Hi Jeremie, On Dec 1, 2011, at 4:51 PM, jerem wrote:
Hello xwiki community !
Since a long time, I work on a MailArchive application, and try to find time to post it to the community ... It's used in my team and is satisfying, but as I'm working on it currently I think it's time to unveil what to expect from it, and have your feedbacks before I (eventually) post a first version ...
What's implemented so far : - "eats" mails from specified mail server / account / folder - creates Mails and Topics pages and objects in wiki. Algorithm for topics tries to be "hijack-proof" ;) - Custom Livetable and timeline view for archive, table/threads/forum views for topics - persists main parts of mails (html content, main headers, attachments, attached mails, images, detects encrypted mails), with a clean display - configurable mailing-lists (independant of mail server) upon pattern matching, with auto-tagging of created pages - statistics page (top posters, …)
This is great! I had been discussing this need for such an application with Thomas Mortagne. It's really cool that you're working on it :) If/When it's solid enough we could try using it as a bridge with our xwiki.org mailing lists.
What I would like to implement before first release : - reply button and sheet - configurable auto-typing of mails (for example, Mail/Newsletter/Annoucement ...) (it already exists but it's hard-coded ...) - test it with other server than exchange (ie gmail at least) - configurable ldap integration : auto-creation of mail users from ldap (by matching emails). Already implemented but not inside the app itself. It's a very cool feature for enterprise level mailing-lists. Real users are also automatically assigned as mails/topics authors/creators in wiki pages, as well as mail dates. - remove everything that's hard-coded and dependent of our usage - put more simply, make it generic.
What I expect to add in next releases : - multi-mail-server configuration - improve admin pages - ratings - for now it dumps mails from a folder, meaning it does not act as a mail server by itself. This means that some common features are not available (validation of mails ...). For now it's more a simple dumped "clone" of a mailing-list, but it does not interact with users / mails.
Some open questions / remarks: - considering last point, I don't know how mailing-lists and mailing-lists archives do work (ie xwiki-users and robot, nabble …),
For nabble and the like they just register on the list and then archive all mails they receive on the registered email.
so I don't really know how I could implement such features inside xwiki, or even if it would be something useful for users ... For now the whole application is a XAR and I don't want to bring too much complexity to it.
IMO for it to be clean and maintainable on the long term you'll need a clean part in Java as components.
Anyway I'd like to keep both functionality. - for "reply" feature, I assume to use the global mail server configuration parameters of the wiki, and the email from connected xwiki user profile ("from").
Yep
To simplify I would ask user for his password when he clicks on "send" (and the form is valid), because depending on mail server configured, you might need to be authentified to send a mail. There could be an option to use or not the xwiki login for credentials. I don't know what 'd be the better for this ... Maybe I should add specific configuration for outgoing mail server in mail archive app ? Of course with a "real" mailing-list (with a robot), you don't have this kind of problem as I believe it acts as a mail server itself (kind of proxy).
Feel free to comment, manifest your enthusiasm (or your un-interest :) ) …
I'm eager to see a first version in action :) Thanks -Vincent
Jeremie