[archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

NeilA · 2007-03-23 20:33:11

Yeah I saw that Maniqui when I was trawling the thread for possible solutions – that’s why i included a list of plugins I was using – but I noted that I wasn’t using the the two plugins that you mention.

Still, it’s morning here now, and I should go and disable plugins one by one and see if it makes any difference…

Thanks.

Update: OK – this has been partly my fault. I had edited the zem_contact_lang file to remove the word ‘contact’ that was displayed whenever the form was displayed. I had done that incorrectly, not realising that was all changeable using parameters. That now means that the form I use (above, in my first post) now adds the subscriber to the PM database as expected. Woo hoo!

So far so good….

Thanks!

Last edited by NeilA (2007-03-24 06:12:35)

benbruce · 2007-03-28 07:04:57

NeilA,

Glad you figured it out; I’ve added your fix, gluteus’s suggestion, and maniqui’s discovery to the Postmanual under “Troubleshooting”.

bancroft,

I’m still pondering your Gmail issue.

mrdale,

Here’s a new article describing using Postmaster to send a digest. See if that helps you any.

For everyone:

is anyone not having bancroft’s issue with a Gmail address?
please go here to subscribe to the Postmaster mailing list (took me long enough to set it up). I can’t promise I will ever mail to it, but I can promise that it will never overload your inbox.

I’d like to do an informal survey of Postmaster users. If you are using it to successfully send out emails to subscribers, please post the following:

total number of subscribers you’ve mailed to
did you bulk import?
have you done anything fancier than the forms provided in the postmanual?
etc.

Really I’d like to get some more feedback on the plugin. I’m assuming “no news is good news” but mostly on the forum we get the “issues” and I’d like to hear your successes if you’ve had them.

redbot · 2007-03-28 14:08:31

Hi Ben,
I’m trying this great plugin for the first time but I’m having the exact same bancroft’s issue with the italian provider Virgilio.it.
I tried all the combinations of mime types with no success. As a direct consequence of this issue (I think) under every circumstance html tags are treated as simple text. By the way, I know for sure that normally this provider allows html emails.
I have another minor annoyance with html emails when viewed with outlook express. The text is perfect but every message has an (empy) txt attachment named ATT[somerandomnumber].txt. Is this only a problem of mine?

Thanks again for your work

bancroft · 2007-03-29 22:41:05

Hi Ben,

I’ve sussed the Gmail problem.

In Postmaster at line 620 change this;

$headers = “From: $listAdminEmail” . “\r\n” . “Reply-To: $listAdminEmail” . “\r\n” . ‘X-Mailer: PHP/’ . phpversion() . “\r\n” . “MIME-Version: 1.0” . “\r\n” . ‘Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“UTF-8”’ . “\r\n” . “Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit”;

to

$headers = “From: $listAdminEmail” . “\n” . “Reply-To: $listAdminEmail” . “\n” . ‘X-Mailer: PHP/’ . phpversion() . “\n” . “MIME-Version: 1.0” . “\n” . ‘Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“UTF-8”’ . “\n” . “Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit”;

It was something to do with line breaks and basically just removing the \r seems to do the trick.

Cheers,

Graham.

Last edited by bancroft (2007-03-29 23:23:42)

benbruce · 2007-03-30 15:57:13

bancroft,

That’s awesome. I thought it might be something small (and hard to find) like that. Thanks for your efforts on this. I’ve added your fix to the Troubleshooting section in the Postmanual, and will make the fix for the next version.

redbot,

If you try bancroft’s fix, does it work?

Ben

Last edited by benbruce (2007-03-30 16:20:02)

redbot · 2007-03-30 18:48:52

Ben,

unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work for me.
I tried with other mail accounts and everything works well…
that’s what I get (I changed the actual site address):

Here is a text warning.

