If you like to add messaging functionality between the users in your rails app, use this gem! this gem also provide standard mailbox/messagebox interface allowing each users have their own inbox, outbox and trash.

This rails engine compatible with Rails 3.x only.

add the gem to your Gemfile.

gem "has_mailbox"

run bundle command and generate the migration files, this will generate messages table and messagecopies table, after that don’t forget to run the migration.

rails g has_mailbox:migration
rake db:migrate

Then add has_mailbox method in your user model, for example :

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   has_mailbox
   ...
end

After this step you will be able to send messages between the users across your application. Try to create two user object and send messages to one user with another, and list all messages from the entire mailbox.

@user1 = User.first  # => create first user
@user2 = User.last   # => return the second user

@user1.send_message("Hi Subject","Hi Body !!!",@user2)   # => send message to @user2
@user1.send_message?("Hi Subject","Hi Body !!!",@user2)  # => send message with true/false return
@user1.send_message("Hi Subject","Hi Body !!!",@user2,@user3)  # => send message with with multiple recipients

@user1.inbox   # => return all incoming messages for @user1
@user1.outbox  # => return outgoing messages for @user1
@user1.trash   # => return all messages that has been deleted

If you like to delete the message from user object, and empty the box try use this method.

@message = @user1.inbox.find(1) # => get message from inbox with id 1
@message.delete                 # => delete message from inbox will be moved to trash box.

@user1.trash                    # => return deleted messages

@message = @user.trash.find(1)  # => get the current deleted message

@message.undelete               # => will return the message to inbox
or
@message.delete                 # => will delete message permanently

@user.empty_mailbox(:inbox => true)  # => will delete all messages from inbox to trash.
@user.empty_mailbox(:outbox => true) # => will delete all outgoing messages permanently.
@user.empty_mailbox(:inbox => true)  # => will delete all messages from trash permanently.

Each user are able to mark their message as read/unread. Example :

@user1.inbox.find(1).mark_as_read    # update attribute message opened to true
@user1.inbox.find(1).mark_as_unread  # to false

This gem has been build using Devise authentication, but if you like using another authentication plugin, such as authlogic / restful-authentication or any other authentication plugins, it still suits to your app.

rails g has_mailbox:install

this generator will install to your application the views and stylesheet file in your public directory, notice the required argument “user_attribute_name”, you have to fill this with desired attribute name in your user model you wish to display in your generated views. e.g. : email, username, first_name, etc. the default will be set to “email”, cause Devise default user login using “email” attribute.

here’s the tricky part. you have to define the route for mailboxes in order to get controller will work with your views. Also you have to specifies the current user object from your authentication plugin and also the attribute name you wish to display.

with Devise authentication to get the default user object that is currently sign in is “current_user” and the display attribute using “email”. So in your config/routes.rb, please add mailboxes_for method. Example :

mailboxes_for :users    # => with this argument user_object_name
                        # => will set to "current_user" and
                        # => user_attribute_name will set to "email"

or if you using different plugins/gems, you can set with your own user_object_name and user_attribute_name

mailboxes_for :users, :user_object_name => "current_user_sign_in", :user_attribute_name => "username"

This gem is still under development mode, so if you are having some problems with has_mailbox, please submit an issues here.

github.com/fajrif/has_mailbox/issues