Topic: CM2F (mail 2 forum) Port for SMF

[[Unknown]]

My problem is that i was thinking that SMF supported HTML

Well, I guess my statement was misleading.  Actually:

1. If you put HTML into the messages table, it will work.  But, you won't be able to quote or edit it without losing it.  This is actually intentional (both parts) for anyone who wants HTML in a post bad enough that they will edit it (and was the 1.0 way of having HTML in your posts.)

2. 1.1 introduces an [html] tag, allowed only to administrators, which allows you to post HTML directly.  If quoted or edited, again, by someone who is not an administrator, the HTML will be shown (not the tags.)  This is again intentional.

But, for the purposes of what I assume you to be doing, it does not support HTML.  In either case, anything that can't be (easily) converted to HTML... I would argue has no business being posted.  Just my opinion, however, and probably the opposite of many who want this feature, I suppose.

-[Unknown]

[digitalgraal]

hi,

If the forum works like this and everyone is fine with it, i don't think that it will be a problem. Most of the SMF users are already used to the fact that HTML is restricted and by this, they will not be waiting that CM2F to support it.

Since CM2F on this options is always using the Forum solution, if later, you decide to implement HTML, CM2F will adapt to this.

The task that i am now in, is to enable the subscription interface, my first thougt is to have it included like the options that you have on hte forum, a button like the Home, Help, Profile, would it be acceptable?


Regards,
D.

[gri]

I am setting up a SMF live demo site to allow users to test CM2F over SMF, the url will be smf.digitalgraal.dyndns.org

digitalgraal,

would you like to install [Unknown]'s mod

~Preferred interface language mod~

for switching Forum Interface Language

from the common forum pages ?

I'm interested both in english and russian options.


[Unknown],

please show the link to it.

[digitalgraal]

Hi,

can you point me to the mod?

Although i am looking into the core of SMF, i am not very familiar with the options available.

So if any one wants to have some specific feature, please let me know and point me to the place where i could get more information.

One point that i am very interrested in to test, is the integration if CMS, can some one give me a list of the Portals where SMF runs?

Regards,
D.

[[Unknown]]

The task that i am now in, is to enable the subscription interface, my first thougt is to have it included like the options that you have on hte forum, a button like the Home, Help, Profile, would it be acceptable?

I'm not sure I understand; if you just mean including those links in the emails out, I'm afraid I'm not really one to ask about such aesthetic things... I assume it would be fine (but logout wouldn't be possible.)

can you point me to the mod?

You'll want to ignore gri .  Frankly I haven't the foggiest what he's talking about (I never do.)  He speaks Russian natively, but I'm told he's not much easier to understand even in his native tongue.  And, don't worry - he knows he confuses the junk out of me, and probably enjoys it, so I'm sure I'm not insulting him.

The only thing I can think of is a topic I posted in Tips and Tricks, which explains that you can put ?language=... in the URL to easily switch languages (and using JavaScript, to make buttons to do this for you, without losing the current page.)  But, that's neither a mod nor seemingly pertinent, here....

One point that i am very interrested in to test, is the integration if CMS, can some one give me a list of the Portals where SMF runs?

MK-Portal, Dreamportal (or something like that.. not free), and Mambo most specifically.  There's work being done on both XOOPS and PHP-Nuke, as well as a few others.  I've heard Drupal mentioned, and I know PHP-CMS uses an older version of SMF on their own website.  I've also integrated it into other software, including MediaWiki (if you consider that a CMS of sorts.)

Luckily, 1.1 makes integration with CMS's and similar engines much, much easier (from feedback, which I must say I/we never got with YaBB SE afaik) so there may be an increase in supporting portals (or maybe not, it's always so hard to tell.)

-[Unknown]

[digitalgraal]

hi unknown

The subscription i was referring too, was to have a link included in the forum header, that would allow SMF users to subscribe to a specific forum and to receive by email any message posted in the forum, once they received the message they are able to reply to it by email.

In phpBB, the subscibre link is being displayed near the header options, link Profile, help, register. So i will probably included it in the same way using the icons that i am seing in this forum.

Regarding the portals i will take a look at them in order to see what is necessary to integrate and to see if they are specifities to have in account in order to have CM2F working other the pair SMF +CMS.

