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Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists?

Added by Kit Plummer almost 16 years ago

I know there was some activity around mailing list integration. But, I'm trying to strategize an implementation of Redmine (which already is a go) and I need to figure out a mailing list solution. If it has to be Mailman and nabble, so be it - but, I definitely don't want the administrative cost of that.

I really want to be able to automatically create the lists as a module for a given project. Am not against developing the solution either...just want to know where things are at.

TIA,
Kit


Replies (8)

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Kit Plummer almost 16 years ago

I should say that the notifications are good. But, I want to be able to reply to the notification and have it appear in the forum thread.

Kit

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Thomas Lecavelier over 15 years ago

This two ways approach of ML/Forums is a quite old problem. I still havn't see a correct solution to it, but in fact, a plugin for redmine should be interesting. There are multiple complexity layer in that thing:

  • it needs a mail client
  • it needs a forum handler
  • it needs a sync system

That's rather complex...

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Kit Plummer over 15 years ago

I agree there is some complexity to it. So, we just need to break it down in to manageable chunks. Right now I'm looking at Yugui's fork at github: http://github.com/yugui/redmine4ruby-lang/tree/master

She's using Drb to manage a incoming mails. I still have some questions about the way she's set it up - that is preventing it from becoming a plugin. I also have a few concerns about this set up from a scalability perspective. I'm looking at having a project count in one of my deployments, and each project could have multiple lists.

In this environment it might just be more prudent to take JPL's Mailman wrapper from an old branch and turn that in to a plugin. (No archive/persistence interface though, and really no search mechanism either.)

I actually think the Forum interface is a bit more interesting, though maybe unconventional. However, the mailing list norm is to now use Nabble as the persistence mechanism, which is really just a forum, which you can interact with directly or indirectly through email.

If anyone else has any ideas - please feel free to let 'em fly.

Kit

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Thomas Lecavelier over 15 years ago

Yeah, I'm looking at her work since some monthes, too bad that she's not a test addict...

From a more general point of view, I would like to see each redmine module (the "tabs") becoming just plugins, so "official" redmine would just be a pre-defined set of plugins, and people could switch from one to an other without pain.

In pluggability I trust.

That way, every user can develop its enhancement easily, without the risk to break something. For your proposal, it would be three plugins: a mail handler (without GUI; and yes: Drb is damn suitable for the job with the correct connector), a forum plugin from the user choice, a sync system.

Pluggability, pluggability, pluggability.

IIRW, the typo blogging system is a huge stupid shell filled with plenty of brillant plugins. Exactly the way I think Redmine should be.

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Kit Plummer over 15 years ago

I agree on the plugins.

For clarity, can you explain what you mean by "sync" system Thomas?

I'm still spinning a bit on whether it not would be feasible to handle mailing list from back-end threads (Drb). Imagine if you have 300 projects, each with 4 lists, and each lists processed 10 messages a day (not that much) - you'd end up having to process 12000 messages a day. Not that bad...especially considering that this isn't a burst hit.

Looks like there's some tests in place. Haven't really looked too deep yet.

Kit

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Thomas Lecavelier over 15 years ago

Damn! It appears that I lost my answer :-/

Do I do the short one:

The sync is the business part, it has for goal to resolve incoming conflicts when two different messages income in the same thread but from two different media (i.e: mail and forums). From my pov, no media has to be prioritary toward an other. The "master" conversation is handled by the sync system internally, and mail and forums are just way to access the conversations.

Does it make sens to you?

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Joshua Hoover over 15 years ago

I forgot this thread was out there when I submitted patch #1616. This patch will give mailing list/forum type of integration. No, it's not a true mailing list, but it didn't take long to develop and seems to work based on my unit and manual tests. :-)

RE: Email interface to Forums / Mailing Lists? - Added by Intersalto Intersalto about 12 years ago

I think the discussion has come up at least twice on every mailing list I'm on: Why don't we move this discussion to a web-based forum?what e-mail client can't direct mail meeting a simple set of criteria to a separate email folder?The bottom line is that in spite of all the flaws of mailing lists, it's much easier for people to participate in many communities at once when they all come to one place -- email.

You will find lots of differences of opinion, but in the open source world, a huge number of competent developers hang out on mailing lists, and simply do not have time to participate in forums. If you want to reach them, you go to where they are. And lots of other communities grow under similar circumstances.
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