Email gateway, or other mail-to-forum functionality?

[Allen Akin]

Hi, all.

Not to be too much of a curmudgeon, but there are some things about mailing lists and newsgroups that I like much better than web forums.  For example:

• It takes a lot longer to use a web interface as opposed to my (by now very fine-tuned and personalized) email program to read a given number of messages.  The web interface requires lots of mouse clicking, incurs delays for fancy graphics to be transmitted over the net, uses large parts of the screen real estate for menus and controls instead of messages, etc.
• Related to that, for those of us who suffer from repetetive stress injuries, mouse-based interfaces are a lot more painful than interfaces for which all functions can be controlled from the keyboard.
• For mailing lists, I can maintain a nice database of messages on my own machine that permits fast, full searches with a wide selection of search tools.

I can probably generate a few more reasons if you're curious.

But the bottom line for this note is a question.  Does the new forum have a gateway feature that allows new messages to be delivered like those for newsgroups or mailing lists?  Even better, for replies to such messages to be posted as a followup to the proper forum topic?  Such things exist, but I don't know if this forum software supports them, and I didn't find a reference to them in a quick scan of the forum help.

Thanks!
Allen

 

[Dan Lyke]

I discovered that going to:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?type=atom;action=.xml

Gives me an "Atom" feed, which my email program (Opera) treats like incoming emails. Don't have an automated way to send messages, still have to use the web interface for that, but this might get you a step closer to what you're looking for. Unfortunately, the messages are still truncated a bit, so I have to click through if I see something I like.

If your email program doesn't understand "Atom", but does understand RSS, I believe that you could use:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml

So not a perfect solution, and I too like an email interface, but might be a step in the right direction for you.

 

[Allen Akin]

Thanks Dan; that's a good place to start.

Still hoping for a more complete solution, though.  Matt, do you have any ideas?

Allen

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Still hoping for a more complete solution, though.  Matt, do you have any ideas?

One of the enhancements available for the Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software is an RSS feed.  I'm looking into having it installed, so anyone who wants can use it.

By the way, I've created a post in the Tech Talk/Forum Software area called "SMF Enhancement "Packages" which will keep track of the packages I have installed.  Check there for progress!

Here's a link:http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=62.0

Thanks,
Matthew Schenker
(Forum Administrator)

 

[Dan Lyke]

One of the enhancements available for the Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software is an RSS feed.  I'm looking into having it installed, so anyone who wants can use it.

Beat ya to it, Matthew! ;D That's what those URLs I posted above do!

However, if you've got a modification which puts more of the text of the messages in the RSS feed, I'd appreciate that.

 

[TomCrawford]

I've tried he Atom and RSS links a couple times and what I get seems to be incomplete. That is not all new postings are there.  I've done this in browsers (both Firefox and Safari)  At this time I do not have a separate  RSS reader installed but if this would elp I would. Does anyone know. 

Tom Crawford
Selma, Oregon

 

[Dan Lyke]

I seem to be getting all of the messages via the Atom feed (reading them in Opera's mail client), but I haven't done an exhaustive search and am not sure. I'll keep my eyes out for this.

I don't see an email gateway for Simple Machines Forum (the software being used to drive this forum), but I'll keep it in mind, because it's an app we run as a part of my business's web site too.