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#1 2004-04-02 07:45:46

Ynnus
New Member
Registered: 2004-03-31
Posts: 2

Posts Via Email

I personally would love to see such a feature implemented into TP. Would make mobile posting much nicer. Basically you just send an email to a specified address and then that email gets turned into a post.

Last edited by Ynnus (2004-04-02 07:46:51)

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#2 2004-04-02 14:43:58

jdueck
Plugin Author
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 147
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

eh? Under what circumstances do you have email and not web access?

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#3 2004-04-02 14:47:26

rg
New Member
From: UK
Registered: 2004-03-29
Posts: 2

Re: Posts Via Email

Like he said in his post, if he wants to post by mobile phone.


“It is difficult to fight against anger, for a man will buy vengeance with his soul”
——-
Heraclitus

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#4 2004-04-02 14:55:12

nryberg
Member
From: Minneapolis, MN - US
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 20
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

There’s a convenience factor too – albeit not much. It’s easy to fire off an e-mail if something grabs your attention, but a little harder to post an article through the web.

Granted the difference is slight, but measurable for some people.

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#5 2004-04-02 15:18:53

jdueck
Plugin Author
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 147
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

> rg wrote:

> Like he said in his post, if he wants to post by mobile phone.

Um…it just said ‘mobile’ nothing about a phone in there. But I see…I think this is a rare case though.

> nryberg wrote:
<blockquote>
There

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#6 2004-04-02 15:37:46

Dean
Founder (Gone, but not forgotten)
From: Languedoc
Registered: 2004-02-14
Posts: 235
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

One argument (eloquently delivered to me, um, by email) is that a lot of people work in situations where having a browser window open on the job is a supreme no-no, whereas having email open is entirely encouraged.

So I can see its usefulness, above and beyond ‘moblogging’ and WAP.

It’s just an area of server technology (listening for email to run a script) that I’m not very well versed in.

XML/RPC, however, that’s in the can.


text*

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#7 2004-04-02 16:14:04

mamash
Member
From: Prague
Registered: 2004-02-21
Posts: 127
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

Dean wrote:

It’s just an area of server technology (listening for email to run a script) that I’m not very well versed in.

Exactly. My current host allows me to assign a script to any of my email boxes, which executes after an e-mail arrives with its body as the standard input. I could then simply take the TXP posting script and add a simply parsing mechanism. It’s not however possibly without server support from the mail server (ie. out of TXP’s grasp).


Who’s gonna textdrive you home tonight?

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#8 2004-04-02 17:03:05

Ynnus
New Member
Registered: 2004-03-31
Posts: 2

Re: Posts Via Email

One argument (eloquently delivered to me, um, by email) is that a lot of people work in situations where having a browser window open on the job is a supreme no-no, whereas having email open is entirely encouraged.

That’s exactly my situation. I would love to be able to post via email because we work in such a small tight environment that me having my browser open to my site would cause problems, even if I was on a lunch break or after work. The other thing it would be nice for would be if I take a picture with my phone, would be much easier to send via an email then send it to a computer, open up the computers email, download the picture, upload the picture, and post.

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#9 2004-04-03 15:37:36

ngungo
New Member
Registered: 2004-04-03
Posts: 4

Re: Posts Via Email

1. Dean wrote: “XML/RPC, however, that

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#10 2004-04-03 16:07:43

jason
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2004-02-23
Posts: 85
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

You’re right ngungo, it’s pretty straightforward to setup.

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#11 2004-04-15 20:47:04

V.
New Member
From: Las Vegas
Registered: 2004-04-15
Posts: 3
Website

Re: Posts Via Email

That of which ngungo writes at the end of his post is correct. The easiest way to do this is two-fold:

1. Send an email to an account monitored by a script – script then munges the text into a post and wraps it up in an xml-rpc call

2. xml-rpc passes the post to txp internals to perform the db injection

A centralized address (this is how TypePad addresses the issue) such as post@blah.com would work in the same fashion. It may or may not scale. In my estimations, it would be a huge pain.

b2/word press handles this (sort of) with a browser addressible .php script that pops mail from a remote account and injects the newly prepared text into the db.

There are dozens of scripts that do this. The difficulty lies in making it part of the cms. Textpattern does a beautiful job of presenting the written word. It, however, knows nothing of POP3, IMAP, procmail, et al.

And it should not. There are too many variables at play requiring too many assumptions to be made. Each of these, depending upon how things fall, will leave a user out in the cold.

The above enumerated scenario is the way to acheive the goal in the cleanest way. If xml-rpc does catch a remote call, then the battle is won. I have implimentations of such things (MT specific) in Perl and Python. Given a free afternoon, the porting should be minor, ceterus parabus.

Most all solutions are most efficient when called periodically from cron. Not everyone can run cron jobs. Here is one way to upset a number of users.

This isn’t a long winded way of making a promise. It is a long winded way of telling Dean he shouldn’t worry about something that more or less already exists and is best implimented by various third parties based upon the time honored software ecological paradigm.

A number of scripts and perhaps a plug-in will bubble to the surface demanding to be used. The more scripts, the more happy users. One script will alienate more than it helps.

I’ll try to remember to bundle up the mt things I have incase someone wants to use them to build something interesting. I’ll further try to recall to post a url.


“My next desire is, void of care and strife, To lead
a soft, secure, inglorious life.”
—John Dryden by way of Virgil, sans line breaks.

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#12 2004-04-16 03:06:59

ngungo
New Member
Registered: 2004-04-03
Posts: 4

Re: Posts Via Email

Bravo V.

I can see some levels of cooperation here:

1. A hardware where it hosts the centralized POP3 mailserver,
2. Software conversion as described by V., and
3. A set of xml-rpc.

I think I can donate the hardware expense if the traffic is within a reasonable range (i.e. few hundred posts a day) if too much more we can always do the PayPal donation to pay for the expense.

V. can practice coversion again, and Dean provides xml-rcp.

How that sounds!!!

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