This modification sets up your board to basically behave as a list serve or mailing list. The best example to think of is "Google Groups", in that the discussion board still exists while any emails sent to the site are automatically posted or added as replies to existing topics. The SMF Mailing List mod works best together with the
SMF Notify Group mod, which allows you to subscribe multiple groups/members to a thread. The mod now also handles attachments and routes email replies to different boards depending on the address it is sent to; in addition it allows for non-members to start one-to-one threads w/ staff like a support ticket system if wanted.
Credits for the original mod "Post By Email" go to Matthew Wolf (a.k.a Grudge). The mod I've created based off of the original differs in that it actually simulates a mailing list or listserv, rather than just handle emails that might be sent to the board in error. Much more time and code has also been put into the reply extraction to handle different email encoding formats as well as HTML. It is also capable of accepting web hooks, or HTTP POST data, for servers that may not have email piping enabled. The listed differences are:
- Complete revamp of the reply extraction process to work with many email clients; tested with Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Comcast, and numerous others. HTML emails can be accepted and formatting preserved. Multiple email encodings supported, including quoted-printable, 7-bit, and 64bit.
- Works with webhooks / mailhooks / HTTP POST data (enabled via options) for servers without email piping. Tested with mailhooks.com. Currently looking to test on more providers - if you know any more, please contact me.
- Allows replies to any post email (announcements and notifications) by the board. Notifications and announcements are also formatted like an email thread (previous replies quoted beneath).
- Sending emails with new subjects (or without the re: prefix) creates a new topic to a default board of your choosing (under Features/Options).
- New topics started by email are automatically announced (emailed) to members who can see that board, just as a real mailing list would do. If the number of members able to see the board is large, this might cause a lot of server load by announcing to everyone. Then you might want to either pick a different board to start topics (with fewer members able to access) or disable this entirely (again, under Features/Options).
- For all announcements (posted by email or board), members are automatically subscribed so they receive replies through email and can reply back through email (can be disabled if you only want topics created by email to function as mailing lists).
- All posts created through email show the original poster as the sender, rather than the board.
- Posts announced via the forum can also show the poster as the sender (option in Features).
- Attachments are supported from incoming emails and automatically attached to outgoing emails.
- New topics via email can be routed to different boards (and therefore membergroups) depending on the address sent (setup in Features/Options).
- Optional Support Ticket System; those who cannot access the default board can email the forum to start a thread between themselves and those who can access the board, simulating a ticket system (where those w/ access are the staff). Non-members and guests can also do the same if the board allows for guest posting.
FAQ / Common Questions
Why am I getting Failed Delivery bouncebacks with messages like "<b>Notice</b>: Undefined index:..."?- This is from the mod's text strings not being loaded. If you are using a custom theme, remember to copy the changes to your language files as explained in the readme (or install page).
Why are there options in Features with no text descriptions?- This is the same issue as the text strings mentioned above. If you think you installed it correctly, you may also want to check that you copied the changes to the correct language files. Even if you think you are using English, it could be that you are using english-utf8, for example.
I keep getting Mail delivery failed with "Error in argument 1, char 3: option not found <"- Please unzip the download package before uploading to your server and installing. Sometimes the unzipping function on the server does not preserve linebreaks properly, if for example you are uploading from Windows to Linux. If the mod is already installed, unzip the package on your computer and reupload emailpost.php to your forum directory (replacing the corrupt one).
Replies aren't going to the board. There are no errors or if debug is enabled in emailpost.php, only 2 lines show up.- Some users have reported that disabling guest browsing is the cause. It might be the case that SMF rejects the mod (initiated from an email reply and "technically" a guest) if guest are not allowed to view the board, so try enabling guest browsing and just disallowing guests on a board-by-board basis.
------------------
Original "Post By Email" mod written By Matthew Wolf (a.k.a Grudge) -
me@mattwolf.co.uk Porting to SMF Forums 1.1.x (later versions) and recoding to simulate mailing lists by pftq -
www.pftq.com Some code to close HTML tags in badly formatted emails by Milian Wolff
