web based email URGENT !!

[neville]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me how to write an SQL based email program(storing all data in tables), I know its a little too big to explain here but I just want a few pointers, some direction as I have no idea how I am going to do this.

What are the issues I have to deal with, is an SQL based email program the best way to go or what are the other options and also where can I find good info to read to give me enough knowledge to start with for either.

This program has to run from my server and carry my domain name.
eg:
[e-mail]

It needs to provide filters, folder creation,sending & recieving attachments, provide for displaying advertisements, customized signatures,retreive POP mails, spam checking.... Basically everything you get at hotmail, yahoo etc.

It has to have a fixed mailbox size for each user.

There will be a lot of traffic and hence it has to be robust.

I am writing this alone with PHP and MySQL for Linux.

Please help..... somebody!.

[Anon]

Hello Neville,

Check out:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/popper/

I haven't looked into the source code to see if it contains all the functionality that your looking for but I did go to the web site. Take a look at the screen shots. It looks really good.

Hope I could help.

Scott

[neville]

hi Scott,

That program is to retrieve mail from pop3servers, but I don't want that, My program should be able to send the mail,store it in tables and also retrieve mails .... I think, I will only be able to organize the mails sent and recieved, the actual sending and retrieving may be done by the mailer daemons. what I am looking at is to be able to atleast integrate that external program with the one I am writing and have maximum control over it too.

I still need some answers.

Thanks anyway.

[Anon]

Hello Neville,

Take a look again. I was so impressed with the screen shots that I decided to download popper myself. It sends and recieves emails. There is also a user forum at the popper web site. I had a problem with popper (actually my PHP.INI setup) and recieved a helpfull answer from the programmer the next day. Not bad. And the program has almost all the functions you need apart from the spam filter. Here is the description from the web site: http://ractive.ch/popper/about.php

Popper is a Web based mail client that allows you to access your personal mailboxes on POP3 servers.

This means that you can access (read/answer) your mails from any browser. The difference to other web-mail services like hotmail etc. is, that you can access your mailboxes on POP3 servers.

Normally you use a program like Outlook, KMail, Netscape Messenger, Eudora etc. to access these mailboxes. Problems arise when you want to read your mails somewhere else then at home. Think about vacation :-).

This is where popper can help you. It gives you the possibility to read your mails from (almost ;-) any browser from anywhere... It even brings your read mails and your personal addressbook in your browser

Popper is a fully features mail-client that is (more or less) MIME-conformant. This means that you can open and save attachments, view HTML mails (although it's a bad habit to send those), view attached mails etc.

Replying, forwarding etc. is just as easy as with any other mail-client.

popper is written with PHP4 and is 100% java-free which reduces portability problem. You can even use lynx to read your mails ;-)

A small overview of the possibilities provided by popper:

Fetching mails from multiple POP3 servers
Reply and forward incoming mails
Compose new messages
Addressbook
View and send attachments
View HTML mails
Support of message-notification-disposition
Multiple languages (is your language missing?)
Configurable user interface
SPAM blocker
Calendar
more to come...

So you see. It is basically what your looking for and the work put into the program will definately save you masses of time programming.

Good luck,

Scott

[neville]

Hi Scott,

Ok.... supposing i send an email to someone at hotmail at say [e-mail] ... does the content of my email get stored in an SQL table or elsewhere.... when one registers at the same site where do all those details get stored.

Do email services like hotmail, yahoo, etc. use IMAP or POP3 or...?? How do they store their messages ?

Accessing a POP3 server is one of the features given by hotmail and others... isn't it ?.

Thanks for the speedy reply... I hope you answer these questions too.

Rgds,

Neville.

[Anon]

Hello Neville,

Scott's answers:

Neville wrote:

Hi Scott,

Ok.... supposing i send an email to someone at hotmail at say [e-mail] ... does the content of my email get stored in an SQL table or elsewhere.... when one registers at the same site where do all those details get stored.

