Webmail?

[jonno946]

Hi every1?

I want to make some sort of webmail system for my website, but i havent got a clue where to start?

Firstly, is theyre any good PHP scripts that allow me to do such a thing?

Secondly, If i was to make my own, what would be the best idea? A catchall email account that catches all email for the domain? I dont think a POP account for each user is a good idea, as i only have a limited number of them.

Help me out on this one guys, ive been wanting some sort of webmail system for years now!

Cheers

Jonathan

[sp0rk]

If you don't know where to start, you'll probably want to take a look at what's already out there.

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Email_Systems/ is worth a look.

[pnoeric]

yeah, check Zend.com too. Note that making a webmail system is a two-part undertaking: part 1 is having a decent, secure user interface, and part 2 is making it compatible with your machine's email system (sendmail, qmail, etc). Frankly FWIW I lump this in with writing your own shopping cart... you CAN, but WHY, when there are so many good ones out there? food for thought. a fun programming exercise, tho.

best
Eric

[jonno946]

I cannot find any? The only ones i see are POP interfaces?

I want to profide a hotmail style service to my visitors to increase hits.

[Weedpacket]

Yes, that sounds like what you're looking^{HHHHHHHHasking} for. Do you have an email server?

Another product is Twig . It still runs on PHP3, and I'm not especially keen on it myself, but it is there.

[jonno946]

Sadly not. All i have is a basic hosting package, including PHP4, MySQL etc etc....

[Weedpacket]

Well, I'm afraid you'll need one, because otherwise emails (addressed to someone@......?) will have nowhere to go.

[jonno946]

i believe i have catchall if that helps? And i think i may have sendmail come to think of it.

[pnoeric]

jonno-- you gotta get TIGHT with your system administrator (or hosting company in thise case) and find out exactly how you can route emails into your php script. i'd do that before anything else because at the end of the day, if you can't shoot emails into your script, you can't do anything with 'em.