Details
Post Office is a plugin for Movable Type that allows users to post to their blog via email. It works by connecting Movable Type to an existing email account, like GMail or any POP or IMAP compliant mailbox, and periodically scanning for messages to post.
Depending upon your configuration preferences, each user can be given a unique email address to post an entry to, uniquely identifying them and the blog they want to post to when sending an email.
INSTALLATION
Download
The latest version of the plugin can be downloaded from the its Github repo. Packaged downloads are also available if you prefer.
Copy the contents of PostOffice/plugins into /path/to/mt/plugins/
run-periodic-tasks must be configured. Further details can be found on the
page Setting up run-periodic-tasks.
CONFIGURATION
Navigate to Tools > Plugins > Post Office > Settings and enter in the connection info for your email provider as well as author and entry preferences. Note that this plugin can be configured at the system or blog level.
Email Destination Configuration
The following fields configure Post Office’s connection to the address that users send new entries to.
Destination Inbox: The email address authors send posts to when they want Movable Type to post those messages to this blog.
Mail Server Type: POP3 or IMAP
Email Account Host: The host for the email account which Movable Type uses to post to this blog. Example:
pop.gmail.com.Use SSL: check if the host requires an encrypted connection. (If using Gmail or Google Apps, check Use SSL.)
Email Account Username: The username for the email account which Movable Type uses to post to this blog. (If using Gmail or Google Apps, specify the email address as in the Destination Inbox field.)
Email Account Password: The password for the email account which Movable Type uses to post to this blog.
Entry and Author Configuration
Default Post Status: This determines if entries are automatically published as they are received (“Published”) or if they must be manually published (“Draft”).
Embed Attachments: By default, a photo attached to an email will become an asset, an asset-entry relationship will be created, and the asset will be embedded at the end of the entry. Uncheck this option to not embed the asset (but still turn attachments into assets and create the asset-entry relationship).
Allow all MT Authors from this Blog to Post: If you check this box, Movable Type will allow all of the authors of this weblog to post via email using the email address in their author profile.
Require Web Services Password in Address: If you check this box, Post Office will require users to include their Web Service Password as an extension on their e-mail address. So the “From” address should contain a “+” followed by their Web Services Password value. This provides additional authentication for incoming messages. (i.e., user+nnnnn@…)
Email Addresses Allowed to Post: Movable Type will post messages received from these email addresses. Separate multiple addresses with a comma.
Allow Any Email: This option will simply publish any email received in the destination inbox. Users are not authenticated in any way, making posting completely anonymous. The Default Author is assigned entry ownership in this case.
Email Alias Matches MT Username: Checking this box will result in Post Office looking for a matching MT user based on the alias portion of the sender email address (the part before the @ sign). For example, if the email was sent by
johnsmith@domain.com, Post Office would check to see if there is an MT Author with the usernamejohnsmith. If a match is found, the entry will be posted as that MT user (if the user has posting permissions in the blog). If no match is found, Post Office will still try to look for a user with a matching email address.Default Author: This is the “default” author, the person to whom entries are assigned if no other valid author exists. Email addresses specified in the above field will be attributed to this author if they are not valid Authors.
USE
Before you can start emailing entries to your configured blog, you need to
grab a specially-crafted email address: click the Write Entry button in the
configured blog and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Look for the text
“Email to
Notice that the format of this address is not quite as you might expect. For
example, if your Destination Inbox email address is posttomt@mydomain.com
you may noticed that the address in the “Email to posttomt+5@mydomain.com. In this example, “5” references the blog ID.
If you’ve selected the “Require Web Services Password in Address”
configuration option you may notice that your web services password is part of
the address in the “Email to
Finally, now that you’ve got this email address you can send an email to test posting!
Drafting an Email Entry
Post Office will look at your email contents to create an entry formatted just as you require.
The subject of your email becomes the Entry Title. The body of your email becomes the Entry Body. If any files are attached to your email, they will be converted into Assets.
The subject of your email can also specify a category and tags for your entry. A basic subject line that becomes the Entry Title might look like this:
My first emailed entry!
Specifying a category in addition to the Entry Title is easy: include brackets around the category name. If the specified category doesn’t exist, it will be created for you when the message is processed. Only one category may be specified.
[Movable Type Tests] My first emailed entry!
Additionally, specifying a category, Entry Title, and tags is easy. Specify tags with a leading hashmark; many tags can be specified.
[Movable Type Tests] My first emailed entry! #PostOffice #Email
Lastly, send your email!
Requirements
- Mail::IMAPClient (for IMAP)
- Mail::POP3Client (for POP) (included with Post Office)
- Email::Address (included with Post Office)
- Email::MIME (included with Post Office)
- IO::Socket::SSL
Compatibility
Movable Type versions: 4.35.05.15.26.0 Verified
License
MIT
