ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
  :address => "smtp.gmail.com",
  :port => 587,
  :domain => "domain.com",
  :user_name => "user@domain.com",
  :password => "password",
  :authentication => :plain
}

ScopePort already has a Email settings part in the setup section where all the required SMTP settings are stored. I wanted to fetch the SMTP configuration from the database to avoid double configuration. I stumbled over this blog post after a while: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/03/using-multiple-smtp-accounts-w.html Based on this I developed the following dynamic way to define the SMTP settings:

class EmergencyMailer < ActionMailer::Base   
  def load_settings
    @@smtp_settings = {
      :address => Setting.first.mail_server,
      :port => Setting.first.mail_port,
      :domain => Setting.first.mail_hostname,
      :authentication => :plain,
      :user_name => Setting.first.mail_user,
      :password =>Setting.first.mail_pass
    }
  end
 
  def emergency_notification(emergency, email)
    load_settings
    recipients  email
    from        Setting.first.mail_from
    subject     "[ScopePort] An emergency has been declared!"
    sent_on     Time.now
    body        :emergency => emergency
  end
end

The method load_settings gets called by the delivery method and fills the smtp_settings instance variable with parameters from the database.

Check out this Rails Guide if you want to learn more about ActionMailer: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/action_mailer_basics.html

Declaring an emergency

Emergency detail view with active chat

(The emergency comments are still missing in these screenshots)

All logged conversations can be investigated in the “Notification method debugging” section:

These commits by Lennart added the new features:

Well, I also found a Typo…

• How do I create the video?
• How do I add sound to that video?

The first problem was solved easily. I tried a few screen recorders and decided to use recordmydesktop. The main advantage of recordmydesktop is that it captures everything in a raw mode and encodes it when you stop recording. That makes it possible to record your screen without bigger speed problems. Everything looks pretty smooth and is usable for a screencast.

The second problem cost me a lot of Google searching. How can I add sound to that video? Here is the way I finally used:

First step: Capture the video

No Problem. I started recordmydesktop with the following parameters to capture only the first screen, with a fake cursor (the original one from KDE4 caused some problems) and with no sound. The sleep 3 before the execution of recordmydesktop gives me some time to close the shell and get ready to record.

sleep 3 && recordmydesktop -width 1680 -height 1050 -dummy-cursor black --no-sound

Second step: Convert the captured video to AVI

The file recordmydesktop creates is in a OGG format. That is usually fine but we require an AVI file to add the sound. I converted the OGG file to AVI with mencoder (Usually available in your favorite repository):

mencoder -idx screencast.ogg -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o screencast.avi

Third and last step: Add the audio

Now we can edit the video file with avidemux (also usually available in your repositories). Select “Audio” -> “Main Track”.

Now select a AC3, MP3 or WAV file that should be added as the main audio track. Press okay, select “File” -> “Save” -> “Save video” and you are done. That’s it.

We are always happy about screnshots of your ScopePort installations! Send them to lennart@scopeport.org.