I will try to look aslo that the modification for the language thing, but the implementation will depend on the volume of work it requires.

Regards,
D.

[[Unknown]]

The subscription i was referring too, was to have a link included in the forum header, that would allow SMF users to subscribe to a specific forum and to receive by email any message posted in the forum, once they received the message they are able to reply to it by email.

Ah, sorry, I understand now.  I would personally suggest doing that in the profile - where SMF already does it.  You can already request notification (we call it notification, not subscription) from boards by clicking the "notify" buttons, and see which boards you have requested notification from there.  Topics are also listed there, paginated and the whole lot.  If you wish to extend this interface, or add buttons, I would suggest leaving it there (because, in my opinion, that would be the easiest way to do it and also the most logical.)

Regarding the portals i will take a look at them in order to see what is necessary to integrate and to see if they are specifities to have in account in order to have CM2F working other the pair SMF +CMS.

Ah, don't worry about that.  They all use bridging or SMF's members table (partially because SMF's hash is much stronger than that of most other software, and more so in 1.1.)  You'll not need to worry about pulling data from anywhere else even in other portals (at least as current.)

Languages are handled in many places already - we use a function called loadLanguage(), but the basic idea is that the member's preferred language is stored in the "lngfile" column.  I would suggest sifting outgoing mails into groups of languages, and then sending/parsing/etc. each set separately.  Search the code for "mem.lngfile" for examples.

-[Unknown]

[rhizome]

The subscription i was referring too, was to have a link included in the forum header, that would allow SMF users to subscribe to a specific forum and to receive by email any message posted in the forum, once they received the message they are able to reply to it by email.

Ah, sorry, I understand now.  I would personally suggest doing that in the profile - where SMF already does it.  You can already request notification (we call it notification, not subscription) from boards by clicking the "notify" buttons, and see which boards you have requested notification from there.  Topics are also listed there, paginated and the whole lot.  If you wish to extend this interface, or add buttons, I would suggest leaving it there (because, in my opinion, that would be the easiest way to do it and also the most logical.)

-[Unknown]

That does seem the most logical place to put it.
Though could it be confusing in relation to the current Notify button which is context specific for either Topic or Board notification

Is it the case then that Notify feature would remain as it is? Just an email notification being sent out
And the CM2F feature would be independent - where it works being selectable for a particular board in the forum.

So, we would then have two different kind of 'notifications' at board level:
(i) Notify at board level as is now
(ii) Subscription via CM2F

Then would (i) and (ii) be mutually exclusive, otherwise you'd be getting two types of notification?

Gettting confused 

[Tobias Eigen]

Hi everyone -

Glad to see all this progress with cm2f/smf. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to see this happening.

A few thoughts:

1) I agree with unknown and rhizome re the placement of the subscription option - and list of forums the user is subscribed to - in the profile page. This is a slick aspect of the existing system. I do however think it would be nice to be able to subscribe/unsubscribe directly from the forum.

2) I like having the option of notify/subscribe - for some forums I will want to get every post. For others I will just want to know something has been posted. [Incidentally, I have a problem tracking this particular thread in that if I ignore a notification, I don't get further notifications of more posts - unless I come check the forum. This is inconvenient, and different from other forums I'm on. I'll check after posting this message to see if this is configurable in my profile page, but I don't think so.]

3) Sounds like cm2f will replace any mailing list manager. I would prefer the option of continuing with mailman (or whatever other mailing list manager) rather than asking you to take on the huge task of accounting for all the mail handling and subscriber management. This is done quite elegantly with fud/mailman on my current system. Still, looking forward to seeing what you put together.

Keep up the good work and keep us all posted! Looking forward to a version we can help you test.

Cheers,

Tobias

ps - as regards my cm2f/mambo suggestion: you (and others here) might  be interested in hearing there is a nifty mambo addon called mambobymail that is is in rc3 status - see http://mbaas.de - works very well for adding articles to mambo by email.

[rhizome]

2) I like having the option of notify/subscribe - for some forums I will want to get every post. For others I will just want to know something has been posted. [Incidentally, I have a problem tracking this particular thread in that if I ignore a notification, I don't get further notifications of more posts - unless I come check the forum. This is inconvenient, and different from other forums I'm on. I'll check after posting this message to see if this is configurable in my profile page, but I don't think so.]