The content from the mail is stored in a MySql database and as I understand POPPER, even deleted mails are saved in a MySql database. User Data is also stored in the database just like Hotmail, Yahoo, GMX, etc.

Do email services like hotmail, yahoo, etc. use IMAP or POP3 or...?? How do they store their messages ?

The servers used are most likely POP3 servers for reception and SMTP servers for sending emails. IMAP, as far as I know, is not widely used at the moment. The recieved emails are stored in the POP3 server. When the user calls up his emails through his/her browser then the emails are stored in a database.

Accessing a POP3 server is one of the features given by hotmail and others... isn't it ?.

What do you mean,"accessing a pop3 server"? I have a mail account at Yahoo and what they mean by accessing a POP3 account is that I can use my Outlook or Outlook Xpress or Messenger to call up my mails from Yahoo's POP3 server.

Thanks for the speedy reply... I hope you answer these questions too.

Rgds,

Neville.

Popper was designed to do all the things that yahoo and the rest do but for users that already have a POP3 and SMPT account somewhere. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to change Popper so it would become the user's front end as you would like. Hope this helps further.

Scott

[neville]

Hi Scott,

Thanks a lot..... this point has helped me the most.

">>>The servers used are most likely POP3 servers for reception and SMTP servers for sending emails. IMAP, as far as I know, is not widely used at the moment. The recieved emails are stored in the POP3 server. When the user calls up his emails through his/her browser then the emails are stored in a database. "

I have a pop3 account given to me by my ISP which is in no way connected to yahoo or hotmail. By accesing a pop3 server thru yahoo I meant accessing the one given to me by my own isp from yahoo and not the one at yahoo created by it at the time I registered with them there.

Thanks anyway... you gave me a direction.

Rgds,

Neville.

[vinodvyas]

Hi Gurus

In a web based email application, how do go about creating the mail boxes. Sending, receiving etc. are ok, and functioning.

The site is on Linux server without IMAP.

Please help me, I need your guidence desperately.

Thanks.

Vinod Vyas

[Anon]

Hello Scott,

Its been a while... the project did not take off due to certain reasons...

A recap of our last conversation:
############################################

Scott's answers:

Neville wrote:

Hi Scott,

Ok.... supposing i send an email to someone at hotmail at say [e-mail] ... does the content of my email get stored in an SQL table or elsewhere.... when one registers at the same site where do all those details get stored.

The content from the mail is stored in a MySql database and as I understand POPPER, even deleted mails are saved in a MySql database. User Data is also stored in the database just like Hotmail, Yahoo, GMX, etc.

Do email services like hotmail, yahoo, etc. use IMAP or POP3 or...?? How do they store their messages ?

The servers used are most likely POP3 servers for reception and SMTP servers for sending emails. IMAP, as far as I know, is not widely used at the moment. The recieved emails are stored in the POP3 server. When the user calls up his emails through his/her browser then the emails are stored in a database.

Accessing a POP3 server is one of the features given by hotmail and others... isn't it ?.

What do you mean,"accessing a pop3 server"? I have a mail account at Yahoo and what they mean by accessing a POP3 account is that I can use my Outlook or Outlook Xpress or Messenger to call up my mails from Yahoo's POP3 server.

Thanks for the speedy reply... I hope you answer these questions too.

Rgds,

Neville.

Popper was designed to do all the things that yahoo and the rest do but for users that already have a POP3 and SMPT account somewhere. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to change Popper so it would become the user's front end as you would like. Hope this helps further.

Scott
############################################

I understand that popper would work best for linux systems... I'll be having to develop this and probably run this on a windows2000 server ... I doubt it very much if popper can create new imap/pop3 users or access an Imap server(the docs say pop3)

While I have figured out everything else I am still stuck where it comes to creating a new pop3/imap user on the pop3/imap server.

would it be possible on a windows2000 box or if I have to use linux itself then what would I need to do in that case ??

Thanks Scott.... I hope u can answer these questions too.