Hello!

I'm currently the maintainer of SMTP, but it hasn't been like that always. In fact, I came through it when it had thousands of users and the last commit was 2 years old. That was plain wrong, so I did a takeover on the module and became it's maintainer. It hasn't been long though, so I still don't really know everything about it's code and all... But then I came to this module, to find out that it aims for the same thing, using the same library, and has most of the features also similar (as SMTP also has support for Mime Mail for some time). I wondered about that and I still like to know why duplicate a module like that?

But we can't change past, and both modules have a great number of users, so perhaps we can make it right from now on. I'm not simply suggesting a merge here, but an inner discussion about SMTP and Drupal. I once created an issue about having this support on core. And perhaps a module like that could come into core 8.x, but for that there is a long road of making it perfect and reliable on 7.x first.

I'm not sure about what to do, exactly, but I think we can start a conversation about this topic. SMTP has an enourmous demand, maybe we can work together on a solution. So, what do you think?

Comments

mauricem’s picture

Category: feature » support

I'm certainly interested in this conversation.. I currently use the SMTP module and also use Organic Groups module together with Notifications & Messaging modules to provide the basic notifications framework for Group content update notifications.

The SMTP module works fine for most email functions, however does not appear to work with the Messaging/Notifications modules.. well emails are never sent for Content update subscriptions.

In investigating this issue, I noticed that the Messaging module explicitly supports PHPMailer as one of the configuration options, but makes no mention of SMTP as an option. Is that one of the differences between the modules?

franz’s picture

I wasn't really aware of this bug. This shouldn't be a difference, because SMTP should work with it. I welcome you to post an issue on SMTP for that, but that's a particular point of the major discussion. It brings on again: There could be one module only for all of that functionality. The differences are not decision-wise... They are mostly about bugs and support for other modules.

mauricem’s picture

Upon further investiation, as it turns out, the problem of the Messaging/Notifications module not sending emails for Content update subscriptions is the same whether using SMTP or phpmailer modules, so it is likely a larger problem than being specific to either of the email modules...

Simon Georges’s picture

Suscribing !
Depending on the projects I was, or clients I worked with, I've used both of the modules, and they indeed seem to have the same functionnality. As I cannot really choose between the two of them, I'm really interested in the future of these modules, as the functionnality is often needed ;)

Regards,

dmetzcher’s picture

I found this issue because I was looking for issues with SMTP (or PHPMailer) and the modules below. There hasn't been an update posted to this issue, so I wanted to ask my question and see if maybe the issue mentioned in comment #1 is still an issue.

As of right now, which of the two modules is best to use (SMTP or PHPMailer) if I'm using the following modules? Hopefully, someone also uses them and can provide some insight.

I'm also running the Views Send module and the Account Reminder module, but those are really secondary to the others (which are critical).

I've got a Web host that is telling me that I need to have this in place by December 1st (a few days away). I'm starting to panic because I've spent some time researching this and am coming up with issues that I may face. Any help that can be provided to make me understand this a little better would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

sun’s picture

Title: SMTP Authentication Module and PHP Mailer » SMTP Authentication vs. PHPMailer module

Hi @franz,

the PHPMailer module was originally born due to two reasons ~2 years ago: 1) There was close to zero traction on the SMTP project, and 2) if there was some activity on contributions to the SMTP project, IIRC, the discussions and commits of the former maintainer(s) revealed a relatively clear lack of understanding the APIs and web standards being involved (i.e., e-mail RFCs/standards, Drupal's Mail API, PHPMailer's API, HTML mails, and Mimemail module integration). In fact, the SMTP module was pretty much non-functional at that time, and aforementioned bogus discussions didn't allow us to make any progress. A proper and working solution was required, so the PHPMailer project had to be done.

As you may know, I'm all for consolidating and joining efforts instead of duplicating work. I'd also be happy to discuss options in this case, though I've to admit that I don't know the differences between smtp and phpmailer modules in the meantime and most probably won't have time to perform an in-depth analysis anytime soon. All I can say is that phpmailer module always focused on a clean & mean integration, and ensures to follow the standard specifications to the point. When considering a merger, retaining these principles would have to be a top priority.

Thoughts?

franz’s picture

@sun

This issue is already old. This is a symptom itself. I'd really enjoy seeing this merge. The goal has to include these principles, not because of PHPMailer module developers but, more important, because this feature would be really nice to have in core on Drupal 8.x.

So my thoughts right now are: let's maintain both modules as they are for Drupal 7 and focus development on the future. We can start by sharing a plan on how this could get implemented in core.

The issue above is a good starting point.

sun’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Thanks! Alright, closing in favor of #797826: SMTP in core then.