Forum OpenACS Q&A: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN

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1: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/05/04 10:00 AM
Hi all,

finally I am happy to announce the webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN. So far it is an IMAP client but I will extend it to support POP3 as well.

The package was initially written by Ayman Mohamed as part of his thesis work. Thanks to him and Ernie for sending me the stuff.

Features so far:

- attachment and limits
- Mime-Version 1.0
- Complete UI-rewrite to support list and form builder
- full i18n
- HTMLArea Support (optional)
- Standard API for Email-Sending using acs mail lite
- Port to Oracle (almost finished)
- Updated Documentation for Administrators (installation)
- Support for multiple IMAP accounts per user (optional)
- Signature
- Display Options (Full HTML, JavaScript, CSS Filter, Plain or enhanced text filter)
- vCard import
- Print version
- Contacts
- System reset
- Servers/Users list for admin
- Auto login to Default account
- Default IMAP server
- Integrated with OACS users
- Extensive Message bar usage for better usability
- Inbox pagination

Planned:

- Usage of nicks
- POP3 API
- Unicode support for subject line
- Highlighting of unread messages
- Activity log for admins
- Multiple Attachments
- Multiple to, cc and bcc
- email preview
- dotLRN integration
- SSL and non default ports
- remote SMTP
- download email
- vCard creation
- ...

Known bugs:
- Strange behaviour when deleting multiple messages in Inbox
- Folder view not working yet
- Messages should be sent via remote SMTP server
- content type not recognized when viewing an attachment

The webmail system is now for testing available under:

http://madura.bwl.uni-mannheim.de:8080/mail/

You need to register first. I have .LRN 2.1 installed so you are have to call that URL directly.

Under administration you have to add an IMAP server where you have an account for. So far only port 143, ssl and IMAP is supported. So you need a service provider that allows IMAP access via port 143.

Once you have added an imap server and set it to active state you can create a new account and access your emails(as long as your login info is correct).

You can reset everything under the administration link.

Feedback is more than welcomed. Once finished and cleaned up I will commit that to CVS.

Greetings,
Nima

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2: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Ola Hansson on 09/05/04 12:50 PM
Nima,

I have the feeling this is going to be something GREAT!

Since my IMAP server (Courier) is running on port 943 SIMAP I was not able to try it out. Please be sure to post an announcement when ssl is supported.

If my presumption that your package is depending on Vlad Seryakov's nsimap module is correct, will supporting ssl require hacking his module or does it support ssl already?

I look forward to trying this out soon and maybe be able to give you some feedback.

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3: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/05/04 01:19 PM
That's true. The underlying imap UW IMAP c-client support SSL and other ports. So I assume that ns_imap simply requires the correct syntax to connect via SSL:

{{localhost/ssl}mail/INBOX

I haven't tested that, but it's on my list.

Greetings,
Nima

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4: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Matthew Geddert on 09/05/04 05:14 PM
Nima, This will be a very useful addition to the toolkit. If it gets  "that far" we will be able to integrate the contacts package i have written with it, so that you don't need to worry about things like address books, since you can simply interface with the one i'm developing :)

I've logged in and there are some UI problems (i.e. the html puts the mailbox listing below the change locale line, and i created a few errors will browsing around the site). Also, i needed to log into my account with mailto:username@domain.com and this automatically created a "from" address of mailto:username@domain.com@domain.com (becuase of the way the server was set up. I would recommend adding adding checkbox in the admin UI that says whether or not to append a domain name to a username at login time. Likewise there are some bugs on the create folder page. BUT I know how development goes, and i may be telling you something you already know.

I for one will be VERY happy to have such a package to offer my collegues webmail on our site. I am going to develop a vpopmail admin user interface package this fall. This too could be integrated well into a webmail client... its simple, it will allow for the creation and removal of accounts/forwards and autorespond messages (that are automatically removed when the time comes, etc.). One thing i would encourage you to do is to look at fastmail.fm for user interface suggestions. I know that that's their full time job, but as far as UI's for webmail go i think they are by far the best. I love how i can select a message and file it in any of the folders on the left for example, and this could be integrated into your package.

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5: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Matthew Geddert on 09/05/04 05:21 PM
If it gets  "that far" ...

should read:

Once it gets  "that far" ...

Sorry about the pessimism, its one of those mornings :)

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6: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Ola Hansson on 09/05/04 05:59 PM
Matthew said: "I am going to develop a vpopmail admin user interface package this fall."

First webmail and now an interface to vpopmail. Sheesh, this is almost to good to be true. 😃

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7: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini on 09/06/04 02:23 AM
awesome Nima!
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8: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/06/04 05:09 PM
Thank you for your suggestions:...here are some more nice features:

- pop3 supported
- accesskeys for main pages
- user can decide between icon and text nav bar
- Email address problem solved (Matthew)
- message bar contains link to mailbox

Coming soon:
- nntp support for news feeds
- ssl support
- folder management as suggested (copy, move)

Bugs at present:
- Emails that are attached are not displayed correctly
- alternativ content is not displayed correctly

P.S. Don't define servers with any authentication type or nntp servers. This is not supported yet. I just added it for the future.

Please test,
Nima

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9: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Jose Agustin Lopez Bueno on 09/07/04 09:09 AM
Hello, Nima!

I am testing the mail package but when
I fill the user fields I get the error:

We had a problem with your input:

      Bad Email

The data I am introducing are:

Server      University of Valencia
Username        lopezj
Password        xxxxxxx
Email          mailto:Agustin.Lopez@uv.es

Can you check it?
Thanks.

Best regards,
Agustin

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10: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/07/04 09:39 AM
Jose,
go to the server settings and set the parameter "Append Host" to No. Then you should have no problem.

