internal mail system

rubyonrails-talk
1

Darren Evans wrote:

I don't really want to start re-inventing the wheel if there is an easy solution.

A blog, right? Just install Mephisto or one of the others. Blogs with message boards are where it's at. Even simpler, a Wiki. The Recent Changes is the daily inbox.

2

Darren Evans wrote:

Hi Phlip

Thanks very much for your reply, I really appreciate it. Mephisto looks really interesting, but it's not exactly what I am looking for this time.

I would like a system where one user sends a message to another user, rather than one user sends a message to all users. Something like an internal email system within the application is the best way that I can describe it, but using user ids rather than e-mail addresses

Maybe I could adapt Mephisto by adding some conditions, or is there something more appropriate?

Thanks

Darren

Phlip wrote:   

Darren Evans wrote:

I don't really want to start re-inventing the wheel if there is an easy solution.       

A blog, right? Just install Mephisto or one of the others. Blogs with message boards are where it's at. Even simpler, a Wiki. The Recent Changes is the daily inbox.

--   Phlip   http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand <-- NOT a blog!!     

Yup, I've implemented one. Really easy to roll your own, particularly if you're using REST. My model is really simple, with just a few validations and utility methods:

class Message < ActiveRecord::Base   validates_presence_of :title, :body, :recipient_id, :sender_id   belongs_to :sender, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "sender_id"   belongs_to :recipient, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "recipient_id"   attr_accessible :title, :body, :recipient_id    # aliases read_at accessor attribute to make it read more nicely   def read?     read_at   end    # returns the opposite_party in the messsage to given user. So if the given user is the recipient,   # this method returns the sender and vice versa. If the given user is neither a recipient nor sender   # (e.g. because they're an editor) it returns the recipient. If the given user is nil (e.g. because   # the current_user is nil) an exception is raised   def partner_to(user)     raise ArgumentError unless user     user.id == recipient_id ? sender : recipient   end end

In User model (which is based on acts_as_authenticated), I've got the following associations:

  has_many :sent_messages, :class_name => "Message", :foreign_key => "sender_id", :order => 'created_at DESC'   has_many :received_messages, :class_name => "Message", :foreign_key => "recipient_id", :conditions => ['deleted_at IS NULL'], :order => 'created_at DESC'   has_many :unread_messages, :class_name => "Message", :foreign_key => "recipient_id", :conditions => ['read_at IS NULL AND deleted_at IS NULL'], :order => 'created_at DESC'

The schema for the Message class is:   create_table "messages", :force => true do |t|     t.column "title", :string     t.column "body", :text     t.column "recipient_id", :integer     t.column "sender_id", :integer     t.column "created_at", :datetime     t.column "deleted_at", :datetime     t.column "read_at", :datetime end

Hopefully should be enough to get you started.

3

I found this http://matt-beedle.com/2007/06/05/acts_as_emailable/

But can someone tell me whether this is ok to use? or has someone used it?

also...how do i take mephisto's emailing feature??? pls let me know.