is there a way to allow automatic posting of topics through emails?

thanks!

so which 3rd party components allow me to process emails on the web server? does cdonts or cdosys process emails?

thanks!

Semikolon wrote: you could create a script with for example aspPOP3 from ServerObjects and run it on a computer, make it refresh every 2nd minute and when a new mail arrives, it sends it to the post message script automatically.. this will require hell alot of work.. and knowledge in the subject

Yea ... we did this for one forum.

POP3 components aren't expensive ... most are even free, but itwas very very involved.

1. The from address for all posts needed to have added the ID of the message, eg mailto:forumname.61645@fourm.domain.com - forumname.61645@fourm.domain.com
2. You needed a global wild card for that subdomain, eg forum.domain.com so that anything sent to it ended up in the POP3 box
3. The POP3 checker had to interface with your online database ... relatiovely easy ... but you had to parse the TO field to get the fourm and message ID to which the reply was addressed, collect the Message Content, parse the FROM address and check that against your Member base (note this means posts can be faked)
4. Based on the Message ID, you then insert in the following ways: Either next in line, or after the message they replaied (ie moving posts which got in first).  We went for the former where we just tacked the message below the last in the thread.

We made sure that all Email postings needed to be moderated ... to make sure we didn't have some clever person impersonating someone else.  Near impossible to stop tho' with somehow using keys/PGP/Sigs in the Email received from the persons Email client.

So ... it is possible ... but quite involved

jamesyin wrote: so which 3rd party components allow me to process emails on the web server? does cdonts or cdosys process emails? thanks!

If you are keen to explore this check http://www.hotscripts.com/ASP/Scripts_and_Components/Email_Systems/index.html - http://www.hotscripts.com/ASP/Scripts_and_Components/Email_S ystems/index.html  or do a search on google.

You basically want a POP3 component

If as a collective group we can agree on a free POP component that most are OK with installing I can make available some code for doing this.

I guess the "best" would be to have an array of components selectable (lie BOrg does with SMTP), but that makes it a huge MOD.  WOuld also have to have the "option" of turning POP3 onn/off.

If someone is keen, would be quite a cool project.  I might be able to do this as part of a current project ...

Very cool.

What component did you wind up using? Any chance of posting the code somewhere?

psychopath wrote: Is this available?

• You have to be using SQL Server, as I have used triggers on some of the tables for the insertion of posting message and a stored procedure of rthe actual posting of an Email and allowing for the security of the sender
  
• There is only one edit to any WWF page, and that is the page sending out the Email notifications, as the FROM field needs to include the forum and topic being posted from.
  

Borg you have a misconfig for forum postings in your forum.  The above posting appeared via Email as: Forum: Web Wiz Forums Support Topic: posting through email Posted By: -boRg- Very cool. What component did you wind up using? Any chance of posting the code somewhere? You will note it says its from you.

bruce knows about this but there are more pressing issues...

psychopath wrote: Is this available?

• At the moment it only uses JMail, but the Windows Script can easily be written for various components.
  
• The Windows Script resides on the WWW Server (ie created a new Scripts folder in the WWF install) and is run by Microsoft Schedular every 5 mins.  Thus you need acecss to the server, or atleast your ISP to setup the schedule.
  
• The Script checks a remote POP3 box which has a wildcard for a "domain".  In this case its easier to setup a subdomain (eg forum.domain.com) with an MX record allowing all mail to be collected in the POP3 box.
• The VBScript above collects all the Emails from the POP3 box and places them in a new table called emailmessages.  It also collects any attachments and saves them to the forum hard drive (renaming them to avoind and duplicate issues)
• All messages in the above table are then processed by a Stored Procedure (the step above also uses a stored procedure).  This proc checks for messages of a certain status (ie not yet imported to forum), checks the users posting privs (based on Email address) , and then either adds a new topic or adds a new reply to an existing topic.  Thus it is possible to actually start a new thread via Email.  If a message fails any of the security checks, it is deleted and not posted.
• Once a message is added to the fourm, the processing Proc above then sends out the notifications in exactly the same manner as the Forum ASP does (and does the same checks, eg not sending to the current user).  This allows total interaction via Email, ie reply to a post, and also have the Email post sent out to everyone else.  THis latter step uses a third table called "mailtable", which basically holds Emails being sent from the forum stored procedures and these are sent by a SQL job.
• The only change to WWF code is in the following WWF pages 

        if isNull(strAuthorIP) then 'CJH Added EMail Icon

        response.write(VbCrLf &
"            <img
src='forum_images/e-mail_sent.gif' alt='sent via Email' width='18'
height='17' border='0'>")

        end if

           
    strEmailMessage    = strEmailMessage
& "<p>" & strTxtEmailEmailToReply & "<br
/>"           
    

                'Call the function to send the e-mail

           
    blnEmailSent =  SendMail(strEmailMessage,
decodeString(strUserName),
decod eString(strUserEmail),     strMainForumName,
decodeString(intForumID & "." & lngTopicID &
"@forum.domain.com"), strEmailSubject, strMailComponent, true)