Dev wanted - Open Source PHP message centre
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Dev wanted - Open Source PHP message centre
Hi all,
I'm writing in the hope that I might attract a PHP developer or two to our fantastic Open Source project, mail2forum.
The project began life as an interface between the worlds of online forum and email mailing list - posts made in a phpBB forum are distributed to a mailing list, and emails to the list are imported into the corresponding forum thread.
Version 1.2 of m2f was recently released, and is a fairly mature, fairly stable (!) piece of code. It has many configurable options: it can deal with attachments, message threading, HTML and multipart MIME messages, message moderation, regexp pattern search and replace, multiple mailing lists with user options, mbox/POP/gMail/stdin input and mail()/SMTP/Sendmail output, and many more.
Version 2.0 is in development, and is a complete re-write from the ground up. Our initial aim is to provide the same features as v1.2, followed by a rapid expansion to include many other input/output formats. Development has started in earnest - we are using a true OOP approach, and are employing the services of Simpletest for a totally TDD project. The code uses libraries from PEAR and Smarty, as well as ADODB for multiple DB support.
Version 2.0 is modular, which means that although at first we will concentrate on phpBB and email, adding new channels such as RSS, NNTP, vBulletin, etc will be relatively straightforward.
As a lead developer, I can promise that this project will be interesting - we already have a helpful and faithful userbase and a lively discussion forum. It would be fantastic to have some new blood on board, to help speed up development and deliver v2.0 as soon as possible!
We have a sourceforge site up, where you can see our code for v1.2 (in CVS) and our progress so far on v2.0 (in SVN).
Please feel free to browse our Wiki (user-edited, so sometimes a bit out-of-date!), our support forum (where you can demo m2f), and contact me here by PM if you are interested.
Thanks for your interest. I have my fingers crossed!
I'm writing in the hope that I might attract a PHP developer or two to our fantastic Open Source project, mail2forum.
The project began life as an interface between the worlds of online forum and email mailing list - posts made in a phpBB forum are distributed to a mailing list, and emails to the list are imported into the corresponding forum thread.
Version 1.2 of m2f was recently released, and is a fairly mature, fairly stable (!) piece of code. It has many configurable options: it can deal with attachments, message threading, HTML and multipart MIME messages, message moderation, regexp pattern search and replace, multiple mailing lists with user options, mbox/POP/gMail/stdin input and mail()/SMTP/Sendmail output, and many more.
Version 2.0 is in development, and is a complete re-write from the ground up. Our initial aim is to provide the same features as v1.2, followed by a rapid expansion to include many other input/output formats. Development has started in earnest - we are using a true OOP approach, and are employing the services of Simpletest for a totally TDD project. The code uses libraries from PEAR and Smarty, as well as ADODB for multiple DB support.
Version 2.0 is modular, which means that although at first we will concentrate on phpBB and email, adding new channels such as RSS, NNTP, vBulletin, etc will be relatively straightforward.
As a lead developer, I can promise that this project will be interesting - we already have a helpful and faithful userbase and a lively discussion forum. It would be fantastic to have some new blood on board, to help speed up development and deliver v2.0 as soon as possible!
We have a sourceforge site up, where you can see our code for v1.2 (in CVS) and our progress so far on v2.0 (in SVN).
Please feel free to browse our Wiki (user-edited, so sometimes a bit out-of-date!), our support forum (where you can demo m2f), and contact me here by PM if you are interested.
Thanks for your interest. I have my fingers crossed!
What a shame - I had a good feeling about DevNetwork - I thought I might find someone to help!
The fact of the matter is that I'm pretty much developing the project on my own at the moment - my colleague is far too busy with work commitments to help with anything other than design issues. Although it's going well, I am extremely keen to get a third person involved, both to contribute new ideas and to check over what I've done. Although I'm still relatively new to OOP, I've done a load of reading into design patterns, MVC and TDD, and have studied code from many sources (released apps, and code posted here and at Sitepoint for example). As I say, I'm very happy with the progress so far on version 2.0!
