    | //this is werkmail v0.3 you are welcome. werkmail is a browser-based mail client handling imap and pop3 mail servers. it supports attachments (viewing and sending), carbon copies, blind carbon copies, forwarding messages, replying and so on. we also paid attention on making werkmail secure - your login information is passed only once. werkmail is written in php, it works both with v3 and v4 (we used php 3.0.11, 3.0.15, 4.0.1pl2 and 4.2.2 for testing). we think good screen design makes good applications even better - we hope you will enjoy using werkmail as much as we enjoyed developing it. here you can see werkmail in action. the home bases of werkmail is www.e-werk.at/werkmail, werkmail is mirrored on sourceforge. please read the included documentation carefully to make sure werkmail is working as expected. werkmail is available for download as gzipped tar archive (actually containing version 0.2). if you're using windows, just use winzip to decompress - it works, we are sure. i want to thank stefan heinecke (sh@x3n.de) for his suggestions on preventing http connection hijacking; peter rodinger (peter@generator.at) for raising my php skills, friendly support and hosting e-werk.at for free, arturo hernandez for hints on the use of werkmail on a slackware system (and tons of bugs) and last, but not least bernard m piller (bernard@bmpsystems.com) for the mime functions used in werkmail.
first of all: frequently asked questions. 1.) where can i get werkmail? werkmail is located at e-werk (www.e-werk.at/werkmail/) and sourceforge (werkmail.sourceforge.net). *** i cannot log in! i get something like "error=form" in the request but my login information is correct! - as of php 4.2.x the default setting for register_globals (php.ini) was changed, it is now off by default. as far as i know you have to set it on to get post requests working as we need. 2.) i cannot log in! i get tons of error messages like "Warning: Couldn't open stream {my.mail.box/pop3:110}INBOX in /located/somewhere/main.php3 on line ... what's going on here? you have supplied an nonexistent username and/or password. try to log in again. version 1.0 will fix this and supply a hint. 3.) i get an error message like "Warning: fopen("/located/somewhere/werkmail/siddies/564276684","w") - Permission denied in secfunc.inc on line 36 fix your type.inc. you have to provide existing file paths there. so if you want to contribute to werkmail, feel free to do it. we will honour it with an entry in our credits and author sections. :) 4.) i get an error message like "Fatal error: Call to unsupported or undefined function imap_open() in...." - is this a bug? it is not. fix your php installation - make sure to have compiled --with-imap or get a precompiled version with imap support. please note that the imap functions are used also for pop3 (and nntp, obviously). 5.) werkmails works fine but doesn't send mail! two possibilities: 1. you have an old version of werkmail: we fixed a bug related to sending mail in stiv0.2, so if you have 0.1 or 0.0.1, get an update. if you have 0.2, make sure to have an existing mx record. this is not recommended for internal mail exchange. 6.) why am i dropped out of werkmail after pressing reload? because we use a session/transfer id pair to prevent http connection hijacking. if you press reload (excepted on the main screen) session ids are not sent. this is tseen as a man-in-the middle attack ;) so we decided to be careful at this point. 7.) does werkmail work on [insert favourite os here]? pwerkmail was tested on various linux and bsd distributions. there is definitely no experience with windows systems. if you got werkmail running on a windows system, please let me know. :) 8.) is the email adress provided in the README file a good place for getting support? the answer is NO. please read the README file coming with every copy of werkmail _and_ showed below. this is your first stop for all questions you might have. if you dont' find an answer there or you think you have found a serious bug, please feel free to contact me. please note that i am _very_ busy. so questions already answered in the faq or readme file will be simply ignored. 8.) when can i expect a new version of werkmail? we are currently working on version 1.0, which is expected for june. we are thinking about dropping the use of the built-in imap fuctions because of the great amount of bugs and incompatibilities we discovered. we hope this will result in better performance and less bugs on the lots of different used operating systems. 8.) is it welcome to provide suggestions to improve the code? of course it is. there's a lot of work to do, and we know it. it's just a fact that we have to do our daily work first because we have to pay our rent :) so if you want to contribute to werkmail, feel free to do it. we will honour it with an entry in our credits and author sections. :) so here's the README this is the readme file of werkmail. if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send an email to jule@e-werk.at.
overview:
1) features
2) requirements
3) how to install
4) things to know
5) credits
6) version history
1) features
werkmail is a browser-based mail client handling imap and pop3 mail servers.
werkmail is distributed under the gnu general public license, please read
the gnu-gpl.txt file included.
2) requirements
to run werkmail you need a web server which supports PHP3/4 server based
scripting.
please make sure that your webserver is handling mime types correctly - extensions
used in this distribution are "php", not "php3". if you are not allowed to change your
httpd.conf, rename all files ending in "php" to ending in "php3".
this will not result in troubles with running this software.
the user can then connect to werkmail (and to his mailbox) from every computer
in the world that has an internet connection and a web browser.
if you want both sending and receiving your mail working correctly, you must have
an existing mx (mail exchange) record on the machine hosting werkmail. this is not
necessary if you just want to receive your mails or if you are sending mails only
within your local area network.
3) installation
linux:
you need a webserver with php support built --with-imap.
be sure to have smtp runnig if you want to send mail (and an existing mx record,
once again).
-copy this folder (webmail) to a web server accessible directory on your
web server machine.
-make the reuired changes in type.inc (relating to paths to store tempfiles).
4) things to know
a) security
your login information is passed only once. documents are NOT cached. if this seems
not secure enough to you, you should enable ssl connections to your web server.
a session id (sid) - transfer id (tid) pair used should prevent from http connection
hijacking.
sid and tid are stored in files in a place you are invented to change in type.inc, if
you wish. if people are not logging out correctly their sid- and tidfiles will stay in
this directory - we will fix this in one of the next releases. maybe you do a cronjob
deleting all dead files ad midnight or so ;) or you have to do it manually.
files are pretty small (about 1k), so you don't have to be afraid of full harddisks, as
long there is no excessive use of werkmail.
b) sending mail
sending mail is only possible if the web server machine on which werkmail is
installed has a configured SMTP server running.
if you are sending mail to somebody outside your LAN, you should have an properly
configured mx record (we can not stress this enough ;)
c) multiple recpients
it is possible to send mails to multiple recipients by using cc and bcc fields - but
just one per field. multiple recipients in one field might be implemented in further
versions of werkmail.
if you are reading mail its possible to see who else was in the 'cc' field.
d) forward
just use the 'forward' button ;)
text is quoted inline.
e) attachments
its possible to send and view attachments.
-viewing and saving
to view an attachment, just click on the 'attachment' icon. its only present if
there _is_ an attachment, like you might have expected ;)
if the mime type is not recognized, your browser will prompt you to save the file.
actually the original file name is present until you leave the 'read' section of
werkmail - if you are saving the file you will get the name of the php file instead
of the original name. but it can be seen beneath the attachment icon in the read
section - please do a simple cut+paste.
-sending attachments
it is currently possible to send one attachment. sending _multiple_ attachments will be
implemented in the next version of werkmail. attachments are sent with the original
filename included.
5) credits
thanks to:
- bernard m piller  |