Mail to Forums (M2F) beta released....
Date: Saturday, April 03 @ 14:54:17 CEST
Topic: Modules


M2F website is looking for phpnuke testers to work toward conversion of their script to phpnuke. Here is a description of their work so far at:
http://m2f.sourceforge.net/index.php):

Mail 2 Forum joins two separate worlds of internet based communication together. Until now, the phpBB web based bulletin board or forum systems existed completely separately and isolated from existing email based mailing list or list serve systems. Each system operated independently. Separately, each system has its own advantages and disadvantages.



Electronic mailing lists are very simple and convenient for the end user, no harder than using the email he or she already uses. The isadvantage is there is little history or organization of past discussions. Emails tend to get lost in time and an email's content is only available to the original recipients. While some lists servers have the ability to keep a history or "archive" the email messages, the archiving is usually non-intelligent and non-categorized leaving the user with a mess of
unorganized messages. Additionally, "archiving" is only uni-directional, meaning you may only go back and view the archives.

At the same time web based forums like phpBB are very well suited for organized bi-directional discussion. Users may view or contribute to a
subject by posting to a new or existing "thread" of information in any category now or in the future. Unfortunately, this requires the user to
use the web based interface, for some this may be less convenient than email.

Although, web based forums and email list serves both have the common purpose of communication, each system achieves this very differently.

The purpose of Mail 2 Forum is to overlap the functionality of both forum systems and mailing list systems. Mail 2 Forum gives the user the best of
both worlds.

Public Beta 1 is here!

What's in Beta 1 Release:

- Mail -> forum integration
- Forum -> Mail integration
- Mail -> Mail mailing list emulation
- mbox,pop3,stdin (.forward), forum input transports
- php mail, smtp, sendmail, forum output transports
- Automatic message threading
- Admin & User CP

Requisites:

- Working PhpBB 2.0.x installation
- Only Mysql DB supported at the moment

The initial release of Mail 2 Forum will inlude the following features... Integrates with phpBB (bulletin board/forum software)

Allows posting to a phpBB forum via an email.

Allows a copy of a phpBB forum messages to be delivered via email.

Bidirectional communication is intelligently routed to or from appropriate forum/thread based on content.

Users may subscribe/unsubscribe to mailing lists via the phpBB interface or vial email.

May be managed via the phpBB interface.

May be used as a new mailing list server/manager

May be used as mailing list manager with an existing mailing list server (like listserv or majordomo)

Can synchronize with multiple email systems (sendmail, .forward, read files, read IMAP and POP3)

Simple to use and administer.

Secure and Anti spam features (uses phpbb security features)

Open source code under GNU/GPL license.

with the following features earmarked for future release...

Handles HTML and attachments

Daily journal and newsletters feature

Reminder feature

Improved search mechanism.

Improved search engine bots management.


This is by no means an exhaustive list of the planned feature set for Mail 2 Forum but should serve as a good guide to the core functionality of the
project.

I just recently became aware of this after an exhausting search for add on/modules that provide this feature. I am hoping that people in the phpnuke community will join me at the M2F site and volunteer to help convert and test this module for a phpnuke flavor.

Personally, I know many sites that would benefit from increased traffic from those users who prefer mail list interface and the content they would
provide to our forums could be invaluable. Also, even us hard core nukers who prefer to browse forums might appreciate automatic emailing of
announcements, etc.

Anyway, I hope you find this as interesting an idea as I and hope some of you folks who have a better understanding of phpnuke architecture will join me in this exciting development

Dean Fritz






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