A Logbook to Update via Email
This website features a Logbook section that is updated from the middle of the ocean using email. When sailing or being outdoors you might experience slow and expensive internet connectivity, for example over satellites. To still write logs to the logbook we have developed a software that relies solely on plain, cheap email. You send an email to a pre-defined email address and your text gets displayed in the logbook immediately.
News
- June 2011: This software runs successfully under Contao 2.9.5.
- May 2011: This software runs successfully under Contao 2.9.4.
Software
The software to update our logbook via email has been developed by Martin Hentschel. Since we put a lot of effort into getting the software to work fast and reliably, we would like to share it with you. This software is released for free and open source. You may download it and modify it to fit your own web page.
Features
Some nice features:
- HTML and plain text. Emails may be sent using HTML or plain text, both options work fine.
- Image attachments. Emails may contain images that are displayed in the logs.
- Logbook list view. This software includes a list view that displays all logbooks sorted by year. As an example, go to our Logbook section and check out the list of logbooks in the right column.
- White list. Only emails sent from addresses in your white list are allowed to post to the logbook.
- Back end. Via the back end you are able to add new logbooks or edit previous logbook entries. This way you can later fix typos of your original emails.
- Active logbook. You are able to select which logbook is currently active. Active means that whenever a new email arrives, it gets displayed in the active logbook.
Not so nice features:
- PHP and Perl. Part of this software is developed as Contao plugin (former TYPOlight) written in PHP. To check for new emails this software uses Perl though. This combination might be tricky for some web sites. Contact your system admin if both languages are available on your web space.
- This software is custom made for windquestsailing.com. It may or may not fit your needs. You will probably have to do some coding and tweaking to install it on your own website.
Screenshots
Screenshots of the front end and the back end:
|
|
Download
To install the software on your web site, follow the instructions in
INSTALL.txt. If you have troubles installing this software please ask
your nearest CS student. 
This software is released for free and open source under the LGPL license.