my test site except outgoing emails.

I recv emails fine, but get this error on sending replies or compose new emails.

There was an error sending your mail message. This site's host may be experiencing technical difficulties with its mail server at the moment. Please inform the administrator that the following error has occured:

there is no error given.

[thincom2000]

I also noticed that when HTML is allowed, VBMS still shows the plain-text version of the message. Apparently, in both the VBMS_READ template AND I believe vbms_read.php, it checks a vBulletin setting that doesn't exist:

In template VBMS_READ:

$vboptions['vbms_htmlaction']

In file vbms_read.php:

PHP Code:

$vbulletin->options['vbms_htmlaction'] 


Should be replaced with:

$vboptions['vbms_allowhtml']

PHP Code:

$vbulletin->options['vbms_allowhtml'] 


respectively.