[RC2] M2F - Mail To Forum feature

Pda0 · Post by **Pda0** » Mon Dec 09, 2002 9:05 pm

****** Extensive information and support at http://www.mail2forum.com
(See end of this thread for more info)

30-11-2007 Update:
* M2F v1.2.6 is a stable release but sadly does not comply with MOD guidelines. You can download it on the mail2forum portal (see above)
* M2F v2.0 is on the works as a complete re-write, and will have phpbb2 & phpbb3 compatibility built-in. News and information will be posted on both the m2f portal and the "M2F for Phpbb3 MOD" thread here:http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 0&t=603719

Overview:
Mail 2 Forum (or M2F) is an add-on software to the phpBB forum system. M2F combines the functionality of a mailing list system and a forum. M2F integrates the mailing list and forum capabilities in order to add bi-directional 'email to forum' or 'forum to email' communication. When M2F is added to a phpBB forum system, M2F can work with, replace, or act as new mailing list server system.

Project's Homepage: http://www.mail2forum.com
Sourceforge home: http://sourceforge.net/projects/m2f

Feel free to post support and feature requests it the project's homepage, to keep this thread uncluttered.

You can also read the project's old thread here: http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12414 Its a bit long, but pretty comprehensive.

.pd

Brandons · Post by **Brandons** » Mon Dec 09, 2002 10:46 pm

A Little Information:

All discussion in this thread needs to be on the subject. Nothing else.

There are two threads for this topic. One is locked and has a link leading to this thread.
The other thread for this mod that exists is what you are viewing right now.

Last thread was locked because there were 13 pages of non-coding, mostly complaining. Another reason was users had to scroll through umteen pages of chatter to find any sort of detailed information on features of the mod / development status. etc. Pda0 will be updating the first post of this thread with new developmental udates / links / ideas.

All discussion should be toward the development of this modification.
If your curious about the release of coding PM the creators dont create a reply post for whining. Thanks.

ewerx · Post by **ewerx** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 12:29 am

To clarify the project description/requirements, cuz it's kind of vague...

This project sets up a simple bridge between mailing lists and forums, adding mailing list capabilities to forums, and/or the ability to be accessed with means of a forum webpage to a mailing list.

I am assuming a mailing list here refers to something like a majordomo or listserv address, my-list@listserver.com for example, where many people are members and the list allows all members to post.

Then we have a phpBB setup running this mod. One forum is dedicated to being linked to the mailing list, say phpBB Forum Index -> myList Forum.

The forum has its own email account, myListForum@myserver.com, which is a member of the list. It receives all the messages sent to the list and is allowed to send to the list.

We monitor the mailbox of this address on the server running phpBB, and all messages received from my-list@listserver.com are presumed to be posts to the list. They are added as forum posts on the myList Forum via direct access to phpBB's databases. If the emails are replies to existing posts, they are added in the appropriate thread (assuming Subject header is parsed to determine this).
If possible, the post is made on behalf of the matching phpBB user who sent the email to the list -- if their address can be matched to a forum user account.

Any posts made by users through phpBB on the myList Forum (either new posts or replies to posts) get formatted as an email on behalf of the poster and sent to my-list@listserver.com.

There can be users who never use the web interface, and only use email. Conversely there can be users who never use email (and in fact opt out of the mailing list as to not receive any emails) because they use the phpBB forum exclusively. Both sets of users will see the same posts, replies and threads etc. Of course there can also be users who use both interfaces interchangably.

So, does that about sum it up?

Pda0 · Post by **Pda0** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 1:02 am

Very good explanation!

ewerx wrote: If possible, the post is made on behalf of the matching phpBB user who sent the email to the list -- if their address can be matched to a forum user account.

I guess this would not be possible, as its easy to impersonate people with the mail, unless the mail is sent using smtp validation (authentication)

The two-way mailing list feature could be used mainly for an anonymous-enabled forum, where the FROM field on the mail matches the FROM field on the forum, as a Guest user.

In an anonymous-disabled forum, the mailing list would be unidirectional.

.pd

ewerx · Post by **ewerx** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 1:33 am

Some level of authentication would be built into the mailing list itself, because on a closed list, only list members can post. The message is sent to the other list members as "From my-list@listserver.com On Behalf Of member-of-the-list@mailserver.com". But this doesn't solve the impersonation problem.

However the impersonation problem is inherent in mailing lists anyway, and there is no workaround for it. Mailing-list-only users will see the impersonators post and not be able to tell the difference. So this would be a one-sided security feature. It doesn't strengthen the security of the mailing list, just for the forum (and even then, the post is still made, just not using the user's phpBB account name).

In either case, I think there should be an option to turn on/off (per forum) the posting via email feature (and using actual forum account instead of Guest). In some cases the users are trustworthy and there is no need to restrict access for the sake of protection against impersonators.

kenisswell · Post by **kenisswell** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 2:56 am

Most of these questions have been addressed in the original thread.

Please know these items will soon become better defined.
-Project summary
-Feature concepts and definitions
-Technical breakdown

This will be in place once we can all come together on the CVS location, developer members, and actual code.

ken

netclectic · Post by **netclectic** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 11:03 am

Just registering an interest in this thread

The current working development team is:

pda0
kenisswell
myself (netclectic)

We're still hoping to hear from danyblue with regards to his source code. If you're out there danyblue pm one of us

Work will be under way very shortly on this project and as Brandons has pointed out pda0 will be updating the progress in the first post of this topic.

seguno · Post by **seguno** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 6:23 pm

Well I was supposed to be part of the testers for danyblue's code. I believe instead of starting a fresh project altogether why don't we try and persuade him to release whatever he may have been working on.

