Mailboxer 0.5.x

This project is based on the need of a private message system for ging / social_stream. Instead of creating our core message system heavily dependent on our development we are trying to implement a generic and potent messaging gem.

After looking for a good gem to use we notice the lack of messaging gems and functionality in them. Mailboxer tries to fill this emptiness giving a powerfull and generic message system. It supports the use of conversations with two or more recipients, send notification to a recipient (intended to be used as system notifications “Your picture has new comments”, “John Doe has updated its document”, etc.), emails the messageable model (if configured to do so). It has a complete use of a Mailbox object for each messageable with inbox, sentbox and trash.

The gem is constantly growing and improving its functionality. As it is used with our paralell development (ging / social_stream) we are finding and fixing bugs continously. If you want some functionality not supported yet or marked as TODO, you can create an issue to ask for it. It will be a great feedback for us, and we will know what you may find useful of the gem.

Mailboxer was born from the great, but outdated, code from lpsergi / acts_as_messageable.

We are now working to make an exhaustive documentation and some wiki pages in order to make even easier to use the gem at its full potencial. Please, give us some time if you find something missing or ask for it.

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:


  gem 'mailboxer'

Then run:


  bundle update

Run install script:


  rails g mailboxer:install

And don’t forget to migrate you database:


  rake db:migrate

Requirements

We are now adding support for sending emails when a Notification or a Message is sent to one o more recipients. So that, we must assure that Messageable models have some specific methods. These methods are:


  #Returning any kind of identification you want for the model
  def name
    return "You should add method :name in your Messageable model"
  end
  #Returning the email address of the model if an email should be sent for this object (Message or Notification).
  #If no mail has to be sent, return nil. 
  def mailboxer_email(object)
    #Check if an email should be sent for that object
    #if true
    return "define_email@on_your.model"
    #if false
    #return nil
  end

These names are explicit enough to avoid colliding with other methods, but as long as you need to change them you can do it by using mailboxer initializer. Just add or uncomment the following lines:


  #Configures the methods needed by mailboxer
  config.email_method = :mailboxer_email
  config.name_method = :name

You may change whatever you want or need. For example:


  config.email_method = :notifications_email
  config.name_method = :display_name

Will use the method notification_email(object) instead of mailboxer_email(object) and display_name for name

Using default or custom method names, if your model doesn’t implement them, Mailboxer will use dummy methods not to crash but notify you the missing methods.

Preparing your models

In your model:


  class User < ActiveRecord::Base      
    acts_as_messageable
  end

You are not limited to User model. You can use Mailboxer in any other model and use it in serveral different models. If you have ducks and cylons in your application and you want to interchange messages as if they where the same, just use act_as_messageable in each one and you will be able to send duck-duck, duck-cylon, cylon-duck and cylon-cylon messages. Of course, you can extend it for as many clases as you need. Example:


  class Duck < ActiveRecord::Base      
    acts_as_messageable
  end


  class Cylon < ActiveRecord::Base      
    acts_as_messageable
  end

Using Mailboxer. API

In order to mantain the README in a proper size and simplicity, all the API is available in Mailboxer wiki

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.