Author: 
msnWanting to know if it is possible for a user to subscribe to a forum? e.g. so that any postings w/b emailed to them. I don't see anything about this in the literature.
Community
Web-Empowered Church User Community
Author: Yes, to receive forum posts via e-mail, click Profile at the upper right on this page, then check the boxes next to the forums you'd like to get via e-mail, then click the Submit button. You will get an e-mail for each post within about 15 minutes of the post. This is how the WEC team keeps up with all the posts. You will see that the e-mails contain a few funny characters like "[URL]" but you can read them fine.
In Him,
Mark
In Him,
Mark
Mary Beth,
What Mark shared is for this forum. If you are asking about the Discussion Forum extension, you can indeed setup to allow subscribers to receive email. To do this, go to the Flexform of the Discussion plugin and to the Control tab. The last item listed is "Can subscribe to this forum?". If you check this, you will see a Subscribe button on the Discussion page and anyone who subscribes will get an email of all new messages.
-Dave
What Mark shared is for this forum. If you are asking about the Discussion Forum extension, you can indeed setup to allow subscribers to receive email. To do this, go to the Flexform of the Discussion plugin and to the Control tab. The last item listed is "Can subscribe to this forum?". If you check this, you will see a Subscribe button on the Discussion page and anyone who subscribes will get an email of all new messages.
-Dave
Thanks Dave(and Mark)... yes, I WAS referring to the extension NOT this forum...
Have a question about your directions... clarify, please, which plugin this applies to...
I am trying to use the CHC Forum ... I don't see a Control Tab... please advise further...
Have a question about your directions... clarify, please, which plugin this applies to...
I am trying to use the CHC Forum ... I don't see a Control Tab... please advise further...
Mary Beth Maidment wrote:
Thanks Dave(and Mark)... yes, I WAS referring to the extension NOT this forum...
Have a question about your directions... clarify, please, which plugin this applies to...
I am trying to use the CHC Forum ... I don't see a Control Tab... please advise further...
Have a question about your directions... clarify, please, which plugin this applies to...
I am trying to use the CHC Forum ... I don't see a Control Tab... please advise further...
Mary Beth,
Just to clarify I hope:
- this forum is CHC Forum
- my directions were for users of the CHC Forum extension
- Dave's directions were for the WEC Discussion extension which has a Control tab in the flex form
Are you wanting to set up CHC Forum so people can get posts via e-mail? If so, the key addition that you need to make is to add the forum post mailer to a cron so it runs periodically to send the e-mails. Also, as a warning, it will probably e-mail out all current posts if you have posts in the forum already and people are signed up in their profiles.
In Him,
Mark
Thanks for the feedback and heads-up, Mark... I finally found the setting:
I had to un-check "disable user profiles"... on the Profiles tab.
I will run a few tests with myself to see how this functions.
I had to un-check "disable user profiles"... on the Profiles tab.
I will run a few tests with myself to see how this functions.
Mark,
I've tested this and it's not sending mail... can you clarify what you mean by:
I've tested this and it's not sending mail... can you clarify what you mean by:
add the forum post mailer to a cron so it runs periodically to send the e-mails
Okay...
I added {author_name}
{conference}
{thread}
{text}
to the mailer template...
I added {author_name}
{conference}
{thread}
{text}
to the mailer template...
Mark...
Am looking at the Forum tutorial... see reference to www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/28.0.php
This link doesn't seem to be working no (or else requires some type of permission...
Do you, by any chance, have updated information where I can go to get this?
Am looking at the Forum tutorial... see reference to www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/28.0.php
This link doesn't seem to be working no (or else requires some type of permission...
Do you, by any chance, have updated information where I can go to get this?
Mary Beth,
Here is what the CHC Forum document says from http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/extension-manuals/chc_forum/1.4.5/view/1/4/#id2765653
The CHC Forum comes with a script that sends new messages to users who have opted to receive new posts via email. The mailer is not part of the extension itself because in some cases it may be sending hundreds or thousands of emails (depending on how many users you have in your forum) when a new message is posted, and users should have to sit their waiting while it runs. Therefore, your best bet is to have the mailer run on a regular basis via a cron job. If you have the CGI version of PHP installed (it's compiled as a standalone app rather than as an apache module), then you can execute it via cron as though you were executing it from the command line. If PHP is installed as an apache module, which is probably more likely, then you can execute it using the text based browser Lynx. In this case, the entry in crontab might look like this:
*/5 * * * * lynx -dump http://www.yourdomain.com/path/to/mailer.php
This would cause the mailer.php script to be executed every 5 minute. For more information on setting up PHP scripts as cron jobs, take a look at http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/28.0.php
When the mailer is executed, it looks through the post table for all posts where sent_flag is set to 0, which is the default for all new posts. It then grabs the post information, and puts the message in its own queue. Once it's queued all the messages that need to be sent, it takes each message, one at a time, gets a list of recipients, and sends the emails using a pear bulk mailer, which is bundled in the extension.
