1   Using the Module

CPSWebMail is a tool that enables users of a portal to read and manage their email messages. The interface for communicating with the mail server uses the IMAP and SMTP protocols.

2   History of the Module

The CPSWebMail product provides the unification of two products:

• The WebMail product, developed by the University of Savoie, France (http://www.univ-savoie.fr): this product provides the webmail engine; it manages the communication with the email server through an IMAP server.
• The NuxWebMail product, developed by Nuxeo: this product provides the presentation of the application (generation of pages) and the required methods.

The use of the NuxWebMail product is dependent on the WebMail product.

CPSWebMail is a re-write of NuxWebMail, which only works with CPS3. It reuses, also, elements of the WebMail product needed for the application.

3   Requirements for Use of the Module

CPSWebMail only works with versions of CPS greater than CPS 3.1.0.

It has been tested with Zope 2.6 and Zope 2.7, and with the following versions of CPS products:

• CPS-3.1.0, which contains the following products:
  • CMFCalendar (from CMF-1.4.3)
  • CMFCore (from CMF-1.4.3)
  • CMFDefault (from CMF-1.4.3)
  • CMFTopic (from CMF-1.4.3)
  • DCWorkflow (from CMF-1.4.3)
  • CPSCore (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSDefault (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSSchemas (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSDocument (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSDirectory (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSForum (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSInstaller (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • TranslationService (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • NuxUserGroups (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • PortalTransforms (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • PluggableUserFolder (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSCalendar (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSChat (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSSubscriptions (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSRSS (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • CPSCollector (from CVS, tag: CPS-3_1_0)
  • Localizer-1.0.1.tgz
  • BTreeFolder2-1.0.tar.gz
  • Epoz-0.7.4.tar.gz
  • CPSSkins-cvs-2004-05-10.tgz
• LDAPUserGroupsFolder-2.5.0, in order to use the email forwarding capability.

4   Installation

Uncompress the archive containing the module in the Products of your Zope/CPS installation. Rename the resulting directory to "CPSWebMail".

You can also obtain CPSWebMail via SVN from http://svn.nuxeo.org/.

Restart Zope.

The README file in the product contains information about how to install CPSWebMail in a CPS instance.

5   Capabilities of the Module

Also see the documentation on the function of CNCC.

There are very few capabilities over and above those described in the document on CNCC.

The only thing that has been added is the ability to manage personal distribution lists.

The README file in the product gives an exhaustive description of the capabilities.

6   Function of the Module

A variety of objects are used. The objects marked with an asterisk are provided by the WebMail product.

The IMAP protocol adheres to the RFC822 standard.

• IMAPGateway* manages the bridge/connection with the email server.
• IMAPFolder* represents an IMAP folder (mailbox).
• IMAPMessage* represents an IMAP message.
• Attachment* represents a file attached to a message.
• IMAPProperties supports retrieval of user properties for the connection to the email server.
• WebMailTool is the administration tool for webmail.
• WebMailSession manages sessions. The application uses sessions to preserve data about an email while it is being written, or the results of a searches in address books, for example.
• Timeout*, TimeoutSocket*, TimeoutFile* manage timeouts with the communication with the mail server.
• IMAP4* represents the connection with the mail server.
• RFC822MessagesTools* contains methods used to decode the IMAP language.
• mime_message* supports parsing of MIME files.

The page templates and the scripts called in forms are in skins/cpswebmail_default/.

Images are in skins/cpswebmail_images/.

Translations are in skins/i18n/.

7   Forwarding of Email

It is possible to manage the forwarding of emails through the CPS interface by using a specific configuration:

• The users of the site should be referenced in a LDAP directory.
• The LDAP directory should follow a particular schema.
• The email server should be Qmail, patched to support qmail-ldap.

For more information, see the file notes_installation_qmail.txt in the doc/ folder of the CPSWebMail product.

In practice, users would have to specify exactly one email address for forwarding, and a distribution mode.

The distribution mode specifies the way in which the emails will be delivered to users:

• No forward: Messages are not forwarded to the possible forwarding mail address.
• Forward only: Messages are only forwarded to the forwarding email address.
• Local: Messages are transfered to possible forwarding email address, and one copy is saved in the local mailbox.