Switchboard

Authors: Thomas Moulia (jtmoulia@pocketknife.io).

Switchboard is a Spatch product.

Switchboard is an application which provides high-level tools for managing IMAP clients across multiple email accounts and providers, and an API allowing workers to process emails as they arrive. It handles the boilerplate of IMAP connection management and new email monitoring so that you can focus on innovating around email.

Hacking on Switchboard

Switchboard Erlang API

The quickest way to interact with Switchboard is through the application's Erlang API. Assuming Switchboard is running, ./switchboard remote_console will attach a remote console to the running application. Here's an example session:

%% Subscribe to new emails messages.
true = switchboard:subscribe(new).

%% List the active accounts. Assuming no one has been here first, there should be none.
[] = switchboard:accounts().

%% Add a new account. (XOAUTH2 is also supported)
switchboard:add({ssl, <<"imap.gmail.com">>, 993},
                {plain, <<"youremail@gmail.com">>, <<"yourpassword">>},
                [<<"INBOX">>]).

%% List the now active account.
[<<"youremail@gmail.com">>] = switchboard:accounts().

%% Send yourself an email, wait a minute, then flush the message queue to see it.
flush().

%% Stop the account from being monitored.
ok = switchboard:stop(<<"youremail@gmail.com">>).

%% Unsubscribe from new messages.
true = switchboard:unsubscribe(new).

See src/switchboard.erl for more detailed documentation of the public interfaces.

Finding and Building the Documentation

- You are Here

Documentation of the core modules is provided as in-source comments using edoc formatting. If you'd rather have the documentation as html, run make docs, and then point your browser to doc/index.html.

The switchboard module provides the public Erlang interface for the Switchboard application, and exposes the controls for adding and removing accounts, and subscribing to event channels via uwiger/gproc.

imap is a partial imap client. Though not fully mature, it's written as a single gen_server so that it can easily be dropped into other projects.

By default, documentation is not created for private functions. Please open an issue if this causes any problems.

Connecting a Shell

You can attach an Erlang shell to a running Switchboard application via

./switchboard/remote_console

From the erlang shell, try

switchboard:accounts().  %% -> [Accounts]

Note: switchboard:accounts/0 returns the list of accounts which are actively being monitored. If no accounts have been added, this is the empty list.

Finding and Running Tests

At the moment, all tests are written in EUnit and must be called from a running Switchboard application. Most tests are written in a module separate from the code which they are testing. These modules are kept in src/test/eunit.

For example, switchboard:test(). run at the Erlang console will run all of the tests in the switchboard module. switchboard:test_all() will run all tests listed in the function call -- hopefully all of the eunit tests in the application.

The TEST and LIVE_TEST provide boolean controls for knocking out tests, keeping them out of compiled production code.

Tests for a module are automatically run by reloader.erl when a file is reloaded (credit for reloader.erl goes to mochi/mochiweb).

Generated by EDoc, Jun 8 2014, 21:24:14.