Mail Reminder Plugin (version 1.000)

The MailReminderPlugin handles the tag %MAILREMINDER_PLUGIN% that inserts a monthly calendar in the page and It allows you to send reminders before those events. It is the extension of Calendar Plugin. I have modified the existing code of Calendar Plugin so as to enable it to send reminders befores the date of event. A mail is send before the event to remind the calendar user, Which is sent at email id specified. We use cronjob , which will be invoked at 00:01 am and will compare today's date with the reminer date of events and send mail to the appropriate users whose reminder date matches with today's date.

Usage example

Syntax

User settings Event settings and Setting to delete event from database - Syntax

User set the Various information parameters as follows:

Default settings

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Show a monthly calendar with highlighted events
• How the cell content is formatted

      * Set FORMAT = $old <br /> $description

• Note: You can add settings of any of the recognized attributes (in upper case like SHOWWEEKDAYHEADERS)

Plugin Installation Instructions

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this plugin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the plugin on the server where TWiki is running.

• Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
• The Plugin uses the HTML::CalendarMonthSimple and Date::Calc CPAN packages (see http://www.cpan.org)
  • Install Date::Calc
  • Install HTML::CalendarMonthSimple
  • Install Mail::SendEasy
  • Install perl's DBI module
  • Change line 197 of CalendarMonthSimple.pm as follows to avoid an annoying log message:
    if ($self->year = $todayyear && $self->month = $todaymonth <font color="red">&& defined $thisday</font> && $thisday = $todaydate)=

• Unzip MailReminderPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:
  data/TWiki/MailReminderPlugin.txt	Plugin topic
  data/TWiki/MailReminderPlugin.txt,v	Plugin topic repository
  lib/TWiki/Plugins/MailReminderPlugin.pm	Plugin Perl module
  lib/TWiki/Plugins/MailReminderPlugin/cron.pl	Plugin Perl module
  lib/TWiki/Plugins/MailReminderPlugin/config_file	Plugin configruraion file
  lib/TWiki/Plugins/MailReminderPlugin/calender_config_file	Plugin configruraion file
  pub/TWiki/MailReminderPlugin/exclam.gif	Image file

Create Table to store events in my database

Structure of table is as follows:

Mysql query to create table is :

Create table caltab(name varchar(30), e_date date not Null ,r_date date, email_id varchar(100) not Null, event varchar(200) not Null, primary key(e_date, event, email_id));

Edit cront tab as follows to make entry for cronjob :

In shell prompt execute :- crontab -e [Enter]

• Vi editor will be opened make the following crontab entry and save the file:-
• 01 00 * * * /[path of your lib/TWiki/Plugin directory]/MailReminderPlugin/cron.pl

Make changes in configuration files

• In /[Path of Plugins Directory]/MailReminderPlugin/calender_config_file :- Should be configured with various database related settings like database host ,database user , database password , database name.
• In /[Path of Plugins Directory]/MailReminderPlugin/config_file :- Should be configured with various database settings and mail related settings like Smtp server name , email of sender etc.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main/AshishNaval
Plugin Version:	V1.000 (03 Nov 2004)
Change History:
03 Nov 2004:	Initial version
CPAN Dependencies:	CPAN:HTML::CalendarMonthSimple >= v1.23, CPAN:Date::Calc, CPAN:Mail::SendEasy, CPAN:DBI
Other Dependencies:	none
Perl Version:	5.000 and up
TWiki:Plugins/Benchmark:	GoodStyle nn%, FormattedSearch nn%, MailReminderPlugin nn%
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/MailReminderPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/MailReminderPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

-- TWiki:Main/AshishNaval - 03 Nov 2004