UsingWW: John Jones - sending e-mail

$inactiveTopic$ sending e-mail

topic started 1/21/2003; 2:35:55 PM
last post 1/28/2003; 1:55:16 PM

$user$ John Jones - sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/21/2003; 2:35:55 PM (reads: 1368, responses: 5)

Hi,

We just started to use the e-mail feature of WeBWorK. Some of my faculty were confused by the From and Reply-to spots (they simply typed their names in which generated faulty e-mail addresses).

Leaving them blank is supposed to have them filled with the feedback address, but that didn't seem to work. I think it is because there is no default.msg file.

I think the best solution would be to have the feedback address pre-entered into From and Reply-to fields in this circumstance. It just takes 2 lines of code in profSendMail.pl. I can upload the change if this sounds good.

John

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$user$ Michael Gage - Re: sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/22/2003; 8:51:15 PM (reads: 1570, responses: 0)

Hi John,

I've been getting a bit confused by this myself. A change sounds fine to me, but could you also report to the bulletin board here how these two variables and the Global::feedback variable interact?

Thanks much.

Take care,

Mike

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$user$ John Jones - Re: sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/23/2003; 5:05:54 PM (reads: 1609, responses: 0)

OK,

I just uploaded the tiny change. In my first message, I said that the From and Reply-To fields would get the feedback address. That is not quite right; they get what they deserve (Global::defaultFrom and Global::defaultReply respectively). Those, in turn, default to the Global::feedback address, to which mail from the feedback button is sent. So, most people would get the feedback address, but those who have customized the addresses more closely get the right thing.

Incidentally, if there is a default.msg file exists and it is empty, then WW goes into an infinite loop. Do you think that is worth fixing?

John

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$user$ Arnold K. Pizer - Re: sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/27/2003; 10:37:35 AM (reads: 1598, responses: 0)

Hi John,

Sorry I'm coming to this rather late. I think it would be much better to use the Global::smtpSender variable for this. Here's what it does (look at your webworkCourse.ph file):

#  In addition, the smtp mail sender (defined in Global.pm) requires a valid single
#  email address.  Normally this is set to the address of the course administrator.
#  Undeliverable email from the Send Mail page will be returned to the smtpSender address.
#  Uncomment the line below and enter a valid email address (if you leave it commented
#  out the webmaster's email address from Global.pm will be used).

$Global::smtpSender = 'apizer@math.rochester.edu';

If not defined in webworkCourse.ph , it defaults to (from Global.pm)

$smtpSender          = $webmaster; # should be redefined for each course in webworkCourse.ph

Arnie

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$user$ John Jones - Re: sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/27/2003; 1:43:57 PM (reads: 1557, responses: 0)

Hi Arnie,

There already existed variables Global::defaultFrom and Global::defaultReply, whose purpose is to be the default From and Reply-to headers for outgoing e-mail. The change I made was to have WeBWorK use these variables in a situation where the corresponding values were not specified. That seems like the right thing to do.

I think your e-mail addresses the default values of these two variables, which I have not changed. But, I can certainly change it from the feedback address to smtpSender. The latter might make more sense since it is a single e-mail address rather than being a list of addresses.

John

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$user$ Arnold K. Pizer - Re: sending e-mail $blueArrow$
1/28/2003; 1:55:16 PM (reads: 1568, responses: 0)

Hi John,

I didn't read the thread carefully enought and thought you were just plugging in the feedback address. What you are doing is fine and is what the variable were defined for.

Actually the defaultReply value is also appended to the Reply-To field on feedback email which students can send to the feedbackAddress by hitting the feedback button. Thus if a TA or professor hits "reply to all" when responding to feedback, the reply goes to the student and people in the defaultReply list. Thus people in the defaultReply list see all the correspondence and e.g. a professor can see the email responses from a TA or can tell if someone else has responded to a particular feedback email. This is the reason these addresses default to the feedback address.

I'm not sure why the defaults didn't work as advertised --- thanks for fixing this.

Arnie

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John Jones - sending e-mail

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