Mail function on Windows localhost

In case anyone else has struggled to find a way of sending test emails I’ve just installed the free version of PostCast on my XP WAMPServer.
This enables form submission using the mail() function from a local machine.
I haven’t tried collecting the emails via Outlook, but I can open/view them from the PostCast localhost server.
Very handy for testing forms, reports etc.

You can also use hamster software as a simple email server. http://www.arcorhome.de/newshamster/tgl/ (it’s freeware). I use this also with XAMPP for windows.

You can also use the phpmailer() class included with MODx and configure it to use SMTP through any mail service you have an account at. That way it will work locally and on a remote site that has the php mail() function disabled.

I have the same problem fr weeks now! What I would like to know is that how do I configure the mail function to send emails from a windows localhost using xxamp?

Hi All

thanks for all the tips above - but I’m also lost with the basics of setting up my xampp installation to handle emails. I have scanned the wiki, help docs, etc. but found nothing.

Perhaps it is so patently simple that no-one even bothers to discuss it :’(

have mercy on me (and others hopefully) and point me in the right direction.

I just had a brainwave - the Xampp website...

Quote from: nue at Oct 22, 2009, 10:56 PM

Hi All

thanks for all the tips above - but I’m also lost with the basics of setting up my xampp installation to handle emails. I have scanned the wiki, help docs, etc. but found nothing.

Perhaps it is so patently simple that no-one even bothers to discuss it :’(

have mercy on me (and others hopefully) and point me in the right direction.

I just had a brainwave - the Xampp website...

XAMPP comes with the Mercury mail server and also sendmail. I was never able to get them to work in Vista, though I admit that I didn’t really try that hard. I just configured the individual snippets I use inside MODx to use an external SMTP account I have. That means that I don’t have to change anything when I move the site to the remote server or worry about the host turning off the mail() function.

Thanks BobRay,

I saw the mercury mail and it looks OK. But I could not make the connection between that and an eForm...

Regardless; I like your thinking - and that is exactly what I want to do (use my current SMTP provider).

The part that I am getting stuck at is: "configured the individual snippets". What do you have to do?

Can you perhaps post an example? Your help really appreciated...

NUE

Quote from: nue at Oct 22, 2009, 11:47 PM

Thanks BobRay,

I saw the mercury mail and it looks OK. But I could not make the connection between that and an eForm...

Regardless; I like your thinking - and that is exactly what I want to do (use my current SMTP provider).

The part that I am getting stuck at is: "configured the individual snippets". What do you have to do?

Can you perhaps post an example? Your help really appreciated...

NUE

I’m most familiar with SPForm. Using SMTP with is is just a matter of setting some options in the config file (or the snippet properties in Revolution). They’re well documented in the config file.

With eForm you can either edit the snippet code or edit the phpmailer.inc.php file. If you do the latter, I believe MODx will also use SMTP to send things like registration emails etc.

Search the forums for "eform SMTP" (without the quotes) and you should find some pointers.

If you search the forums for

Pardon my reviving an old thread, but I wanted to be able to do local development that included send reports via mail. My search turned up this thread.

I did end up getting Mercury/XAMPP on Vista to work. The tutorial I followed was this
one :
http://jhoyimperial.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/running-php-mail-in-your-local-pc/
And though I was using a newer version of Thunderbird (making the T-bird part of the instructions not exactly apples-to-apples), I was able to ultimately get the admin user set up in their own POP3 account.

This was tested using an eForm call with &to=`admin@localhost` and the report came through fine. Keep in mind that the default polling time is 10 seconds, so you do have to wait a little bit unless you change that

MattC

Congratulations!

I was never able to pull that off, though I put a lot of hours into trying.

Revolution will send mail() calls via SMTP, which is what I do now.