Hi,

I need to allow users to create nodes via email. However, since will be used by users at large, I need to greatly simplify the syntax of the message bodies. In fact, I'd like to have my own grammar !

Currently, you have some really good code for creating nodes, including validation & default values and I don't want to shortcircuit that. I think it would be possible to decouple how the email message is parsed and how the node gets created and I could then plug in my own message parsing.

I'd be willing to do this "right", with a clean patch to apply to the D6 branch so I could benefit from further developments of mailhandler and its modules. However, before I go down the long road, I'd like to make sure that the maintainer is ok with this idea and supports it.

Thanks

Comments

z.stolar’s picture

z.stolar commented

Sure. Do you have an example of such gramer/syntax, so we can understand your aims better?
Also, this sounds to me as something that can lead to fields support in mailhandler, and that's something which has a great demand for.

PGiro’s picture

PGiro commented

@z.stolar : messages I want to parse will be very simple. Here is the mapping

Email subject => title and body
1st line => a taxonomy element from a specific vocabulary
attached file => the node's CCK imagefield element

That's it ! It's hardly even a grammar but really, it could be with the way I see it.

Here is my idea : split mailhandler_process_message in two. Then, give or take a few lines:
=> lines 226 to 230 stay where they are
=> lines 231 to 260 + 266 to 332 get put in a separate "default" module which gets called with a mailhandler processing hook
=> lines 262 to 264 get moved up above the previous lines

That way I can plug a different message parser using a custom module.

z.stolar’s picture

z.stolar commented

@PGiro: it's hard to refer to line numbers. Try using function names, or actual code lines. A patch, even only a demonstrative one, is even easier to read.

Now: taxonomy is already supported, and there a module to deal with attachments: http://drupal.org/project/mailsave.

PGiro’s picture

PGiro commented

z.stolar : yes, I know those modules and taxonomy is supported but I will never get my users to send messages that complicated. I want subject = body and contents = taxonomy on which I will be using the leveinshtein distance to compute the closest matches when none does.

I just wanted to make sure you'de be willing to deal with ironing out a patch to include in the project. Given our exchanges, I'll operate under the assumption that you are :)

ilo’s picture

ilo commented
Title: Refactor to allow different message processing » Decouple message retrieval and parsing operations.
Version: 6.x-1.x-dev » master
Status: Active » Postponed

and.. how is that patch going? hehe..

I hope you don't mind I postpone this, however that decouple of retrieve-parse will happen, eventually.

danepowell’s picture

danepowell commented
Status: Postponed » Closed (won't fix)

If you want something more exotic than the current commands system, that's exactly why 6.x-2.x / 7.x-2.x were written- so that you can override the Mailhandler IMAP Parser with your own parser, and/or you can create your own commands plugin. I don't think we are going to spearhead that effort, but if do end up writing such a plugin let us know.