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I know this question is rather vague, but how do I proceed about creating a php based in website mailing system in a community website? Any input would be appreciated. I don't know how to start.

Thanks in advance.

Ender Wiggin
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I would start with the basics

  1. Just learn how to send an email - nothing special just send the mail (http://phpmailer.worxware.com/)
  2. Then add a form to communicate with your script (http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp)
  3. Then maybe add some validation (http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_form_validation.asp)
  4. Then protect it with something like CAPTCHA (http://recaptcha.net/)

Once you have all this, you can start playing around with HTML email (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail) and allowing your users to have more control over what gets emmedded in the email.

The best advice I can give is to start small and not get too fancy too quickly.

jckdnk111
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If you're trying to figure out how to send email PHP, there are endless options. The most basic is using PHP's built - in mail function (http://php.net/mail). More seriously, you can use PHPMailer: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/ If you're looking for an out of the box solution, you can use PHPList: http://www.phplist.com/

If I misundestood and you're looking at handing out email addresses on your website, you can look into Google Apps: http://www.google.com/apps/

I'm not sure where else to point you.

Mike Sherov
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  • I am not looking for sending emails through PHP, but rather ... code a system where users can message themselves in the website. – Ender Wiggin Feb 06 '10 at 18:46
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    if that's what you're looking for, the answer is, just start programming it. Use PHP and MySQL to store the messages. Not sure what you're really looking for. – Mike Sherov Feb 06 '10 at 18:52
  • Actually, that is what I will end up doing, except I will have to add spam blocks, giving the users the ability to block. etc. It would be good if there is an open source code out there that I can use. – Ender Wiggin Feb 06 '10 at 20:18
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  1. Know the mail limits of your mail server that php will be using, this could severely limit your mailing list growth.
  2. Use some sort of database to store list member emails.
  3. When you are ready to send mail just use the php mail function to send your message (can put all the addresses in bcc, or send out a single message to each user.
H. Green
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Do you mean a website Private Messaging system (PM) rather than email? Like many forums use?

If so it's probably too big a question to answer here, I've found this http://sourceforge.net/projects/privatemessagin/ on sourceforge which might give you a head-start. But as a programming project even for a relative beginner it shouldn't be too difficult.

Are your users already sign in with a username and password? If so that's half the problem solved, now all you need is some way to send a message, which should be just a simple form that posts to a database, then when a user logs in he needs to be alerted that they have a mail which is just a case of querying the database. Nothing too complicated.

Charlie
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