In versions prior to 0.5.*, the mailer "from" address was set in the mailer.php file, which is at path_to_ext/chcforum/mailer/mailer.php. As of version 0.5.*, this setting has been abstracted from the mailer script and placed in the forum plugin flexform. This is also true for the message template. So, be sure to set the from address in the "mailer" section of the flexform. You'll also need to set the message template using the markers listed above (in the "Set Forum Configuration" section of the documentation). A sample template might look like this:
Posted by: {author_name}Conference: {conference}Thread: {thread}{text}This message was sent by the chc forum because you have opted to receive new posts via email.{link}
You may also need to change the path to localconf variable, at line 11, depending on where you installed the extension. If you installed the extension locally (in the typo3conf directory), you shouldn't need to change this setting.
In addition to that, here are the steps I would suggest since I know you are on cPanel:
1. You should be able to run the mailer php script just from a web browser and it should send the e-mails out from CHC forum. The path should be:
http://yourdomain.org/typo3conf/ext/chc_forum/mailer/mailer.php
2. So, the trick is to get a cron set up that will run this periodically. Since you are on CPanel you can do it like this.
a. go to straight cPanel, not whm
b. Click on the Cron Jobs icon
c. Click Advance (Unix Style)
d. on an empty line enter this into the boxes
This should run this script every 15 minutes. The script is run by a text browser called lynx. So this cron will browse this web page once ever 15 minutes. And it will send the output to the null device which means ignore the output.
Hopefully this will cause your chc forums mail to send. If you see that it already sent that is because I was playing around to test.
In Him,
Mark
Here is what the CHC Forum document says from http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/extension-manuals/chc_forum/1.4.5/view/1/4/#id2765653
Setting up the mailer wrote:
The CHC Forum comes with a script that sends new messages to users who have opted to receive new posts via email. The mailer is not part of the extension itself because in some cases it may be sending hundreds or thousands of emails (depending on how many users you have in your forum) when a new message is posted, and users should have to sit their waiting while it runs. Therefore, your best bet is to have the mailer run on a regular basis via a cron job. If you have the CGI version of PHP installed (it's compiled as a standalone app rather than as an apache module), then you can execute it via cron as though you were executing it from the command line. If PHP is installed as an apache module, which is probably more likely, then you can execute it using the text based browser Lynx. In this case, the entry in crontab might look like this:
*/5 * * * * lynx -dump http://www.yourdomain.com/path/to/mailer.php
This would cause the mailer.php script to be executed every 5 minute. For more information on setting up PHP scripts as cron jobs, take a look at http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/28.0.php
When the mailer is executed, it looks through the post table for all posts where sent_flag is set to 0, which is the default for all new posts. It then grabs the post information, and puts the message in its own queue. Once it's queued all the messages that need to be sent, it takes each message, one at a time, gets a list of recipients, and sends the emails using a pear bulk mailer, which is bundled in the extension.
In versions prior to 0.5.*, the mailer "from" address was set in the mailer.php file, which is at path_to_ext/chcforum/mailer/mailer.php. As of version 0.5.*, this setting has been abstracted from the mailer script and placed in the forum plugin flexform. This is also true for the message template. So, be sure to set the from address in the "mailer" section of the flexform. You'll also need to set the message template using the markers listed above (in the "Set Forum Configuration" section of the documentation). A sample template might look like this:
Posted by: {author_name}Conference: {conference}Thread: {thread}{text}This message was sent by the chc forum because you have opted to receive new posts via email.{link}
You may also need to change the path to localconf variable, at line 11, depending on where you installed the extension. If you installed the extension locally (in the typo3conf directory), you shouldn't need to change this setting.
In addition to that, here are the steps I would suggest since I know you are on cPanel:
1. You should be able to run the mailer php script just from a web browser and it should send the e-mails out from CHC forum. The path should be:
http://yourdomain.org/typo3conf/ext/chc_forum/mailer/mailer.php
2. So, the trick is to get a cron set up that will run this periodically. Since you are on CPanel you can do it like this.
a. go to straight cPanel, not whm
b. Click on the Cron Jobs icon
c. Click Advance (Unix Style)
d. on an empty line enter this into the boxes
Cron wrote:
*/15 * * * * lynx -dump http://yourdomain.org/typo3conf/ext/chc_forum/mailer/mailer.php > /dev/null
This should run this script every 15 minutes. The script is run by a text browser called lynx. So this cron will browse this web page once ever 15 minutes. And it will send the output to the null device which means ignore the output.
Hopefully this will cause your chc forums mail to send. If you see that it already sent that is because I was playing around to test.
In Him,
Mark