I'd like some advice on how I might attract a new developer to the project. Most people who have contributed code to m2f in the past, including myself, have got involved because they have been using the software on their own forum, and have made good suggestions for improvements. I have naturally been asking all current forum members if they would be interested, but many of them are not experienced PHP coders. So I thought that I might get some feedback if I posted messages like the one above in various PHP design forums, but again I've had no luck.
Is there any more information I can provide about the project which might help to attract a good PHP developer? I know people are busy and generally all do a load of free Open Source work already, but I would hate to see this project die a slow and painful death just because I find it harder and harder to deliver updates and improvements. The annoying thing is that I'm sure there are people out there who would be perfect for us, it's just a question of finding them!
I guess the right person would either be someone who wants to use m2f in a site of their own and sees the potential of the new version, or just someone who wants to get involved with an extensive OOP project with a good userbase for fun.
Please let me know your thoughts, especially ideas for where else on the net I might post my request.
Many thanks!
The fact of the matter is that I'm pretty much developing the project on my own at the moment - my colleague is far too busy with work commitments to help with anything other than design issues. Although it's going well, I am extremely keen to get a third person involved, both to contribute new ideas and to check over what I've done. Although I'm still relatively new to OOP, I've done a load of reading into design patterns, MVC and TDD, and have studied code from many sources (released apps, and code posted here and at Sitepoint for example). As I say, I'm very happy with the progress so far on version 2.0!
I'd like some advice on how I might attract a new developer to the project. Most people who have contributed code to m2f in the past, including myself, have got involved because they have been using the software on their own forum, and have made good suggestions for improvements. I have naturally been asking all current forum members if they would be interested, but many of them are not experienced PHP coders. So I thought that I might get some feedback if I posted messages like the one above in various PHP design forums, but again I've had no luck.
Is there any more information I can provide about the project which might help to attract a good PHP developer? I know people are busy and generally all do a load of free Open Source work already, but I would hate to see this project die a slow and painful death just because I find it harder and harder to deliver updates and improvements. The annoying thing is that I'm sure there are people out there who would be perfect for us, it's just a question of finding them!
I guess the right person would either be someone who wants to use m2f in a site of their own and sees the potential of the new version, or just someone who wants to get involved with an extensive OOP project with a good userbase for fun.
Please let me know your thoughts, especially ideas for where else on the net I might post my request.
Many thanks!
I'm no php guru so I can't help you out. But I have one remark: maybe you could explain the need for the project better. I read the introduction on the wiki but to me it's not clear what the point of mail2forum is. Do most forum software packages not have integrated mail possibilities already? One can subscribe to a thread and be notified of updates by email, or with a feedreader, etc. So the only difference would be that you can email a post. But what's the difference between opening my email client to write an email or opening the forum page and posting my message?
(don't want to sound negative, it's just a question)
(don't want to sound negative, it's just a question)
Sure, it's a good point, and one that needs addressing better on the wiki. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to devote my free time to the coding rather than documentation at this stage.
I will post again soon with more info, but the importing point I'd like to make is that v2.0 will do SO much more than the v1.2 system you describe, as there will be many different kinds of "channel". So, to give some examples, it will be possible to: host a standard mailing list; import phpBB posts into a vBulletin forum; import a mbox archive into a forum; mirror forum posts in an RSS feed; collate RSS feeds into a mailshot, etc, etc, etc. I haven't seen any PHP software which can do this in my research!
Thanks for the feedback anyway.
I will post again soon with more info, but the importing point I'd like to make is that v2.0 will do SO much more than the v1.2 system you describe, as there will be many different kinds of "channel". So, to give some examples, it will be possible to: host a standard mailing list; import phpBB posts into a vBulletin forum; import a mbox archive into a forum; mirror forum posts in an RSS feed; collate RSS feeds into a mailshot, etc, etc, etc. I haven't seen any PHP software which can do this in my research!
Thanks for the feedback anyway.
