I have been playing around with the idea of using AF to build a DNN version of Posterous.  I would like my portal members to have the ability to post from their cell phones.  i.e. A real time news solution where users can post picture and video messages via email.

The mail connector is the key feature. I also have the jquery to auto embed video, video links, mp3, etc. into the body of a forum post just like Posterous.

However, from what I can see there are two showstoppers. One is how mail connector deals with users - from what I can tell if an email address doesn't match an address in the users table then you can either create a new user or the email gets rejected. This is a problem because the email address from a cell phone won't match any addresses in the users table.

The second issue, if I am understanding the mail connector correctly, is when you send an email with an attachment to the mail connector it adds the attachment to the attachments area of the post but it doesn't auto-select either the insert into post or add link options. Which means a human would need to visit every post and choose one of those options.

I'm just starting to use AF so maybe some of the above is incorrect and maybe others might have some ideas?

Thanks

Greg

This is a great idea and sure to be a basic requirement in the near future. If a user could add a "cell email addr" or alternate email addr to his profile, the MC could check both of those addresses to locate the account. I am "Following: this thread.

Can you share your code?

Thats a great idea. Please tell us more about it.
Thanks.

I have been working on a solution to allow my users to post from their cell phones for awhile.

I have somewhat of a solution using Posterous and News Articles module. i.e. Users email my Posterous blog from their cell phones and I import RSS feed from Posterous Blog into NA. I then use a targeted iframe and some creative CSS to show the post details in my DNN portal instead of the Posterous blog - so the reader never leaves my DNN portal. One downside to this is video's sent from cell phones don't come through the RSS feed. So I am getting ready to use either SunBlogNuke or DigArticle - both of which have MetaWebLog API built in which will allow me to auto-post from the Posterous blog straight to my DNN portal. We will see if this solves the cell video's issue or not.

The other downside to the above is that I'm relying on an outside service. I would rather have the whole solution contained within my DNN portal. This is why I have been looking at AF and it's mail connector. Mainly because the MC is the only thing in the DNN world (to my knowledge) that comes close to providing the tools needed to do it.

A third issue might be AF support for embedding. Depending on how you are doing it. For example, one great solution might be to use the embed.ly API but AF fails miserably without hacks (ie. custom http modules and template changes) because of it's AJAX paging. I have been pulling my hair out for years trying to get this to work well on my own site but there is little motivation from Will and the crew to give this any attention.

A lot of other forums now let you embed youtube with a special tag like [media]http://youtube.com/v/12345678[/media]. This insures that the embedded content has a color scheme, height and width that is consistent with the site. it also allows users to embed content that the site owner considers "safe".

Now look at how AF would do it. Everyone needs the right to post scripts for the embed code to be inserted either by hand or via filter. This leaves the forum open to tracking scripts, obnoxious scripts (like ones that autoplay the media), perhaps even malicious scripts.

So the best way (currently) to handle this is to regex/replace outside of AF's sphere of influence. That is to say use something like PageBlaster that can see the [media] tag and replace it as needed. You don't need to give anyone scripting rights and everyone is happy. Happy that is until you realize that the AJAX paging breaks it. PageBlaster does not seem to be able to alter data returned by the AJAX paging and/or the scripts in the AJAX data do not always fire. PageBlaster has other issues with the ActiveModules line of products that unfortunately neither side gives a enough of a crap about because it's "the other guys problem".

So if you're thinking of pushing AF beyond it's out of the box limits, I recommend that you not do it. Stay safe and in the box and save yourself the frustration of being treated like a second class citizen becaue you go against the grain sometimes.

Active Forums will allow you to do this as well when you setup the appropriate filters.


Not entirely true. We actually made changes to the RegEx filters in 4.2 based upon your suggestions.


I understand you want to vent, but everyone isn't looking for your exact desired implementation. PageBlaster is a fantastic product and I have nothing against it. There are various technical reasons why PageBlaster can't handle our Ajax requests. It's not a limitation of a PageBlaster and it isn't a fault of Active Forums. The two processes were simply never meant to work together. For us to change our Ajax method so PageBlaster could handle the request would defeat the entire purpose of AJAX.

