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:

[dreck]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

Yes, that's something I want to implement ASAP.
However, since the passwords have to be accessible, there must be a decrypt function in the script - a hash would not work.
An admin who intentionally wants to get hold of the passwords could simply use the decrypt funtion to get them.

But during some chats on IM about this issue I got the following, I will definately build into one of the next updates (hopefully 1.0final):
Besides crypting login details in the database a user option to save the login details in a cookie on the local machine instead of saving them in the forum's database.

This (almost) eliminates the need to re-enter the login details everytime a user wants to use this, but also doesn't send it to anywhere else.
Only when the user uses another computer or the cookie gets deleted (on logout for instance) he has to re-enter the login details.

If the user trusts his admin(s) he can still let the login details be saved (in some way crypted to avoid "fly by" catching) in the forum's database to never have to enter them again.

Yea the cookie idea is just fine with me. I think just having the email address & server info in the settings is just fine. Having to type in your password everytime is not that big of a deal. And users can always store their password in the local pc cookies.

Just my 2 cent


dreck

[sybarites]

Hi, I am very interested in this but is their anyway to give users their own email address which is their username@mydomain.com?

If so I am very interested

Thanks

[Hellcat]

Originally Posted by sybarites

Hi, I am very interested in this but is their anyway to give users their own email address which is their username@mydomain.com?

If so I am very interested

Thanks

It's on the planned features list.

[Snake]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

It's on the planned features list.

AH SWEET! That would be really great man!

[BeaLzeBuB]

workssss

click install

[corn dog]

Hmm. I seem to get an error everytime I try to send a message :-/

[dreck]

Originally Posted by corn dog

Hmm. I seem to get an error everytime I try to send a message :-/

Double check your settings
make sure you typed in your email right.
name@google.com

[kurtbarker]

mate, you are a damn legend... this hack is absolute marvel... I spend so much time on my forum and having to log into cpanel seperately was a pain in the bum... THANKS

[Shaliza]

Amazing that you did this from scratch.

[webgroup]

any feature to add and admin pre-selected signature to all emails send by the system?

Like: Email send via or by FORUMNAME.TLD