Email setting question

[yaritai]

Yes, it sets the "FROM" field based on that setting, but that's NOT the "ReplyTo" field. The ReplyTo is set to whatever the customer entered.

So, if your email program is ignoring or not respecting the ReplyTo field, then you may want to sort out why it's doing that. I suppose it could be Google Apps that's mangling the ReplyTo, but you'd have to sort that out with them.

Okay, your reply actually helped me track down the root cause which I found is a Gmail thing. This is what is hapenning on Gmail side. When the "known domain" Zencart setting is "True", it sets the "From" and "To" fields with My store email with the "reply to" field as the customer input email. The issue is that when gmail sees the "From" and "To" fields are the same, then it ignores the "reply to" field and uses the "To" field instead. This is verified in the google forum as not a bug in the gmail system, but rather normal behavior.

So I guess my question comes back to how would I know if the "known domain" setting can be set to "False"? Is this meant for non-domain name emails such as the generic "######################"? Just trying to understand the downside as if the downside outweighs the copy and paste method, I would rather have my son get used to copy and pasting for now to ensure no hiccups in receiving customer emails.

[RodG]

It may well be "normal behaviour" but it certainly isn't *correct * behaviour. The reply-to field was created to avoid the very problem that you are experiencing.

What you are experiencing is a function of the software you are using to read/reply to emails. It has nothing to do with the software doing the sending (zencart).
The zencart setting for the known domain has 2 purposes (related) .
1) Some (most?) servers require emails only be sent from a known domain, and
2) It helps eliminate a certain class of spam.

BTW, my original question was rhetorical. It was supposed to make you think server vs client. :-)
Cheers
Rod

[DrByte]

how would I know if the "known domain" setting can be set to "False"?

Simple: try it.
If it solves your problem, then, well, it solves your problem.
Just be sure that your testing is with multiple kinds of recipients, ie: yahoo and hotmail and private services too.

The "must send as known domain" was specifically added because some servers require it, and will send no mail if they don't recognize the sending address (such as in your case where your server knows nothing of your email address because you're doing email someplace else). Not all email servers enforce that rule, so it's entirely up to you to test whether you need that feature turned on or not.

Alternatively, as you said yourself, since Gmail's own stupid rules are completely replacing the standard RFC rules for email handling by deleting the ReplyTo header for no good reason, then you could trick gmail into working correctly by using a different email address for Store Owner and Send From addresses.

[yaritai]

Simple: try it.
If it solves your problem, then, well, it solves your problem.
Just be sure that your testing is with multiple kinds of recipients, ie: yahoo and hotmail and private services too.

The "must send as known domain" was specifically added because some servers require it, and will send no mail if they don't recognize the sending address (such as in your case where your server knows nothing of your email address because you're doing email someplace else). Not all email servers enforce that rule, so it's entirely up to you to test whether you need that feature turned on or not.

Alternatively, as you said yourself, since Gmail's own stupid rules are completely replacing the standard RFC rules for email handling by deleting the ReplyTo header for no good reason, then you could trick gmail into working correctly by using a different email address for Store Owner and Send From addresses.

Got it. For some reason, the forums on google products say its not a bug and it would not be looked at. Your trick is actually what was recommended by a member their. And it does pick up the reply to in this case. The reason they say its not a bug is the way google handles conversations and pre-populates the reply to field. Going to go this route for now and see how it holds up.