If want to get frustrated, get frustrated about the fact that we haven't provided an easier way to support embedded media. That I can appreciate and understand. Getting frustrated with us because we don't support your exact desired implementation that doesn't make the best technical sense for our product isn't going to be productive.

It's tough to enter a discussion or debate when I am moderated but I'll try..

Filters will not post script in a forum that has scripts disabled. At least this was my experience and I have moved on to other methods since.

Also filters are inflexible as the permanently change the content of the post. Using a dynamic replace I can change the way an embed code works site wide instantly for all existing embeds.

Finally doing regex replacements via filter is a joke when you have to work in a 25 character on line text box. I need to embed flash objects thats a lot of characters and is easier to see in a multi-line textbox.

I have abandoned PB. I wrote my own replace engine which can replace your AJAX requests, but the nature of the way the is used causes issues at the browser level. When you stuff data into the DOM certain events do not fire (ie Page Load).

I know I have pushed the limits of AF and to a lesser extent AS. I'm surprised that instead of taking advantage of my large userbase (at the time) and looking to make some cutting edge features (that other forums are now capable of out of the box) you wrote it off as me being just a frustrated guy doing things I shouldn't be doing.

All I really require is a global way to turn off AJAX paging and 99% of my problems would be resolved, but even that is too extreme of a request. I have to resort to hacks and running hourly SQL jobs to turn this off. Which ultimately yields to other issues when you have a large user base (database locking issues).

I emailed you a while back (April I think) about embed.ly. This would make embedding so easy and I didn't even get a response.

to reiterate - My exact desired implementation is a global way to turn off and permanently disable AJAX paging. I can and have worked around the rest. Maybe thats too extreme of a request so I'll continue hacking away being frustrated and voicing the truth.

This particular forum is moderated for everyone so don't take it personal.


Have you tried recently? If it still does this we could simply change the processing order since anything coming from the filters should be acceptable.


Agreed, but I would think you would simply copy & paste your expression. I would want to create my expression in a method that was more user friendly and provided a means to test the expression. I wouldn't consider this a feature worth adding extra bloat to the application when there are plenty of other methods available.



I think you are misinterpreting my comments. What I wrote off was the way you were trying to hack the AF content. I said I agreed with what you were trying to accomplish, just not the method.


Sorry we aren't immediately implementing your requests. The fact that it hasn't been implemented yet doesn't mean it's extreme, it just means it is low on the priority list based upon requests and interests for other features. That being said, there is already an option to disable ajax in 4.3.


Yes, you did. I read it, replied and even sent you a couple other emails since then without receiving a reply.

I don't understand why you are trying to turn this into some kind of debate and make it look like we are deliberately trying to make your life difficult. I've agreed more than once with your original comments and desired outcome. If you or anyone else wants a new feature, something changed, something removed or something improved, post in the feature request forums. We don't necessarily reply to every topic, but they are read and considered.

Thanks,
Will

Well, making a textbox multi-line is just a property as is setting the height. I wouldn't call that bloat but it does make a point of what I think is a simple, user-friendly change, seeming to made into some extreme request.

According to my gmail I did not receive anything from you in regards to my embed.ly emails on April 30 or Jun 24 though I did get one other correspondence from you on a licensing question on Jun 11. Since my spam gets auto deleted after 30 days I have no way of verifying if it was filtered. I'll try to remember to check my spam filter next time.

IIRC on the "regex bug" not only did I spend a lot of time figuring it out and sending you extremely detailed information but I sent you a VS project as well. How many of your customers can and would do that?

I'm not turning this into a debate. I have been using AF since Sep 2005 and I was just trying to give sage advice to the OP based on my experience.

That's not even close to what I was referring to as bloat.


It wasn't a bug, just a difference in the expected behavior. However, you are right, not very many customers would send us sample code. Like I said previously, it was appreciated and some of your recommendations were implemented with 4.2.

My final comment. We always want feedback from customers. We want to know what works, what doesn't and what can be improved. We provide a Feature Request forum where any customer can provide feedback and discuss how all can make Active Forums better.