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Question

I have the need to create a basic form for submitting room reservation requests and emailing the output to the submitter and the room coordinator.

Since I don't see a way to do this within the current TWiki framework, I started checking out some of the numerous perl form-processing scripts that are out there. I settle on Soupermail because it has the features I need and is GPL.

My next challenge is figuring how to integrate this with TWiki. This has been discussed before in CallingScriptsFromTopics, HowToExecuteAScript, and HowToIncludeExternalCgiUsingHttps - however only the last one is on a level I can execute and doesn't really constitute "integration" (it uses an iFrame).

I'm thinking that this might be a good opportunity to learn how to translate an external cgi script into a Twiki plugin - allowing incorporation of config variables, execution parameters, etc. Soupermail has some robust capabilities, like submitting input to a db, creating pdf output on the fly, etc., which might prove useful for TWiki in multiples ways.

What I'm looking for is some feedback on this idea and, if it makes sense, some "coaching" on this little project. I think I could do it with a little help and would be willing to package it up and offer it back to the Twiki community.

Thanks for your thoughts!

-- LynnwoodBrown - 24 Aug 2004

Discussion

IMHO it sounds a bit like you are trying to crack a sledgehammer with a nut. I don't see why you want to integrate with TWiki. Why not just set the action of the form to submit the data to the Soupermail URL, and let it do its stuff? Why bother creating a plugin? If you want to control the Soupermail configuration from TWiki, then just ask Soupermail to use a TWiki topic as its config file. Are you just trying to extend TWiki "because it is there"?

Rather than just plugging soupermail into TWiki, ask yourself this. What is it that soupermail does that cannot be done in TWiki? Would that functionality be useful to other TWikiApplications? Can it be provided by enhancing ImmediateNotifyPlugin? If not, then there may be an argument to create an interface to soupermail. But don't go creating a plugin just because it "might" be useful.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 25 Aug 2004

Crawford - Thanks for taking time to respond. Perhaps I am making it overly complicated. Initially, I thought that I could not get Soupermail to work when called from a form within TWiki but with a bit more fiddling I found that I could - so that's the route I will problably take for now. Either that or else use an iFrame as described in HowToIncludeExternalCgiUsingHttps. So perhaps for my immediate needs, there's not much to be gained by further integrating Soupermail within TWiki.

What is it that soupermail does that cannot be done in TWiki? TWiki has pretty limited capability for processing forms. Soupermail can do all kinds of things. The one simple thing I needed was immediately sending out an email with the data entered into a form. I don't see a way to do that within TWiki and can imagine that could have a number of useful applications. Soupermail could also submit the data to a database.

Perhaps we don't need a TWiki interface for Soupermail to gain these benefits. After working with it, maybe I'll have more thoughts on this.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 25 Aug 2004

Maybe we can work together on this, Lynnwood; see MailerContribDev

-- CrawfordCurrie - 28 Aug 2004

Answer

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Topic revision: r4 - 2004-08-28 - CrawfordCurrie
 
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