—==Multipart_Boundary_xbbf67edffbb9fc59b12f0be574cf5893x
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
<p>My excerpt</p>

—==Multipart_Boundary_xbbf67edffbb9fc59b12f0be574cf5893x
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

<p>My excerpt</p>
<a href=“http://www.mysite.it/index.php?id=142&uid=1e54d5e75b
265e793e515e9f56a0fa02”>http://www.mysite.it/index.php?id=142&
;uid=1e54d5e75b265e793e515e9f56a0fa02</a>

—==Multipart_Boundary_xbbf67edffbb9fc59b12f0be574cf5893x

did you notice the 2 “- -” before “==Multipart_Boundary…”? maybe they mean something??

benbruce · 2007-03-30 19:29:12

redbot,

what does your form look like?
you are sending mails to a list that contains several addresses, and when the emails arrive in other inboxes besides Gmail, they are fine, but in Gmail they appear as you described above, is that right?
is this a different outcome from what was happening BEFORE you made bancroft’s fix? or did it change the outcome?

It is something to do with the way PM has set up it’s headers, and the way Gmail reads headers (at least, that’s what happened with bancroft’s fix). We’ll keep poking.

Ben

johnnie · 2007-03-30 21:02:54

Hmm something’s definately going wrong here. I installed the plug-in, the library and the zem_contact_reborn. I activated all, but upon going to extensions->postmaster I get several warnings, such as:

Warning: BLOB/TEXT column ‘listDescription’ can’t have a default value CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bab_pm_list_prefs ( `listID` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment, `listName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listDescription` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `listAdminEmail` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listUnsubscribeUrl` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listEmailForm` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listSubjectLine` varchar(128) NOT NULL default ‘’, `catchall` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, PRIMARY KEY (`listID`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM CHARACTER SET = utf8 in F:\www\commercieel\pokerforstudents\textpattern\lib\txplib_db.php on line 84

benbruce · 2007-03-30 21:06:06

johnnie,

I think that’s all one warning. What version of MYSQL is on your server? That’s my first thought, that the query generally works, but you’re using a newer version of MYSQL that demands something slightly different.

Ben

johnnie · 2007-03-30 21:29:26

The version I am running is: MySQL 5.0.27-community-nt. Here’s the full list of warnings:

Warning: BLOB/TEXT column ‘listDescription’ can’t have a default value CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bab_pm_list_prefs ( `listID` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment, `listName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listDescription` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `listAdminEmail` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listUnsubscribeUrl` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listEmailForm` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `listSubjectLine` varchar(128) NOT NULL default ‘’, `catchall` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, PRIMARY KEY (`listID`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM CHARACTER SET = utf8 in F:\www\commercieel\pokerforstudents\textpattern\lib\txplib_db.php on line 84

Warning: BLOB/TEXT column ‘subscriberCustom1’ can’t have a default value CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bab_pm_subscribers ( `subscriberID` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment, `subscriberName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberEmail` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberLists` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom1` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom2` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom3` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom4` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom5` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom6` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom7` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom8` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom9` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCustom10` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `subscriberCatchall` longtext NOT NULL default ‘’, `flag` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, `unsubscribeID` varchar(100) NOT NULL default ‘’, PRIMARY KEY in F:\www\commercieel\pokerforstudents\textpattern\lib\txplib_db.php on line 84

Warning: Table ‘poker4students.bab_pm_list_prefs’ doesn’t exist INSERT INTO bab_pm_list_prefs values (‘1’,‘default’,‘All subscribers’,’‘,’‘,’‘,‘Notification: A new article has been posted at <txp:site_url />’,’‘) in F:\www\commercieel\pokerforstudents\textpattern\lib\txplib_db.php on line 84

Warning: Table ‘poker4students.bab_pm_subscribers’ doesn’t exist INSERT INTO bab_pm_subscribers values (‘1’,‘Test’,‘test@test’,‘default’,‘custom1’,’‘,’‘,’‘,’‘,’‘,’‘,’‘,’‘,‘custom10’,’‘,’‘,‘a0a6b1f85aa97b50ae88a898648e819e’) in F:\www\commercieel\pokerforstudents\textpattern\lib\txplib_db.php on line 84

Last edited by johnnie (2007-03-30 21:30:18)

benbruce · 2007-03-30 23:26:10

johnnie,

you are getting all of those errors from the same problem (i think). It’s not liking the MYSQL queries that Postmaster uses to create the database tables — then it’s giving you errors because the tables don’t exist.

