Welcome to RCF - WHF

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

I added the Mail 2 Forum (M2F) MOD which allows us to email a message from our email clients, like OE, Thunderbird, and Eudora to designated forums. Currently I have email enabled for the IMO, Bugs, Speakweezy, and Test forums...

The email addy for each forum is as follows:

imo@4fxearth.net - In My Opinion
bugs@4fxearth.net - Bugs/Suggestions/Comments
sw@4fxearth.net - Speakweezy
pc@4fxearth.net - Talk PC
how@4fxearth.net - How To
test@4fxearth.net - Test

The Test forum will allow posts from Guests. If you are sending from an email account that doesn't match what you used to register in RCF, it will be considered a Guest email that will only be allowed in the Test forum. Email sent to any other forum which is considered a Guest will be rejected and returned to the sender...

If you want to add a comment to a current Topic in one of the forums, use the name of the topic as the Subject of your email. All other submissions will be treated like new topics...

Your email can be in either Text or HTML formats. Currently M2F doesn't handle email attachments, but that is in development at this moment...

I will send an email from Thunderbird giving further detail that was provided with this MOD that may or may not help you understand this process a bit better. If you are confused after reading all that is written here, please don't hesistate to ask for help...

Since the incoming email is handled by a CRON job, it may not appear as a post immediately after you have emailed it. Be patient though. The Cron job should run within 15 minutes or so after you have sent your email. If your post doesn't appear and you didn't receive a rejection notice within a reasonable period of time, please don't hesitate to let me know and I will be happy to look into it for you...

I have also included hooks into our Newsfeeds forums. The email relationships are as follows:

movies@4fxearth.net - Movies
national@4fxearth.net - National
odd@4fxearth.net - Oddly Enough
oped@4fxearth.net - Op/Ed
science@4fxearth.net - Science
security@4fxearth.net - PC Security
sports@4fxearth.net - Sports
tech@4fxearth.net - Technology
arts@4fxearth.net - Arts
health@4fxearth.net - Health
international@4fxearth.net - International
jokes@4fxearth.net - Jokes & Humor

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

This post was written and submitted through Thunderbird, one of my email clients. I will include the documentation that was included with the M2F MOD in hopes that it may help everyone understand what is going on and how to use this new feature...

INTRODUCTION

Mail2Forum (M2F) joins two separate worlds of internet based communication together. Until now, it has not been possible for a web-based bulletin board or forum system such as phpBB to interact with an email-based mailing list. Each system operated independently. The purpose of Mail2Forum is to combine the functionality of the online forum with that of a mailing list. Mail2Forum gives the user the best of both worlds.

Separately, each system has its own advantages and disadvantages:

The Mailing List
****************
Electronic mailing lists are very simple and convenient for the end user. Indeed, participation in discussions is no more complicated than any other form of email communication. Many users have an email client which will check for new messages periodically in the background, which enables very quick response times. The disadvantage is that there is often no automatic archiving or sorting of past discussions. Emails tend to get lost in time and an email's content is only available to the original recipients. While some mailing list servers have the ability to keep an archive of the email messages, it is often uncategorized and chaotic, leaving the user with a mess of unorganized messages. Additionally, archiving is only available as a reference, rather than an active part of the communication process.

The Web Forum
*************
At the same time, web-based forums like phpBB are very well suited for organized discussions. Users may contribute to a subject by posting to a new or existing "thread" of discussion. The threads can be sorted into categories, moved, split, searched, browsed, hidden and subscribed to via a simple interface. The main criticism of the online forum is that it requires the user to login and click through a number of pages in order to browse or post, all of which must be transferred over an internet connection. For some this may be less convenient than email.

Although web-based forums and email mailing lists both have the common purpose of communication, each system achieves this very differently, in turn attracting a distinct group of users. Mail2Forum is a complete web forum/mailing list integration system, which enables the two groups to interact without changing their habits in any way.

HOW DOES MAIL2FORUM WORK?