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
A lot of the functionality you describe is available as plugin with many forums packages. The ability to import phpBB posts into vBulletin, that is done and done. phpBB alone has converters that will do that for you, and just about every BB out there has a phpBB converter to get data from phpBB to their version of the forum.
Mirror forum posts in an RSS feed is done and done. We use it here (and many other BB's use it as well). Some of what you got going look cool, but a lot of what you are talking about is already been developed. What is the benefit of being involved with this project?
PS That is not meant to be a 'jerk' type question. I think, for your sake and the benefit of others, that it would help if you had something that could sell us on the idea. You might get more developers on board that way.
Mirror forum posts in an RSS feed is done and done. We use it here (and many other BB's use it as well). Some of what you got going look cool, but a lot of what you are talking about is already been developed. What is the benefit of being involved with this project?
PS That is not meant to be a 'jerk' type question. I think, for your sake and the benefit of others, that it would help if you had something that could sell us on the idea. You might get more developers on board that way.
Interesting conversation (Thanks George for getting me here!). I don't have much time, ill try my best to be brief:
1) Importers/Converters
One thing is to import, and other totally different is to LINK, real-time or batch. What we are talking here is that we could have CHAINS of forums linked together. For example, i could want this forum (or maybe even this topic) mirrored to our mail2forum.com phpbb forum. I could "subscribe" my "devnetwork" forum to your "volounteer work" forum, so everything posted here would be posted in mail2forum.com.
Does this flexibility speak for itself? Think on...
2) RSS feeds
Im not by far an expert in this topic, but I think that most of the work has been oriented in PRODUCING rss content, not IMPORTING rss content. I see that in this forum you have an RSS export feature, which is cool... but what if you wanted, say, import a slashdot rss feed into a "slashdot" forum?
As i've said, im not an expert, but AFAIK even though rss standard has been evolving a lot, there is still lots to do in terms of content. For example, is it possible or easy to include attachments in the feed? What about the encoding type? Can phpBB detect image attachments and show them instead of just offer download?...etc
3) Potential
Even though M2F started as a plain mail 2 forum bridge, its concept has evolved into a generic bridge capable of linking together all sort of communication protocols/standards. We could bridge irc conversations with nntp news with forum posts with mailing lists... and so on.
My whole interest in this project started because i was building a software engeneering portal, and the users I was interested in because of their posts (Professors and doctorate students) strongly disliked web-based communication systems (forums,wikis,etc.) but were interested in using only NNTP services or mailing lists. On the other hand, the most important readers (Students and alumni) didn't even know what NNTP was, and were interested in using web-based forums and maybe malinglists.
The solution is a NNTP-to-phpBB bridge. You can check "papercut" and see that I even helped in the bugfixing there, but... why stop there? I wanted mailinglists too (in my case PUSH is so much better than PULL)
That's about it, thanks everah for your interest.
.pd
1) Importers/Converters
One thing is to import, and other totally different is to LINK, real-time or batch. What we are talking here is that we could have CHAINS of forums linked together. For example, i could want this forum (or maybe even this topic) mirrored to our mail2forum.com phpbb forum. I could "subscribe" my "devnetwork" forum to your "volounteer work" forum, so everything posted here would be posted in mail2forum.com.
Does this flexibility speak for itself? Think on...
2) RSS feeds
Im not by far an expert in this topic, but I think that most of the work has been oriented in PRODUCING rss content, not IMPORTING rss content. I see that in this forum you have an RSS export feature, which is cool... but what if you wanted, say, import a slashdot rss feed into a "slashdot" forum?
As i've said, im not an expert, but AFAIK even though rss standard has been evolving a lot, there is still lots to do in terms of content. For example, is it possible or easy to include attachments in the feed? What about the encoding type? Can phpBB detect image attachments and show them instead of just offer download?...etc
3) Potential
Even though M2F started as a plain mail 2 forum bridge, its concept has evolved into a generic bridge capable of linking together all sort of communication protocols/standards. We could bridge irc conversations with nntp news with forum posts with mailing lists... and so on.
