Major Additions - Email Integration (New Threads/Replies by and through email!)

This modification allows you to mimic email lists such as yahoo groups through your forums!

Complete with the user's receiving emails for new threads and replies AND being able to reply directly from email or sending a new email to start a new thread!

Just like email lists, you will need a separate email box for EACH forum that you have this enabled for!!

After installing this modification in the forum manager you will enter the settings for each forum to connect to it's own email box.

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 in one of two formats that you as the administrator decide. One format has a "reply box" and is the most sure fire way of not getting excess email crap ont he forums. The second format (noted as "Old" format) keeps an email in its base pure form with some attempts at quoting messages. Examples of both are 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!

IMAP
You MUST have php imap functions enabled on your server to use this modification! You do not need to have IMAP installed, just have to enable php to use the functions by recompiling it with imap enabled!

If you are upgrading from the version
for vbulletin 3.6.x , see below!

BUGS!
These are the known bugs to date:

• Unconfirmed 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!

• 2.5 Release
• • New Features
    • Email Integration now uses vbmail! This DOES require one small file edit.
• 2.5.1 Release -
  • New Feature -
    • Added some debug triggers in the cron file. Turning on debug will stop email sfrom being deleted after they are processed and if a message errors out, the error email will be sent to an admin specified email address which is set in the cron file.
  • Bug Fixes -
    • Fixed incorrect call to plain text parsing. (this is the cause of the duplicate posting/undefined function errors)
    • Corrected security hole.
    • Corrected a typo in the error message for attachments that are too large.
    • Rebuilt the method of determining attachment types vs max size to handle more then 2 attachments. Previous code would not process more then 2 attachments.
    • Added a call to determine the parentid for replies if one isn't specified prior to the post being added to the database from emails.
    • Fixed a bug where previous messages were blank in new layout for posts that didn't have a parentid specified.
• 2.5.2 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed bug with new users not being automatically subscribed to forums when it is enabled for their usergroup.
    • Added a dirty regex fix for utf-8 encoded filenames.
• 2.5.3 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed bug that displayed "Set All Instant" on User CP Subscribe Forums page when no forums were setup for Instant Email Notification.
    • Fixed bug that allowed forums that were set inactive to appear on the User CP SUbscribe Forums page.
    • Fixed bug with the how the "New Layout" processs improving how it tries to remove the first layer of > signs in replies.
  • Improvement/Bug Fix
    • Changed the field in the Forum Manager for forum['ei_usergroups'] so that it now controls not only who can reply via email. But who can receive instant notification emails. It is now titled "Please enter the usergroup IDs that can use this feature."
    • Added the phrase "You may increase the space between the above lines as needed." to the "New Layout" email templates to alleviate user confusion.
• 2.5.4 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Added a quickfix for a bug that caused a function error when replying to a thread that a user was subscribed to while in a forum that was enabled for Email Integration.
  • Error Checks Added
    • Added a function exists check to the cron file and the search settings page to warn people when they have not correctly enabled imap functions.
• 2.5.5 Release
  • Bug Fixes
    • Added a check to subscribeforum.php to not display subscription options for forums that are links.
    • Fixed a bug that caused the cron to incorrectly list the username and signature in the emails. (The post processed to the forums were correct, it was just the emails that were screwy sometimes.)
    • Slightly modified phrase and variables for replies so that if a post has a title, it'll use that title for the email, if not, it'll use the thread title like before.
• 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 3.7x

Upgrading from version for 3.6.x

• Due to using different product ID's due to the changes that will be coming up for the version for vbulletin 3.7.x you will need to uninstall the 3.6.x version and install the 3.7.x version in this thread. My apologies for the inconvienance, I've been unable to determine an alternative with the 3.6.x version still in development due to the last few bugs.

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

[toivo]

Is it possible to turn off sending emails to an individual user from the Admin Control Panel?

