[Zope-dev] SMTP access

[Martijn Pieters]

At 13:03 02/08/99 , Joerg Wittenberger wrote:
>Hello folks,
>
>the other day I've got an idea, which IMHO is worth to consider, but
>I'm not sure about.
>
>I find zope a very intersting thing, but there is a drawback: you
>can't operate disconnected.

This is a drawback of any web based application server.


>Proposal: It would be really cool if I could prepare a xml message
>with the same content as a filled in formular or just a http/get
>request would have and send this to an object.  Zope would reply with
>a mail message containing the reply.
>
>To illustrate that a little more:
>
>a form like that:
><form method="post" action="..." ><input type=text name="phone"></form>
>
>would be sent in as
>
>phone=mynumber
>
>for http but as
>
><phone>
>mynumber
></phone>
>
>for email.
>
>The url would have to be encoded within the user name somehow e. g. an
>action url like
>
>http://www.dom.tld/foo/bar
>
>could be encoded as say: "foo/bar" <zope@www.dom.tld>
>
>Cookies, when required could maybe encoded in message-ids.
>
>I must admit: this is just an idea, I'm a bit too new to zope to judge
>about feasibility.
>
>How is yours, gurus?
>
>/Jerry

Everything needed to implement this lies outside of Zope. The XML document 
generation to send via email happens at the browser, as well as the 
decision to send this via email.

Then, the processing of the email is something that cannot be coded 
cross-platform, as UNIX and Windows and Mac each have different mechanisms 
of automating the handling of inoming emails.

After processing the email, a call to lib/python/ZPublisher/Client.py 
simulating the form post the browser normally would send, will be all that 
is needed.

The Zope object would use the standard MailHost object and sendmail tag to 
send an email message back. XMLDocument objects would take care of the XML 
generation and handling. How your clients handle this reply is something 
else entirely.

Nowhere in this process do any changes or additions to Zope itself make sense.

--
Martijn Pieters, Web Developer
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