My whole interest in this project started because i was building a software engeneering portal, and the users I was interested in because of their posts (Professors and doctorate students) strongly disliked web-based communication systems (forums,wikis,etc.) but were interested in using only NNTP services or mailing lists. On the other hand, the most important readers (Students and alumni) didn't even know what NNTP was, and were interested in using web-based forums and maybe malinglists.
The solution is a NNTP-to-phpBB bridge. You can check "papercut" and see that I even helped in the bugfixing there, but... why stop there? I wanted mailinglists too (in my case PUSH is so much better than PULL)
That's about it, thanks everah for your interest.
.pd
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
(N.B. - for those who haven't guessed, Pda0 is my partner in crime on this project!)
Imported channels convert the messages they receive (by whatever means - m2f invoked by a phpBB function, a cron routine starting a DB lookup or RSS feed load, etc) into what we call a 'generic message', which has certain common characteristics such as body, subject, author and so on. Export channels are designed to convert any generic messages they receive into the correct format for the channel type, and then export them (which may involve a DB insert, writing to a file, whatever).
So, in essence, yes: m2f will enable messages in a multitude of formats to be viewed in a multitude of other formats, and to be kept in sync by means of a scheduler (which will be built in to m2f, and triggered by, for example, cron or a HTTP request).
But this is only the beginning. Already working in our development version are 'filters' and 'routers'. Filters can be set to change the content of a generic message (for example, convert BBCode to HTML, obfuscate blacklisted words, etc). We build channels together in 'chains', which will allow multiple input and/or output channels to be linked together. Routers can affect the course of a running chain by examining the content of the generic message - for example when importing an RSS feed into phpBB, you could post each message in a different forum depending on whether its body contains certain keywords.
Thanks again for your interest - it's really valuable as it makes us think about the project on a wider scope, rather than at code level! By no means do we take offence at your comments!
Well, to go into the inner-workings of m2f briefly, what we will do is provide a framework into which modular 'channels' can be plugged. These channels either import messages, export messages or do both.Everah wrote:So you are essentially saying that your app will take content from another site and make it into something readable and presentable by a users forum software?
Imported channels convert the messages they receive (by whatever means - m2f invoked by a phpBB function, a cron routine starting a DB lookup or RSS feed load, etc) into what we call a 'generic message', which has certain common characteristics such as body, subject, author and so on. Export channels are designed to convert any generic messages they receive into the correct format for the channel type, and then export them (which may involve a DB insert, writing to a file, whatever).
So, in essence, yes: m2f will enable messages in a multitude of formats to be viewed in a multitude of other formats, and to be kept in sync by means of a scheduler (which will be built in to m2f, and triggered by, for example, cron or a HTTP request).
But this is only the beginning. Already working in our development version are 'filters' and 'routers'. Filters can be set to change the content of a generic message (for example, convert BBCode to HTML, obfuscate blacklisted words, etc). We build channels together in 'chains', which will allow multiple input and/or output channels to be linked together. Routers can affect the course of a running chain by examining the content of the generic message - for example when importing an RSS feed into phpBB, you could post each message in a different forum depending on whether its body contains certain keywords.
Thanks again for your interest - it's really valuable as it makes us think about the project on a wider scope, rather than at code level! By no means do we take offence at your comments!
well.. as said before phpbb and a lot of other forum software add rss features nad interaction with a mailing list.
For instance phorum has a mod that allows you to create mailing lists from a forum... then you can use another mod that fetches the aemail and post them...
that is basically the binding you are talking about..
though i think its a good ideia to develop similar and improved stuff to other forums than phorum.
At the moment i am working on a script that fetches rss items and post them as a new topic of a punbb forum. This can be very practical for discussing news... and if you use a portal sistem you can have a blog-like news list with discussion.
now about you project... in my opinion it has a biiiig advantage: integration... we all have to admit that having a complete/rubust binding between mailing lists and forums is much more of a serious sulution than installing this and that module and face all the issues that can bring.