Go to Forum Manager and look up the forum that your EI Mod is associated with to get the usergroup ID. Go to Usergroup Manager and find out the name of the usergroup. Then go to the User Manager, look up the user and de-select the usergroup. That will remove the user from among the recipients and senders of emails to the forum with EI Mod.

[dvsDave]

I have google running my mail for my domain. I can't get the EI to work in pop or IMAP.

server is pop.gmail.com
username is ____________@controlbooth.com
(I've tried all of the POP options)

Can I hardcode the server names into the script to avoid the confusion of gmail vs. controlbooth.com domains?

[jdj]

Will this work for vB4.0? Any reason why not, or if it will work...anything to watch out for?

[Cyricx]

It will not work for vb4.0, too many major code changes, attachment table and such.

I really need to find someone who knows a lot about parsing emails to help out with this mod. I fricken learned php writing this mod with no prior background...

I'm working on a paid modification right now (that doesn't deal with emails.. yay!), so until I finish it, I won't be back to work on EI.

But if anyone knows email parsing and wants to help out, give me a hollar! I will be bringing this up for 4.0 soon. Mainly because the sites I admin on that use this I want to bring them up to 4.0 asap heh

[toivo]

The little I know about email parsing I learnt from your mod, but otherwise I will be happy to help testing the new version, especially in Lotus Notes environment

Hopefully you will have a chance to look at my patch to support moderated forums, and eventually integrate something similar to the new version: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...151222&page=67

[Piggo]

I'm also holding off on upgrading to 4.01, as I really need this EI to work.



Any person who is able and willing to help make that happen is a HERO in my book!

Cheers,

[jdj]

Hi there

I'm not a developer (still a newbie...deployed my first site last year). I tried this mod on 3.8.2 last year, couldn't get it to work (emails kept going round in a loop) and stopped trying when I discovered 4.0 was on the way. Presently I'm in the process of testing out 4.0 with a view to moving my 3.8.4 site to 4.0 soon. Always intended to try again with EMI as I think it's a great idea. Suspect you did a good job with it but couldn't tell.... Possibly my failure to get it to work was my ignorance.

Whilst I'm not a developer I can probably find someone who knows something about parsing emails if that's what the problem is. Question is though, just to break down' what's required, looking at it as a project, what do you think are the key things that would have to be changed to get it to work with 4.0? I know that there's been some criticism of 4.0 but having had a look at it over the last few days I can see it's a better product and despite my own limitations I seem to be able to work it. So that's where I think the future of EMI is.

If I can get some idea of what's required I might be able to go and get some help to fix it.

[Cyricx]

The key to the product in general, not in regards to 4.0 but the only spot that has problems I can find work arounds for is the email parsing.

Pulling the messages and attachments out of emails and making them clean... I end up fiddling around with code til something works, but with so many email browsers and formats out there and not knowing anything about email parsing.... it's total hit and miss.

Regardless, even at its current sluggish state, I'll have a 4.0 version made and will include the patches and fixes others have written like toivo into it in the near future.

Can't say how near as the event attendance and payment mod I'm working on needs to be updated to 4.0 first.

[amphicar770]

Originally Posted by Piggo

I'm also holding off on upgrading to 4.01, as I really need this EI to work.



Any person who is able and willing to help make that happen is a HERO in my book!

Cheers,

I am also holding of on upgrade too 4.x until this mod is available. My users would revolt without it!! It is a shame that the folks at VB are stuck in the past and can not see how times have changed as have the way people collaborate in social networks. I am glad to see Cyricyx will be making a 4.x version of this mod available, I was really worried that it had been abadoned.

In any event, I think the best way to help make this happen and be a hero is to contribute to Cyricx's efforts via donations. I can only begin to imagine how many hundreds of hours have been invested in this program. Although I have contributed more than once in the past, I will take the lead by making another donation today!

Thanks,

Mike
http://www.amphicar770.com

[testbot]

anyone know the status of this for vb4? i will be glad to donate if we get some kind of eta.