I think this is similar to an issue noted above, and that is that the query is using '' when it should be NULL for MYSQL 5.0. In other words, there is no issue when using 4.3, but something changed with 5.0 and it needs to be updated.

If you are at all comfortable with code, there’s a pretty simple find and replace you could do to try to fix it yourself:

About 3/4 of the way into the code, you’ll find “// —— CREATE TABLES —————————” and beneath that, two blocks of code you need to update.

The first:

	$create_sql1[] = safe_query("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $bab_pm_PrefsTable (
		`listID` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
		`listName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
		`listDescription` longtext NOT NULL default '',

Change …

`listDescription` longtext NOT NULL default '',

… to …

`listDescription` longtext NOT NULL,

The second:

	$create_sql2[] = safe_query("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $bab_pm_SubscribersTable (
		`subscriberID` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
		`subscriberName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberEmail` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberLists` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom1` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom2` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom3` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom4` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom5` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom6` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom7` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom8` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom9` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCustom10` longtext NOT NULL default '',
		`subscriberCatchall` longtext NOT NULL default '',

In each case where you see “longtext”, change the line as above. The first example is …

`subscriberCustom1` longtext NOT NULL default '',

… to …

`subscriberCustom1` longtext NOT NULL,

If that doesn’t work, you could repeat the steps above, removing the “NOT NULL” parts and see if that works. So in the first example, you would change …

`listDescription` longtext NOT NULL default '',
… to …

`listDescription` longtext,

Let me know how it goes (or if you don’t want to attempt it).

Thanks,

Ben

Last edited by benbruce (2007-03-30 23:27:53)

redbot · 2007-03-31 14:17:21

benbruce wrote:

redbot,

what does your form look like?

you are sending mails to a list that contains several addresses, and when the emails arrive in other inboxes besides Gmail, they are fine, but in Gmail they appear as you described above, is that right?

is this a different outcome from what was happening BEFORE you made bancroft’s fix? or did it change the outcome?
It is something to do with the way PM has set up it’s headers, and the way Gmail reads headers (at least, that’s what happened with bancroft’s fix). We’ll keep poking.

Ben

Ben,
1) my form is the same present in the Postmanual for a “multipart mime email” with the only addiction of “<txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />” instead of “Here is the text version” and “<txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt_html” />” instead of “Here is the HTML version”.

Here is a text warning.
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“text” />
<txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“html” />
<txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt_html” />
<txp:bab_pm_unsubscribeLink type=“html” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“end” />

2)exactly, with the only exception that in my post I was refferring to virgilio.it (wich is one of the most used in Italy) not gmail

3)apparently there’s no difference with or without bancroft’s fix. The outcome is the same

In the next days I’ll do a massive testing of the plugin trying various combinations of tags in my form and checking the results both in outlook and webmail.

If I discover something useful I’ll post it immediatly

Last edited by redbot (2007-03-31 14:28:58)

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#193 2007-03-23 20:33:11

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#194 2007-03-28 07:04:57

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#195 2007-03-28 14:08:31

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#196 2007-03-29 22:41:05

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#197 2007-03-30 15:57:13

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#198 2007-03-30 18:48:52

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#199 2007-03-30 19:29:12

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#200 2007-03-30 21:02:54

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#201 2007-03-30 21:06:06

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#202 2007-03-30 21:29:26

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#203 2007-03-30 23:26:10

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

#204 2007-03-31 14:17:21

Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager

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