You started your work on phpbb.. thats a decision of yours, but in my humble opinion you would have more growing and development prespectives if you would use something like punbb or smf.
about providing time.work.... unfortunatly i am not an very experiencied php coder, this would actually be a good step for me.. but i have no time to offer, sorry.
For instance phorum has a mod that allows you to create mailing lists from a forum... then you can use another mod that fetches the aemail and post them...
that is basically the binding you are talking about..
though i think its a good ideia to develop similar and improved stuff to other forums than phorum.
At the moment i am working on a script that fetches rss items and post them as a new topic of a punbb forum. This can be very practical for discussing news... and if you use a portal sistem you can have a blog-like news list with discussion.
now about you project... in my opinion it has a biiiig advantage: integration... we all have to admit that having a complete/rubust binding between mailing lists and forums is much more of a serious sulution than installing this and that module and face all the issues that can bring.
You started your work on phpbb.. thats a decision of yours, but in my humble opinion you would have more growing and development prespectives if you would use something like punbb or smf.
about providing time.work.... unfortunatly i am not an very experiencied php coder, this would actually be a good step for me.. but i have no time to offer, sorry.
Well, you've hit the nail on the head here. My only reason for starting development on v2.0 with a phpBB focus is to keep our current users happy. As soon as the framework reaches a certain level of maturity, and I have written basic phpBB, POP and SMTP channels, I will start writing other channels such as vBulletin, smf, etc. (which, by the way, will descent from a parent class which will perform generic 'forum' tasks, just like POP and SMTP descend from an 'email' parent). Naturally, the idea is that other people will offer to help on channels in which they have a particular interest. My expertise is with phpBB and email, so I will focus on those primarily.pedrotuga wrote:You started your work on phpbb.. thats a decision of yours, but in my humble opinion you would have more growing and development prespectives if you would use something like punbb or smf.
Thanks for the comments - it's a shame you haven't the time to help!
I'd like to selfishly keep this thread going if at all possible!
As you know, I'm on the hunt for a developer or two to share some of the work with me and Pda0 on our redesign. To state our case more clearly, let me ask some more specific questions:
In addition, I'm very willing to discuss the features and design of m2f and to take any advice or questions you may have. I can provide a ZIP of the current development source files if anyone's interested.
As you know, I'm on the hunt for a developer or two to share some of the work with me and Pda0 on our redesign. To state our case more clearly, let me ask some more specific questions:
- Is anyone interested in helping out at this stage?
- Is there any more information I can provide about m2f that might make the project more attractive to you?
- What other avenues/approaches can you suggest to try and find someone to help? (We have already been asking the same questions within the m2f community). I'm thinking other PHP discussion groups (although I've had problems with some, such as Sitepoint, who accuse me of "advertising a job" which is against their rules)
In addition, I'm very willing to discuss the features and design of m2f and to take any advice or questions you may have. I can provide a ZIP of the current development source files if anyone's interested.
That's only one use case. We could take content from sites or other sources such as irc, news nntp, and so on.So you are essentially saying that your app will take content from another site and make it into something readable and presentable by a users forum software?
Well, if you were to use our framework, then you have to build two M2F "Channels" that work as plugins:At the moment i am working on a script that fetches rss items and post them as a new topic of a punbb forum. This can be very practical for discussing news... and if you use a portal sistem you can have a blog-like news list with discussion.
now about you project... in my opinion it has a biiiig advantage: integration... we all have to admit that having a complete/rubust binding between mailing lists and forums is much more of a serious sulution than installing this and that module and face all the issues that can bring.
1) The rss input channel
2) The punbb output channel
... and maybe additional filters or content-based routers you would like to implement. You could, for example, deliver the rss feeds to different topics or forums depending on their content, title, etc.
You just have to conform to some simple rules for building the M2F plugin, and M2F would care about the rest (Chain structure and routing configuration) As George said, you could build your RSS-2-punbb bridge on top of the extensive M2F functionality!
.pd