I will like to be part of this project team. i know sql, html,css, not too good with php though.

But i have looked forward to a tool like this for about 2 years now.

Segun

DanielT · Post by **DanielT** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 6:25 pm

This would be an intresting project to get involed in, if you need any more help that is..

Pda0 · Post by **Pda0** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:00 pm

seguno wrote: Well I was supposed to be part of the testers for danyblue's code. I believe instead of starting a fresh project altogether why don't we try and persuade him to release whatever he may have been working on.

That's exactly what we are doing. We are waiting for him to release the code before drawing lines of future development.

seguno wrote: I will like to be part of this project team. i know sql, html,css, not too good with php though.

Nice! We'll PM you if we need you

seguno wrote: But i have looked forward to a tool like this for about 2 years now.

Segun

Im sure it will be very useful for everyone.

.pd

Pda0 · Post by **Pda0** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:03 pm

DanielT wrote: This would be an intresting project to get involed in, if you need any more help that is..

Excellent

We still don't have a plan though, i guess we shall wait some more and see if danyblue finally releases his code.

.pd

danyblue · Post by **danyblue** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 11:58 am

Hi,
sorry about all the delays that I have caused to the project, but without a linux box it was almost impossible to work with CVS.
So i can now say that i have finally registered a ssh key on savannah that will allow me after the next refresh of the ssk keys database to upload the current version of m2f.
The code is in alpha stage an some work has to be done to clear some bugs that i was not able to do myself because of lack of time and

lack of knowledge.

There are some main task that need to be done in order to have a final code.

- Check MEssage ID generation for F2M (forum to mail messages) and their replies, i think that i got a little bit lost there. I am supposing that if i generate my own MEssage IDs the SMTP Server will not clear it.

- Test the distinct working modes:
- sendmail forwarder
- IMAP,POP3;NNTP
- Files
- Mailing list archives

- Work on the administration interface, i don't know why, but the admin interface is not working on my linux box, which is a problem because all the final testing must be done in linux because of the facilitiies.

- Review some links in some of the pages (subscribe function, etc)..

- Review the code for performance improvements, I think that in some cases, i have put some redundant code, that needs to be clean out.

- Put some more comentaries in the code.

Afterwards, is just a question of including some of the functionalities that i didn't had time to implement like that attach mode, but which seems easy to do (last comments on the over thread).

We need to create two teams:
-one with coding skills,
-one for testing.
- One for design and graphics

Each of the teams would need a leader that would take charge of all the tasks related with it, and the overall project leadership.
Since I am the only one until know that have developped the code, I will be the Overall project Leader. Since PDA0 seems to be very active and dynamic, i think that he should take the development project leadership, I will work closely with him.
For the testing part, the most active guys aroung were KenisWell and Tobiaseign, so i think that both or one of them should take this part, since they know very well the functionalities and development paths that we were talking about in the other thread.
For the design and graphics, i have made all of them and i think that some pages should be totally reorganized. Some of the icons are not bad, probably some retouch. I don't have anyone in mind for this group, so will wait for volunteers.

Finally, I think that the home source repository should be Savannah because of all the license issues with Sourceforge. I want the project to be under the GNU/GPL licences, because i think a forum sistem like phpbb2 with mailing lists and news integration can be an important information mangement system. If not take a look at all the later developments of portals and of others communities systems. They are all coming aroung the forum system.

regards, and see you in about six hours.

Regards,
Daniel

Pda0 · Post by **Pda0** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 1:01 pm

Go dany!

Just one suggestion: I *FULLY* aknowledge your excellent contribution and effort to develop the system until know, BUT I do think that the project leader should be someone else that sticks around more(I was thinking in kenisswell).

I mean, the project's leader hopefully has to be online a lot to be able to coordinate.

I think im ready to lead the developers, though I do think too that the dev team should have a somewhat planar organization structure i.e. we dont need bosses, just workers there.

Your post is very detailed of what has been done and what we have to do, so its an excellent pre-plan for us. Thanks again.

.pd

danyblue · Post by **danyblue** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 1:42 pm

Hi,
i will not enter in discussion about responsabilities, because I think a lot of good projects have died this way.
I am the creator, developper, debugger,designer, etc ... of M2F and will take the code to its version 1.0.
Afterwards, we can have anyone taking the relay from my hands.

Netherless, the code will be delivered independently of people agreing with me or not, i am not a dictator looking for power, or someone looking to be the star that will be known for for having released the killer application.
I am just one some that had an idea, took it to implementation, knows where he would like to go.
Every one that don't agree that i should be in the project, always can download the source code and branch it.

So let's start to work.

DanielT · Post by **DanielT** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 3:30 pm

Pda0 wrote: I mean, the project's leader hopefully has to be online a lot to be able to coordinate.

/me looks at me

im never offline, i have no life (yes its true i admit it!)

My Sad Life;

3pm - 10pm weekdays (including a few hours in the morning, and some in the day)

9am - 12pm weekends

BUT

i will not enter in discussion about responsabilities, because I think a lot of good projects have died this way.
I am the creator, developper, debugger,designer, etc ... of M2F and will take the code to its version 1.0.

he has a point!

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