A mailinglist/forum-hybrid, realized with Plone.

• SMTP-server for sending mails.

• Mail-inbox with IMAP-support.

• mailtoplone.base

• collective.contentrules.mailtogroup

crontab -e

Hit 'i' for insertion-mode, paste these lines into it, replace the vars in square-brackets and possibly also 'admin:admin':

* * * * * [PATH_TO]/mailtoplone.base/mailtoplone/base/scripts/fetchemail -u http://admin:admin@[PLONESITE_URL]/forumail -i [IMAP_SERVER] -t [IMAP_PORT] -e [INBOX_USERNAME] -p [INBOX_PASSWORD];

This will look up your inbox for new mails every minute. You can increase the interval, by repeating the command with a prepended delay via 'sleep', e.g. the following line will look into the inbox every 30 seconds:

* * * * * [PATH_TO]/mailtoplone.base/mailtoplone/base/scripts/fetchemail -u http://admin:admin@[PLONESITE_URL]/forumail -i [IMAP_SERVER] -t [IMAP_PORT] -e [INBOX_USERNAME] -p [INBOX_PASSWORD]; sleep 30 && [PATH_TO]/mailtoplone.base/mailtoplone/base/scripts/fetchemail -u http://admin:admin@[PLONESITE_URL]/forumail -i [IMAP_SERVER] -t [IMAP_PORT] -e [INBOX_USERNAME] -p [INBOX_PASSWORD];

Theoretically that'll allow to trigger the mailtoplone-script every second. A good period can be every 10 seconds.

When done, hit Esc-key for leaving insertion-mode and type ':wq' to save and close the file. The cron wil be active immediately.

In case needed, you can remove the entry again like this: After opening with 'crontab -e', double-hit the 'd'-key, to remove the entry, then again do ':wq'.

cd your-dev-eggs-dir
git clone https://github.com/ida/adi.forumail
git clone https://github.com/ida/collective.contentrules.mailtogroup --branch forumail
git clone https://github.com/ida/mailtoplone.base --branch forumail

Modify your buildout.cfg accordingly:

[buildout]

development =
    your-dev-eggs-dir/adi.forumail
    your-dev-eggs-dir/mailtoplone.base
    your-dev-eggs-dir/collective.contentrules.mailtogroup

[instance]

    eggs =
        adi.forumail
        mailtoplone.base

    zcml =
        mailtoplone.base

cd your/instance
./bin/instance stop
./bin/buildout
./bin/instance fg

Navigate to http://example.org:8080/yourPloneSiteId/mail-controlpanel and enter your SMTP-credentials, if not done already.

Navigate to http://example.org:8080/yourPloneSiteId/prefs_install_products_form, check the box at 'adi.forumail', click 'Activate addon'. You should now find a folder called 'forumail' on first level of your site.

Navigate to http://example.org:8080/yourPloneSiteId/++rule++forumail/@@manage-elements, scroll down to "Send email to groups and members", click "Edit".

You should now get a popup-form, in there, enter your inbox-address in the field "Email source", replace '[INBOX_MAIL_ADDRESS]' with your inbox-address, scroll down, click "Save".

You'll land back on the contentrule-form. To be on the sure side, also there click "Save", right below the "Enabled"-field.

Navigate to:

http://localhost:8080/Plone/forumail/edit/#fieldsetlegend-categorization

Enter the categories you want to be available, where it's written "Create and apply new tags", click save.

Categories are filtered of mails, whether the parent-folder holds the given categories, too, or not.

Users adding posts via the web-UI can only choose of categories you defined on the forum's folder.

Before adding posts, please add at a least one user to the forumail-group, otherwise the mail-notifica-contentrule will rightfully moan there's no recipients available to send the notification to.

Alternatively disable the contentrule, if you only want to use the forum's web-UI and don't need the mailing-functionality.

Create users via:

http://localhost:8080/Plone/@@new-user

Enter at least the user-id, the user-mailaddress and make sure, to check the box at the group 'Forumailers'. Click save.

Click plus-symbol on top, fill out title- and text-field, apply tags, save.

Click 'Reply', fill out text-field, save.

Send a mail to your inbox'es address.

Optionally add categories in the last line of your mail like this:

[a category, another category, cat é gory]

Reply to the mail-notification of an added post, leave subject and last line of mailbody untouched.