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Web Based E-mail
Since 1992, TJHSST has provided students with access to their own e-mail accounts, which they
could access by using the POP3 protocol to access the mail server - lan.tjhsst.edu. Unfortunately, the limitations of
the POP3 protocol make it difficult to manage an e-mail box from multiple locations. When students download their
e-mail from home, their account, when viewed at school, will appear empty.
With the current high availability of web e-mail programs, it seemed a logical next step to
allow students to access their e-mail inboxes through a web client. Therefore, an e-mail client was developed for
intranet which allows students to access their e-mail through a set of server-hosted scripts. Using this web
solution, students can read, compose, reply to, forward, and delete mail messages, along with any attachments they
want.
The system uses a freely available e-mail library (IMAP v. 4.7) to connect to the e-mail
server. PHP provides built in support for this library, and when specifically configured to support it, developers
can use a set of function calls (imap_open, imap_header, imap_body, etc.) to easily access remote e-mail servers.
This level of abstraction which PHP4/IMAP provides allows a developer to easily modify their program to use a
different e-mail server or e-mail protocol easily. |
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