In your profile, if you uncheck 'Receive reply notification only for the first unread reply' this means you will continue to get notifications
Well, I think that's how it works??  Though I reckon it needs be made clearer and reworded as it assumes you know what the default setting is in terms of how notifications are set, and most ordinary users won't know either way.

3) Sounds like cm2f will replace any mailing list manager. I would prefer the option of continuing with mailman (or whatever other mailing list manager) rather than asking you to take on the huge task of accounting for all the mail handling and subscriber management. This is done quite elegantly with fud/mailman on my current system.

I'm sure Digitalgraal will fill us in on how it works, but I think it can be integrated with a mailing list; and/or produce a digest?

[digitalgraal]

Hi,


I was already thinking in putting the subscribe button associated with each thread, allowing thus way to a user to only subscribe to the forum. Since i need to dig in the subscribe function for SMF, i might coded it.

Regarding the way CM2F operates, the answer is that it depends on how you want it to run. If you want you can use it to replace a mailinglist, or if not you can just integrate it with the Mailinglist. The forum2Mail registers can be used to send messages to subscribers, or just to a mailing list, that will then distribute the messages to the susbcribers.

The philosophy behing CM2F is to be as much flexibles as possible.

In my case i have it working with mailinglists. The users are not allowed to subscribe. They need to susbcribe to the majordomo mailinlist.

Regards,
D.

[[Unknown]]

I was already thinking in putting the subscribe button associated with each thread, allowing thus way to a user to only subscribe to the forum. Since i need to dig in the subscribe function for SMF, i might coded it.

You'll want to look at Subs-Post.php, Post.php, and Notify.php most primarily.  Search for "log_notify".

-[Unknown]

[roxpace]

Why not also implement it so we this can replace the ugly built-in mass mailing feature so it works for hundreds and thousands of email subscribers, would be great for sending out newsletters and more.

[[Unknown]]

Why not also implement it so we this can replace the ugly built-in mass mailing feature so it works for hundreds and thousands of email subscribers, would be great for sending out newsletters and more.

1.1 already works fine for thousands.  1.0 doesn't, yes, mainly because I didn't want to change something that was working for some, and chance breaking it.

I, personally, would suggest that spending time fixing/changing things we've already done in 1.1 is a waste of perfectly good development time.

-[Unknown]

[gri]

I, personally, would suggest that spending time fixing/changing things we've already done in 1.1 is a waste of perfectly good development time.

-[Unknown]

[Unknown],

In order to the requesters knew better,
what new things are already done -
it would be nice to spend some time
in linking users' request topics
 to the developers' announcements about the things have been done..

instead of removing their posts and topics.

Wouldn't it be ?

[[Unknown]]

Gri, I only remove your topics when you post a new topic about something, when you have aleady had responses to the last one about the same thing.

-[Unknown]

[hartiberlin]

Hi,
please post it also here,
when the this mail2forum features is available.
Will it only work with the 1.1 SMF version or also with the 1.05 SMF version ?
Thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[digitalgraal]

Hello all,

A couple of points

  Please don't discuss about other things except CM2F port in this forum, or if not, it will become impossible to use and follow:)
  The Way CM2F is built allows it to be used as a mass mailing functionality where the messages can be sent to all the users registered in the forum. There is a mode called Distribution mode, that takes all the users registered and send them a message posted in a private forum.
  I am developping based on the last Beta version, and most of the code is CM2F Based using calls to standard SMF Functions like CreatePost and others.

  The CM2F live demo site for SMF is not activated yet. I am trying to finish and consolidate most of the changes that i have done to CM2F before enabling the functionality. I will post a message here when it will become officially active.

  Are  there plans to move SMF to a template system like Smarty or other?

Regards,
D.

[[Unknown]]

Are  there plans to move SMF to a template system like Smarty or other?

None at all for Smarty, no.  Why?

-[Unknown]

[digitalgraal]

Hi Unknown,

just for nothing, since i am used to see systems using templating systems, and i was seing that SMF was renderizing its own pages, i thought that the logical evolution would be to evolve to a templating system, like smarty or others. This would have impacts on the long run for my port that i should have in account.


Regards,
D.