Re: [SM-PLUGINS] New Spamassassin / Procmail plugin.

[Ted H. <te...@pa...>]

>
> Please announce your desire to do so ahead of time, since typically we
> don't like to publish plugins that overlap so much -- instead it is
> typically preferred that you help fix what is there.  HOWEVER, in the
> case of SA plugins, there is already a mess of them out there, and not
> all of them are currently being maintained, so...

I did the work because none of the available plugins worked or had the 
simplicity that I desired.  I know it works because I have already put it 
into production on my own systems.

The question is whether there is a need or a desire for it to be released 
to the general public or not.  I assume the manner in which that 
release happens is a question for the "SquirrelMail Project Team".

If the form of that release is an update to an existing release or if it's 
considered a "new" relase is not an issue for me.  In fact it could 
rightly be considered an update to Patrick Swieskowski's "SpamAssassin 
Configuration" plugin since the general design and many of the functions 
come directly from his work.

>
>> I attempted to get SpamAssassin+SQL by Randy Smith working but adding
>> pear support into php, mysql support into spamassassin and installing
>> mysql in the first place seemed unnecessary given the size of my userbase.
>
> However, for the record, it supports SA 3.x just fine AFAIK.
>

You are correct,  It just seemed like overkill for my setup.  In fact I 
bet a number of administrators have avoided it for that very reason.

>> This plugin is based primarily on Patrick Swieskowski's saconf plugin with
>> many of the features of Jeff W's SpamFilter plugin thrown in.
>>
>> It utilizes procmail to filter spam messages and requires ftp support in
>> php to be enabled so it can retrieve/update the users .procmailrc and
>> user_prefs files.
>
> Ohhh, well if that's the case, what about this:
>
> http://squirrelmail.org/plugin_view.php?id=190
>

That plugin doesn't seem to support changing spamassassin settings which 
makes it undesirable for my needs.

>
>> I'm not a developer by profession and I could really use a code review by
>> by someone more experienced with php and squirrelmail development before I
>> attempt a general release.
>
> Did you also read the SM plugin development guidelines?
>

I read over the webpage

http://www.squirrelmail.org/docs/devel/devel-4.html

related to developing plugins which is where I learned about the 
SquirrelMail plugins mailing list.

>
> An up-to-date effort for fixing the aging set of SA-related plugins is
> a great idea, but we need to make sure other authors are not still
> maintianing their plugins and if we replace any of them that we aren't
> losing features, etc.
>

My concerns are:

1:  What is the correct release procedure.  Do I release as an update to 
an existing plugin or do I release as a new plugin?  Do I release at all?

I really think this can be released as an update to Patrick Swieskowski's 
SAConf plugin.  It's based on his code and does everything the original 
did plus it has been updated to support spamassassin 3.x plus some new 
features.  It also doesn't seem to have been updated since Aug 14, 2002.


2:  Are there any serious bugs in my code that I am too inexperienced to 
see?

Because my previous development experience is limited to modifying others 
scripts, and creating simple perl and shell scripts for my own systems I 
worry that I am missing something simple but vital.  Having others go over 
my code would both reassure me as well as probably improve my own 
programming skills.


I still have some cleanup work to do which includes creating help pages, 
updating documentation, and possibly changing filenames since they overlap 
with Patrick Swieskowski's SAConf plugin.

The first email was a test balloon to get the ball rolling.


Thanks for the helpful response Paul,

Sincerely,

Ted Hatfield