Designed as an add-on, or modification, to existing bulletin board/forum software such as phpBB.
Any of the discussion forums on the board can be linked to a mailing list.
Can be used with existing mailing lists run by servers such as listserv or majordomo, or alone as an independent (but limited) mailing list manager.
When a forum is linked to a mailing list, any new posts or replies in that forum will be forwarded to the mailing list by email. Any emails sent to the mailing list will be added to the forum, in the correct topic (thread).
Incoming emails can be imported into Mail2Forum in various ways. M2F currently supports mbox, stdin and POP3 mail extraction methods.

MAIL2FORUM TERMINOLOGY

Mail2Forum uses a few special terms to define the concepts behind its operation:

MAILING LIST

A list of users that wish to receive email from a forum.

DISTRIBUTION LIST

A connection between a forum and a mailing list. When messages are added to a forum or sent to M2F they are routed through the distribution list. Mail2Forum provides a Distribution Lists administration panel where a forum and a mailing list can be connected and configured.

MAIL2FORUM FEATURES

Integrates with phpBB (bulletin board/forum software)
Allows posting to a phpBB forum via an email.
Allows users to receive email whenever a post is made in a forum.
Incoming messages are intelligently routed to the appropriate forum and topic thread based on a special email header, or if that's not present the message subject.
Users may subscribe or unsubscribe to mailing lists via the phpBB interface. Administrators can also add and remove users via a phpBB administration panel.
Allow or disallow incoming email from unregistered users.
May be used as a stand-alone mailing list server/manager, or with an existing mailing list server (like listserv or majordomo).
Can convert to and from HTML email.
Simple to use and administer.
Uses phpbb security features. Users can only subscribe to forums they have permission to read.
Open source code under GNU/GPL license.

FUTURE FEATURE LIST

Handles email attachments
Daily journal and newsletters feature
Reminder feature
Improved search mechanism.
Improved search engine bots management
Allow a many-to-many relationship between forums and mailing lists
Support other forum software

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the planned feature set for Mail2Forum but should serve as a good guide to the core functionality of the project.

headbang

Nightrider

Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://4fxearth.net)

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

I've added email hooks into all of our other forums, including the Newsfeeds forums. If you would like to receive all the posts made to any of our forums and also have the ability to post using your email client, you can subscribe to all the forums that interest you...

The new email addies you would use to send a message to one of our forums is as follows:

pc@4fxearth.net - Talk PC
how@4fxearth.net - How To
movies@4fxearth.net - Movies
national@4fxearth.net - National
odd@4fxearth.net - Oddly Enough
oped@4fxearth.net - Op/Ed
science@4fxearth.net - Science
security@4fxearth.net - PC Security
sports@4fxearth.net - Sports
tech@4fxearth.net - Technology
arts@4fxearth.net - Arts
health@4fxearth.net - Health
international@4fxearth.net - International
jokes@4fxearth.net - Jokes & Humor

As always, if you need any assistance or have any suggestions, feel free to speak up. I will be more than happy to help you with this since it could prove to be confusing at first. Once you start using this new functionality, it is easy to understand...

headbang

bigR · Oct 14, 2004

It's pretty cool function... needs tweaking. Wink

As CL mentioned in another thread, the emails come even if you've read the posts. And also, the posts aren't marked read if you read the email, so you have to go read everything again in the forum. Or else keep track of the times of the emailed posts, then mark all read. Or something.

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

bigR · Oct 14, 2004

>> I have gone back and unsubscribed everyone from all M2F groups. If you continue receiving emails for forums that you have not subscribed to, I will check further into it. This is a huge and complicated MOD, so I'm not surprised that there are some things to work through until we understand it completely... <<

Lookin' good, NR. No emails for this post or any others for a while now. Thanks for unsubscribing everyone! And for staying on top of this big MOD, figuring things out.

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

bigR · Oct 14, 2004

Dunno.... you might've had a whole slew of members suddenly show up to complain about all the emails they were getting! Shocked

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

LOL I haven't received any complaints from anyone but the regulars so it looks like I dodged a bullet this time. I am surprised that I didn't hear from a few of the non-participating members though. This seems like a very quiet and non-confrontational group though...

headbang