Email Support

[crhultay]

In the official documentation, it is mentioned: "Additional email support will come in the near future."

This excites me... MysticBBS has in-built email support, and I think that's a killer feature.

I want it too, but want to use Enigma1/2.

What is our roadmap for email support? What work has been done?

[NuSkooler]

Most of the groundwork is actually in place. Enigma can hook up to many different email service/protocols via nodemailer. The to/from parser can recognize a email address (e.g. in the "to" field).

Similar to how FTN addresses are hooked and special cased, we'd want to do similar with email so it can work within the inbox. I think we definitely need (even without this) a "sent" box for users as well.

[crhultay]

Most of the groundwork is actually in place. Enigma can hook up to many different email service/protocols via nodemailer. The to/from parser can recognize a email address (e.g. in the "to" field).

Similar to how FTN addresses are hooked and special cased, we'd want to do similar with email so it can work within the inbox. I think we definitely need (even without this) a "sent" box for users as well.

What about receiving e-mail from the internet into the BBS; e.g. username@myawesome.bbs

Also, MysticBBS allows users to connect to their favourite mail client via POP3/SMTP -- do we have plans to do this?

[NuSkooler]

This would be included, yes. All non-local messages in enigma are considered "external", so there would be e.g. a email module for handling the polling/similar of external boxes and delivering that message tot the correct user. The module hooks and handles outgoing messages as well (again, like FTN, ActivityPub, etc.)

For receiving, we'll need to handle SMTP and perhaps some others.

here is the parser to determine a "to" as a email.

A lot of this has been revamped in the ActivityPub branch as well. I need to decide to finish that up, change courses, or just take the non-AP changes.

[cognitivegears]

As far as the ActivityPub, I'm wondering if we couldn't just land it as ActivityPub 'preview' and 'use at your own risk' so it can be merged as-is and get improved over time? It already has a feature-flag and default off, may be better to just mainline it so it can be improved from there? It would help in not having to sync the long-running branch, plus maybe get more eyes on it. Thoughts?

[crhultay]

As far as the ActivityPub, I'm wondering if we couldn't just land it as ActivityPub 'preview' and 'use at your own risk' so it can be merged as-is and get improved over time? It already has a feature-flag and default off, may be better to just mainline it so it can be improved from there? It would help in not having to sync the long-running branch, plus maybe get more eyes on it. Thoughts?

I support this, the feature can be tagged experimental somehow and we can enhance it by breaking it and learning.