Forum .LRN Q&A: External messages in Forums

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1: External messages in Forums
Posted by Mario Gomide on 01/30/07 03:49 PM
Hi list!

I'm a little new with TCL and the OpenACS/.LRN structure, so I hope you people can help me out.

I have another system and I want to integrate it with .LRN somehow with the forums tool.

I use: dotLRN 2.1.3 and my Forums Applet is 1.1.2d6 (Forums Portlet 2.1.2)

So, what I finally want to do is described bellow:
My other system will generate some information that must be posted as a reply-message (or an edit-message) in the forum.

So, is there any way to create e new, reply or edit an existing message (post) automatically filling it with an external content (maybe via URL)?

Any idea is important!
Thanks a lot!

Mario Gomide

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2: Re: External messages in Forums (response to 1)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 01/31/07 04:51 AM
Do a search for ns_httpget and see "Exercise 4: Tcl pages that query foreign servers" here:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-171Fall2003/Assignments/detail/problem_set_1.htm

might be outdated, but it might give you some ideas.

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3: Re: External messages in Forums (response to 1)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 01/31/07 12:31 PM
Dear Mario, there is a fairly easy way to do it, it requires an upgrade though.

If you have the package acs-mail-lite from HEAD (version 5.4.0d1) you can use the callback for incoming_object_emails to write a quick callback for Forums, which will add a reply to the forum posting.

Then you have your external system send an e-mail to "$mailto:forum_message_id@yourserver.com"; where forum_message_id is the ID of the message you want to reply to.

As you are a little bit new to OpenACS, maybe it would be wiser though to wait for me to spend two hours to quickly writ e the callback for incoming forums. Should be done in two or three weeks.

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4: Re: External messages in Forums (response to 3)
Posted by Mario Gomide on 01/31/07 01:45 PM
Hello Malte!!

Good hearing from you! I really, really appreciate your help and I am very glad you proposed to write this callback.

But the thing is that my problem can't wait that much. So, if there is something I could try on my own while you work it out too, please guide me! :D

I was thinking of something like this:
My other application will have a link (.../forums/message-post?parent_id=XXXXX&textvar=text+content) to reply the previous message in the forum, and the URL content will fill the text area.
Only very few people (about 5 or 6) will be able to do this procedure. These people are reliable.

Thanks!
Mario Gomide

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5: Re: External messages in Forums (response to 4)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 02/01/07 04:18 PM
Hi Mario, obviously this is possible. Hope you will succeed with it and that it allows you to do what you want. All the best Malte