How to Post to Blog via Email?

[demolition]

Would like to email an address and have its contents posted in a blog, similar to what sites like Flickr and Blogger allow you to do. Anyone know what I need to make this happen? An email parser/handler? Email gateway? Is there any way to forward an email to a webpage for processing?

[usachrisk]

You can't forward an email to a web page, but you can have your web page check an email account, and act on the contents. This would require that you either use someone elses plugins or code to do this, or write your own.

[neilmerton]

this has intrigued me! so i'm guessing the process would be something like:

1. setup a pop3 email account specific for this use.
2. create a page that checks this account for messages.
3. add these messages to a database.

this would take a fair bit of looking into the cfpop tag but it definately sounds do-able.

http://www.cfquickdocs.com/?getDoc=cfpop

[usachrisk]

CFPOP would be the way to go

[mcsolas]

When your done, can you post us the email address so we can .. ..see how it works?

All Im saying is that you would want some form of checking post validity, in case this email ever gets 'known'. You would be a sitting duck for comment spammers.

[neilmerton]

yeah - it would be a little risky, having a totally random username in the email address would help to deter spammers. you could also do some checking before the script posts for the usual list of spam words, etc.

[usachrisk]

Hopefully this would be a completely random, long, email address that you'd only know because it was in your address book. And you would never post it on any site.... anywhere. Never. Ever.

[creole]

I thought that this was a really fun concept so I decided to write a quick and dirty "post via email" snippet. You can see the result here:http://www.andyandjaime.com

Here's the email that I sent:
[start]
General:Andy
~~~~~
That's right...

Usually Jaime and I add posts to our site via an elaborate admin section that I built. But this post was added via my new "email post" method. It's more of a proof-of-concept than something that will get used often, but heck. I'm a guy, I'm a programmer, and I like building new things. So I took the time to write this extra setup just because.
[/end]

The first part (above the ~~~~~) are the category names. The second part is the contents of the email. It would get inserted into the database as plain code, with no trimming or anything. So you could use any HTML or javascript that you choose.


And here's the code itself. I'll set this up as a Coldfusion scheduled task, running every 15 minutes or so. That should be plenty sufficient.

<!--- get all emails --->
<cfpop server="your mail server" username="the email address to check" password="password" action="getAll" name="emails">

<!--- loop over the emails to see if there are any legit records in there --->
<cfloop query="emails">

    <!--- make sure that the current email being evaluated matches our "special" email --->
    <cfif FindNoCase("special email two",to) OR FindNoCase("special email one",to)>

        <!--- prep the variables for insertion to the database --->
        <cfif FindNoCase("special email two",to)>
            <cfset fk_user_id = 1>
        <cfelseif FindNoCase("special email one",to)>
            <cfset fk_user_id = 12>
        </cfif>
        <cfset thedate = DateFormat(Now(),"yyyy-mm-dd") & " " & TimeFormat(Now(),"H:mm:ss")>
        <cfset title = subject>
        <cfset content = ListLast(body,"~~~~~")>
        <cfset cats = ListFirst(body,"~~~~~")>
        <cfset status = "publish">

        <!--- insert into database --->
        perform your db insert here

        <!--- get newest news post --->
        get the id of the just inserted record

        <!--- loop over the categories to get the corresponding id --->
        <cfset counter = 0>
        <cfloop index="li" list="#cats#" delimiters=":">
            look upthe current category and make sure that one exists with that name

            <!--- did we get a hit? --->
            <cfif getCat.recordcount>
                <!--- we did get a hit, so insert a record--->
                insert the user/newsid record here8

                <!--- keep a count to make sure that at least ONE category got added --->
                <cfset counter = counter + 1>
            </cfif>
        </cfloop>

        <!--- if counter is still zero, then delete the news post --->
        <cfif NOT counter>
            delete the news post
        </cfif>

    </cfif>
</cfloop>

<!--- everything went well, so delete all emails --->
<cfpop server="your mail server" username="the email address to check" password="password" action="getAll" name="delete"> 

[neilmerton]

superb stuff Andy!

[usachrisk]

So Andy, what's the email address used ?

[creole]

not-no-but-hell-no-chris@andyandjaime.com

[usachrisk]

Ok, sent an email, how long before it's on your blog :-P

[creole]

Any minute now. Just keep refreshing. While you're at it, click on a few of my banners.

[usachrisk]

HEY! It Bounced back!!!

[gl3nnx]

i know posting a blog post using email is possible from wordpress, but not with blogger.

[boron]

Sending a blog post via mail is possible in Blogger. Here's the instruction: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.p...452&topic=8929