Can users submit a post via email (e.g. blackberry)

[rboutin]

I'd like to enable users to submit posts from their mobile device, preferrably their email client. It is possible to assign an email address for each forum that could accept new posts through email?

thanks,

randy

[Wayne Luke]

This is currently not a feature. There have been some attempts at addons in the past that accomplished this but I am not sure if any have been successful or not.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

I am not aware of any modification released for this. You might be better of using a light-weight style specially designed for use on mobile devices.

[feldon23]

There have been requests for this going back several years now. I've offered several suggestions about how posting by e-mail could be handled. I know there are many challenges, and if the user doesn't include the right quoted part of the message, then things would go kaka. Out of the box, vBulletin is not designed to check and receive e-mail from a POP3 e-mail box. This can open a whole can of worms. That said, there IS a modification over at vBulletin.org that allows posting by e-mail. I don't think it's perfect by any means but might be worth looking at.


Separately, I really think Jelsoft has to seriously consider the inclusion of PDA and WAP2 styles with future versions. This is really the wave of the future. PocketPC is really hitting the ground running with HTC's new mobile phones which beat the pants off the Treos for usuability in web browsing and Wi-Fi support, and are available from most mobile providers (i.e. Cingular's 8125 which I have).

There is a PDA style for vBulletin called "MobileAlabama" over on vBulletin.org but it has enough issues that I stopped trying to use it. I'm using the WAP 2.0 style also over at vBulletin.org after making many modifications to allow posting, but it's not perfect either. I really hope to see a future version of vBulletin ship with a WAP2-compatible (160 x 120 screen) and PDA-friendly (240 x 240 screen) style, perhaps even two separate styles since they have different limitations. The StyleVars would point to different logos, buttons, etc. depending on which device you are logging in with.

A cell phone is not required to test WAP2 styles. I posted the website of a free WAP2 cell phone emulator to aid in developing such a style. Devices playing back WAP2 webpages typically have VERY limited RAM and will simply not display anything if your total HTML and graphics are over 100kb. Staying logged in because of how cookies and sessions work is a real challenge on some WAP2 devices.

PDAs are typically much less limited since they can display real HTML, but still need to avoid things like displaying inline images or attachments and large involved tables. Also Javascript should be de-emphasized.

I would develop a style if there was a chance it would get included in a future version of vB but I don't really think I can dedicate the time to a one-off style.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

I think i remember Floris working on a WAP style.

[TheMusicMan]

I have this working fine on my forums.

I have set up a private email address to which I can send an email which will create a new thread in a selected forum category on my site. Given I now have an iPAQ 6515 and I can connect and post to any site easily with it - I don't have so much of a need for this email to thread function any more. I added some code on my own PDA style that recognised when the site wsa being visited by PDS'a and mobile devices - but unfortunately this doesn't work in vB3.5 as I haven't updated the code for it yet. I will wait until vB3.6 before I update that piece of code - but it did work very well.

I regularly attend musical events where I have a requirement to post accurate and often live information and reports from them. I used to use my blackberry to send an email to the address I set up, it would then create a new thread which one of my team who would also be online - would amend and move it to the correct area of the site.

Now - wherever I am, from a concert hall such as the RAH, or at a live outdoor event or concert - I can use my iPAQ to make the new thread in the correct area of my site.

I used a modified plugin from the org to do this email-to-thread fucntion - so, rboutin - it can be done.

[rboutin]

Thank you for your response TheMusicMan...you've given me the hope I need to attempt this enhancement. My forum is competing against our email system as the preferred method of information sharing. For all of its inadequacies email does have the advantage of being blackberry friendly, which is the device of choice for most of my users.

Many thanks,

rboutin