[p2pu-dev] Two way communication for notifications and messaging

Mon Jun 4 15:22:33 UTC 2012

Googling around a bit I found http://www.cloudmailin.com/

They turn your email into an http post to your website. I like the
idea, it keeps the email stuff separate from the messaging logic.

They also have special pricing options for non-profits.

The alternative would be to setup our own mail server and use some
python bindings for mail and a celery task. There's poplib and imaplib
for python.

Any thoughts

Cheers
d

On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Stian Håklev <shaklev at gmail.com> wrote:
> A lot of emails disregard anything after a + in an email user name, like
> GMail which will send all mail to shaklev+test at gmail.com to
> shaklev at gmail.com. So if the server receives all mail to reply+dfsfd to the
> reply address, and the reply address is able to strip this out of the
> header, and then know where to put it, based on the unique ID, we should be
> good to go.
>
> I am sure there are services and APIs out there for doing this as well, but
> they are probably expensive for the kind of volume (although we'd have a lot
> less replies by email than we have email notifications).
>
> For such a common problem, you'd think there'd be a Django module or at
> least a Python implementation out there somewhere as well. But I don't know
> how much of the challenge is in the Lernanta codebase, and how much is the
> email server etc.
>
> Stian
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Jessy Kate Schingler <jessy at jessykate.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> really cool dirk.
>>
>> i dont have a particular mail server recommendation though have personally
>> done more with postfix than exim.
>>
>> i just did a quick search for "comments reply by email" and noticed that
>> wordpress implemented this last year. obviously they're php but it might be
>> interested to take a look at the WP codebase to see how they implemented it.
>>
>> looking at facebook notifications, they use emails structured like so:
>> update+ohlp1evf at facebookmail.com
>>
>> so i guess update@ is their updates email address and the hash let's them
>> disambiguate to a specific conversation thread via some kind of script
>> internally. i think this would be a fun/interesting thing to contribute to
>> if it gets going, but know my time will be somewhat limited this summer with
>> internship work.
>>
>> jessy
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:26 AM, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks, having a look at ack atm!
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Jos Flores <josmasflores at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Dirk, thanks for the walkthrough, it does make sense.
>>> >
>>> > I've noticed you recommend grep... have you tried ack? it's really
>>> > cool!
>>> > I use grep very little since I discovered it :)
>>> >
>>> > cheers,
>>> > José
>>> >
>>> > On 1 June 2012 09:57, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>>> >> No problem. At the moment the notification code isn't in one place
>>> >> (something we can work on).
>>> >>
>>> >> I'm going to start explaining from the point where the email is sent
>>> >> to the user and work my way backwards to where notifications are
>>> >> generated. Please tell me if this ends up being confusing
>>> >>
>>> >> Emails are sent to a user by calling
>>> >> django.contrib.auth.models.User.email_user
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#django.contrib.auth.models.User.email_user)
>>> >>
>>> >> email_user() is called by an async celery task SendNotification
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/users/tasks.py#L25)
>>> >>
>>> >> SendNotification tasks can be created in multiple places:
>>> >>
>>> >> There is a signal
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L245)
>>> >> that fires when tasks are created or modified. This signal then calls
>>> >> a function called send_email_notification
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L213)
>>> >> that creates SendNotifications tasks.
>>> >>
>>> >> Another example is sent_creation_notification
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/models.py#L270)
>>> >> thats part of projects.models.Project. This function is called from
>>> >> the create function
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/models.py#L270/)
>>> >> that in turn gets called in the create view
>>> >>
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/views.py#L189)
>>> >>
>>> >> I'm not sure at what other places SendNotification tasks are created,
>>> >> but you can grep to code base to find out. grep -r SendNotification *
>>> >>
>>> >> The fact that the places where SendNotification tasks are created are
>>> >> spread all over isn't a problem in itself, but at the moment checks
>>> >> for notification preference also seem spread out a bit. For example
>>> >> task updates
>>> >> (https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L234).
>>> >> It also makes it difficult to implement batching of notifications.
>>> >>
>>> >> Than being said, I think that notification may be one of the first
>>> >> parts of Lernanta that we can put into a separate module without too
>>> >> much surgery on the whole code base.
>>> >>
>>> >> Cheers
>>> >> d
>>> >>
>>> >> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Jos Flores <josmasflores at gmail.com>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>> Hey Dirk,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I know nothing about the topic but curious about where the
>>> >>> notifications code is and how it works... could you point me towards
>>> >>> it?
>>> >>>
>>> >>> cheers,
>>> >>> José
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> On 1 June 2012 09:01, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>>> >>>> Hi
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> I've been thinking a little bit about two way interaction for
>>> >>>> messaging and notifications. On the software side of things I don't
>>> >>>> foresee too much trouble, but on the config side of things I'm a
>>> >>>> little uncertain.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Our primary MX record points to google, then @lists.p2pu.org points
>>> >>>> to
>>> >>>> the service we use for the mailing list. I guess we could use
>>> >>>> something like @site.p2pu.org? I see that github uses
>>> >>>> @reply.github.com with something that looks like a one time token.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Is there any specific mail server that anyone would suggest? I have
>>> >>>> always skipped the talk about mail servers when reading linux
>>> >>>> sysadmin
>>> >>>> docs :)
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Cheers
>>> >>>> d
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> ps. I apologize for the thinking as I type email
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jessy
>> http://jessykate.com
>>
>>
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