Although many customers prefer to use the Halon SMTP Platform as-is, most hosting providers want to implement end-user interfaces in order to offer a higher degree of customer self-service. Since the Halon SMTP platform is essentially a scriptable MTA (with many features such as anti-spam, signing, and much more) with an open source ecosystem, it makes a lot of sense to maintain the end-user interface as a GitHub project. It is designed as a boiler-plate, and our aim is that the code itself should be as simple and straight-forward as possible. It currently offers features such as indexed history, text logs, queue and quarantine management, black/whitelisting, spam settings and statistics.

In the previous weeks, we’ve added translation support using gettext, with English as the default language, and an extra translation in Swedish. If you want to maintain a translation in another language; please let us know! The language is automatically detected based on the browser’s HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.

Rebranding is also made easier thanks to templates written in Smarty, which is also used for email notifications.

One of Halon’s strengths is seamless integration, something that we discussed in the previous blog entry. The same goes for the end-user interface, and we’ve done numerous integrations with common hosting platforms such as WHMCS, cPanel and Odin. The cPanel plugin is branched out into its own project, and offers session transfer for both admins and users (webmail). We recently went to Barcelona for an APS2 training hosted by Odin, and we’ve published an initial version of our Service Automation plugin. It currently offers session transfer for both admins and users, and we’re looking to extend its functionality in various ways.

We hope that you and your customers will enjoy the updated end-user experience! Do not hesitate to contact us if you want more information or help setting it up.