#164 - E-mail to Composr bridging system
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By Chris Graham
- Added
- 11 views
| Identifier | #164 |
|---|---|
| Issue type | Feature request or suggestion |
| Title | E-mail to Composr bridging system |
| Status | Completed |
| Tags |
ocProducts client-work (likely) (custom) |
| Handling member | Chris Graham |
| Addon | core |
| Description | This is a new system in Composr, facilitating these key features:
- mail <> support ticket bridging - mail <> PT bridging (kind of making Composr like gmail) - mailing list / forum equivalence The system works by simple creating one mail account (either IMAP or POP3) and tying it to Composr. The server should then be set up to deliver all mail on the mail domain that does not correspond to an existing account to that account. Composr has to be configured with the account details: - type (IMAP or POP3) - username - password Composr gets a new cron hook that regularly checks that account for new messages. New messages and handled, and then deleted. The cron hook ties into email system hooks that are able to claim either ownership of the message (typically, by looking at it's e-mail address) with a priority number. If no ownership is claimed, the message is dumped, or if the 'undeliverable_mail' option is set, forwarded to the address specified in that. Before a message is passed to the hooks, it is preprocessed. Preprocessing converts messy HTML, RichText, or even messy plain-text into clean plain-text mail format. Comcode is extended a bit to support " > " style quoting, such that it's an alternative to the 'quote' tag. There are three hooks... [title="2"]cns_mail_list[/title] [title="3"]Receiving[/title] Conversr has the ability to run the forum also as a mailing list. Every forum has a text field that specifies an e-mail username (e.g. 'general_chat') that applies to it. The mail hook will look for any forums that have e-mail usernames and claim any mails sent to them with 'level 1' priority. Once claimed the mail hook will make posts on the forum according to the mail. It tries to detect a real member by looking at the 'from address' as well as the 'from name'. If it gets a match, but finds it matches a member with 'dangerous_comcode' permission, then it is degraded to a named guest post. If it gets a match to a non privileged member, it is posted as that member but with a "may not be true source" warning tagged on. The hook detects whether to reply to a topic (and which one) or make a new one based on the subject line, including presence of 'Re:'. If multiple topics in the target forum share a title, priority is given to the most recently active. The hook is intelligent enough to check forum access. [title="3"]Sending[/title] The forum tracking system doubles up as a mailing list subscription system. If a member is tracking a maillist-supporting forum and a new message is posted in it, they will receive mails in 'mailing list style' sent from the maillist address of that forum. They could then reply to those mails. A new Personal Zone 'tracking' module is made so that tracking can easily be turned on/off globally, and for each individual forum to which the member has access. The interface notes which forums are in mailing list, with an explanation that tracking mails to those will be in maillist style. [title="2"]cns_webmail[/title] [title="3"]Receiving[/title] If the to address is found to correspond to <username>@<domain> it is claimed with 'level 2' priority. Received mails are then sent as new PT's or replies to PT's based on the subject line (just like the forum does with regular topics). As with the forum, "may not be true source" warnings are used. [title="3"]Sending[/title] Whilst the forum regular sends out tracking mails in two formats, depending on whether there is maillist support, all PT tracking mails are sent out in a halfway format, that looks like a cross between a regular mail and a tracking mail. They are sent with the <replier>@<domain> from address [title="2"]ticket[/title] [title="3"]Receiving[/title] It claims mail sent to the mail name specified in the 'ticket_mail_name' config option. This option defaults to 'staff'. [title="3"]Sending[/title] Reply notifications are sent out much like PT-notifications -- half way between a normal mail reply format, and an Composr notification. Notes: - mails sent out will be given from/reply addresses that correspond to something Composr can read. However mails received will be expected to have either a from address corresponding to what a member has set in their profile or a from name corresponding to a username, or else be assumed as 'Guest'. If it's found that the from address a mail Composr receives corresponds to a <username>@domain then it is dumped for security reasons (in case someones trying to cause an infinite mail notification sending loop). - Comcode 'quote' tags are converted to/from normal email quote form |
| Steps to reproduce | |
| Funded? | No |
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Comments
1) Each forum would get an email address associated with it, and a full set of IMAP login details. This is essentially establishing the forum as being like a mailing list, with incoming emails going to that email address. I do think each forum should get a full set of IMAP details to keep things flexible, but I think it should default to whatever you’re already using on other forum when filling them in (with the email field being blank though, and the code guaranteeing that as unique).
2) Any notifications relating to topics in an IMAP-linked forum would get sent out more like e-mails from a mailing list get sent out - i.e. raw, as if it was a direct e-mail from the person who posted it, sent out to everyone on the list. The ‘From’ and ‘Reply-To’ would be the forum’s configured e-mail address, although the specified From name would be the username of the poster.
3) There’d be a per-forum option to only allow e-mails that can be linked back to a member account, to allow those but post them as guest, and to allow and auto-create accounts to post under. If that was on and a match was not found, the e-mailer would get a bounce back quoting their own e-mail address and telling them to check the account they sent with is a real account. (If this is going into Composr I need to make sure it is configurable like this - I could see people wanting all 3 possibilities). Separately it would also need to be checking privileges on that forum - it shouldn’t post as guest or create an account, if that forum doesn’t allow guests - and it should block the post (bounce) if it matches a member who doesn’t have access to that forum.
4) I think there should also be an e-mail option to configure any bounces to be CCd to the configured staff address, so that you know if users are failing to get the system to work (you don’t want people giving up, especially as there’s some scope here for messing up, esp. sending from the wrong account).
And some notes...
a) I’d re-use most of the ticket integration code. You’re correct that this shares a lot. Originally (a long time back) I planned to actually do this with tickets&private-topics&forum-posts together if it was sponsored, but it wasn’t and I thought the ticket integration was going to be important for our own site (people don’t like to do support tickets on-site, especially as other software has trained them not to need to). So I’d be re-architecting the code to use a common library.
b) If you would want private topic e-mail support too, let me know. I’d probably implement it by checking an account like “[email protected]”, using the “+” syntax to avoid having to configure individual IMAP accounts for each user. The IMAP server would need configuring to support the “+” syntax, and I just checked that at least many modern IMAP servers do support that.
c) The ticket code is pretty smart about handling attachments and quotations, converting it to Comcode, and detecting what topics are being replied to based on subject line. It’s probably not perfect though. There’s no universal standard for how to deal with quoting styles in e-mails for example. So this might require some tuning over time.
The 'cns_webmail' stuff will be dropped. However instead we'll make sure we just set Reply-To directly on the emails, so people can reply off-Composr. There's no need for us to try and track the private conversation in Composr, we can just hand it off like that.