Greetings,
Nima

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11: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 8)
Posted by Steve Manning on 09/07/04 10:22 AM
Nima

<blockquote>Bugs at present:
- Emails that are attached are not displayed correctly
- alternativ content is not displayed correctly
</blockquote>

What problem does it have in displaying attachements and alternative contant? I ask because I have some code on which I've been working which takes multipart mail content and displays it together with the attachements. Images are displayed inline whilst attached files are offered as a link. Let me know if its of interest to you and we can work out how to integrate it.

    - Steve

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12: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/07/04 02:36 PM
Hi Steve,
can you send me that stuff? I will try to integrate that with the webmail package.

Greetings,
Nima

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13: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/07/04 02:37 PM
Matthew,

how do I integrate with contacts? I would do that if you write a little how-to or send me some sample code.

Greetings,
Nima

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14: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 09/07/04 11:54 PM
Many thanks to Vlad. Now also have SSL support. Try it out. I predefined some servers. Please note that Fastmail.fm doesn't support POP access for member and guest accounts.

Please test.

Steve: thank you for your material. I will look through it and try to integrate with the package.

Greetings,
Nima

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15: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Matthew Geddert on 09/08/04 05:02 AM
Either one of the other people helping me with contacts or I will likely write up a doc for how to integrate with contacts sometime this month (i need to make integratation simple for my school, so i need to make this functionality simple anyways). I'm really busy right now so i'm sorry i can't say when that will be out. Before we go for a "full number" release (i'm guessing at the end of this month), we will have the documentation done. Sorry, but i don't currently have the time...
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16: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Gary Roesler on 09/15/04 08:04 PM
Is there somewhere we could download the source for this package to test it out on our site?
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17: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Mark Aufflick on 11/11/04 08:53 AM
Hi Nima,

Is this in contrib or availbale elsewhere for download?

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18: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Gary Roesler on 11/24/04 05:14 PM
Hey Nima,

Just curious if there has been any progress on the new webmail system? or if there is a aphla or beta version that we could download a try to see if the users on our system would accept it?

Thanks

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19: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Joel Smith on 01/22/05 01:40 AM
Is this available somewhere for download?

TIA.

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20: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 1)
Posted by Orzenil Silva Junior on 03/20/06 08:26 PM
Helo Nima,

Did you commit (or still have) changes you made in Ayman Mohamed original webmail-system code?

Last weekend i was working with that code and i could set up the webmail-system package in our installation at http://www.teknedigital.com.br/webmail/

It worked well and we at Tekne are thinking in continue developments to provide webmail package to OpenACS community. Until now we were working with squirrelmail and despite it woks well with Aolserver i'm not big fan of this solution because it prevents us to issue datamodel integration and use a single templating system.

We are testing webmail-system with bincimap imap server (http://www.bincimap.org). Bincimap is s a Maildir only IMAP server an can be used concurrently with any other POP or IMAP servers or other mailbox accessors. It provides pluggable auth modules through the checkpassword interface so we can authenticate e-mail users with vpopmail.

Malte, what the vpopmail admin status? Did you wrote this code? Could we try it?

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22: Re: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 20)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 03/21/06 09:16 AM
Orzenil,

I found my package but when by server broke down I lost the database schema and since no create.sql exists the package now installs but all pages are broken.

Let me look where I backup it. I will commit that to cvs asap.

Greetings,
Nima

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23: Re: Re: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 22)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 03/21/06 09:17 AM
Oh, and yes I did many changes as you can see at the top of this thread.
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21: Re: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 20)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 03/21/06 09:18 AM
Not sure about vpopmail. To be honest it must be some time ago as I can't remember off hand what you are talking about, so probably I'm not able to give you an answer in the first place.

As for the webmail package, great idea! You might want to integrate it with the mail-tracking package so we have a folder for send items that refers to the mailtracking package or alternatively have mailtracking use your IMAP folder instead.

This would be especially great if we could interface it with any IMAP server, so we could get rid of the need to forward an external mail to the mail-tracking package so we can access this mails information in the project.

Here is the szenario (for our CRM/Project Management installations):

Client sends an order via e-mail. A project is created in OpenACS and during the creation of the project an IMAP folder is created to be able to store the e-mail. Then the user moves the e-mail using Outlook to the imap folder. The mail-tracking system is able to find that e-mail in the folder and displays it in a mail-tracking portlet. Once you click on the link for the e-mail, the webmail package will open and display the e-mail from the imap folder.

We could probably get our client to fund the integrational part if the rest (decent webmail system, good installation instructions) are in place already.

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24: Re: Re: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 21)
Posted by Orzenil Silva Junior on 03/21/06 02:09 PM
Malte,

About vpopmail admin interface i was refering Matthew Geddert (not Malte) post in this thread (http://www.openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=200533) not you. I´m sorry. It was my mistake 😟

Yes. Integrate webmail with Project-manager is part of our concerns and in fact the efforts to get webmail-system working over bincimap are related with scenario you describe. We already provide pop accounts using virtual users/virtual domains administered with vpopmail and now we can use this same folder structure and authentication over imap concurrently. Also bincimap plays nice with qmail. I am not sure about how this email infrastructure scales but Patrick Giagnocavo from Zill.net told me about Dovecot (www.dovecot.org) so i will take a look at it too.

I am playing now with project-manager/invoices/tasks/mail-tracking from CVS HEAD and i think i could evaluate efforts at Tekne to realize scenario you describe.

\Orzenil

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25: Re: Re: Re: Announcement: New webmail package for OpenACS/dotLRN (response to 22)
Posted by Orzenil Silva Junior on 03/21/06 02:12 PM
Great, Nima! Thank you for your time trying to rescue it.