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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
maniqui,
as far as installing the new plugin, you should be able to go ahead and do that without interfering at all with the old one, or having the old one interfere with the new one. As for cleaning up, I’ll doublecheck myself, but once you’ve gotten all the data you want out of the old subscriber table, you will:
1) drop the “txp_subscribers” and the “nl_prefs” tables (they may have prefixes on them, if your DB adds them) using Database Manager plugin or some other mysql DB frontend
2) delete the plugin on your admin tab
– BenPS. I added a little script to the next version of PM that will move your subscribers over for you.
Last edited by benbruce (2006-11-10 21:20:02)
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Hi,
Here’s v.0.2: http://www.benbruce.com/txp/Postmaster_v4.0.4.0.2.php
Thanks,
– Ben________
UPDATES:
v0.2 — 11/10/2006
- added HTML emails option [added a new custom tag to enter mime boundaries]
- added a new custom tag to display the unsubscribe link [users can build their own unsubscribe line into their forms], with an option to display a text or an HTML version
- added a small script to help NM or EOP users move their subscriber lists over to PM
PS. I’m really hoping for some feedback — this is quite a large project, and I’d love to tighten it up if there are any inconsistencies or problems.
Last edited by benbruce (2006-11-10 22:12:58)
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Fantastic!
Trying now…
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
I just know this is a stupid question, but can I use this to send an e-mail to subscribers just to let them know the site has been updated? So without the complete article?
…Prrrrrrrr…
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
TNT,
The email that you send can contain whatever you want — it can contain nearly any part of an article, or it could just be plain boilerplate text (“Hi. The site has been updated.”). It depends on how you set up your form. Let me know if you need more info.
– BenOffline
Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Thanx, Ben. That was all I needed to know!
Of course, when I need more info, I won’t hesitate. Thanx again!
…Prrrrrrrr…
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Dear Ben,
I have played with this plug-in in between times over a couple of days and found it to be a truly excellent piece of work. I also evaluated PHPList for a task in hand involving a TXP based site that requires a mailing list manager to service a list that will likely amount to no more than 200 subscribers who will receive one, perhaps two mailings a month. PHPList is too much and beyond the capability of the site’s owner to operate. Post Master is close to ideal, it seems. However, there is an unequivocal requirement for each mailing to deliver a pdf document as an attachment to the subscribers. I wonder, is there a way to attach a file, uploaded to the site by via the TXP interface, to a mailing using this plug in? If there were, it would meet all the requirements.
Kind regards
Joe Hastings
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
joebaich,
Unfortunately, you can’t currently send mails with an attachment. It’s an interesting idea, though.
You said the .pdf must be in an attachment, but just in case here’s an idea which I think (haven’t tested) would display a link to a .pdf automatically generated by this plugin. So you would mail your subscribers, a link would be in the email, and clicking that link would open the .pdf (basically the same as an attachment, except that the email is smaller).
Let me know if that works,
– BenLast edited by benbruce (2006-11-14 04:02:31)
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
joebaich,
It might be worth explaining to the person you are building the site for that many people prefer not to receive attachments in their email. From a usability point of view it might be a better option to link to the (clearly marked) PDF anyway. Otherwise I can imagine people on dial-up unsubscribing by droves. It will also save them a lot of bandwith on the mailout too, so there is clearly a business case for sending a link instead.
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
This looks seriously useful! Hardly any of my clients can work phpList properly, and this looks like it might be an ideal, very usable, substitute.
So shoot me if this question is obvious (cos it says “Postmaster v4.0.4.0.2: A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager for Textpattern” in the initial post) but will this run with 4.03?
I’ve installed OK, set-up and subscibed to my own list OK, but the Custom Data Tags like <txp:bab_pm_data display="excerpt" /> output nothing for me in the mailout or the article page. So I’m wondering if it’s a 4.03 thing. :-/ There’s too little time and too many hacks to jeopardise think about upgrading before launch.
my form is
You can read the article at: <txp:bab_pm_data display="link" />.
<txp:bab_pm_unsubscribeLink />
<h1><txp:bab_pm_data display="title" /></h1>
<txp:bab_pm_data display="excerpt" />
<txp:bab_pm_data display="body" />
<em><txp:bab_pm_data display="author" /></em>
but my mailout is entirely blank (except for the subject line)
and may article page shows everything in the form template, but with no data from the custom tags.
any help appreciated
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Ben and David,
Very many thanks for your suggestions. The pdf attachments in this case are standalone certified documents and are not TXP articles. The wan_pdf plug-in route therefore is not appropriate for this requirement as that provides a link to a pdf version of a TXP article it generates. In my case, the TXP article is the covering letter (email) for the pdf document.
Also, the subscribers to this facility on the site are specifically signing up to receive the certified pdf documents bearing information that is of interest to them as potential or exisiting investors in the company. That is the way this aspect of business is done in this industry and therefore is a given.
I think that I will invetigate using the excellent subscription / unsubscription facility provided by your plug in, Ben and some other method of emailing out the attachments.
Anyway, thank you very much for your interest.
Kind regards
Joe
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
joe,
It sounded like you knew the .pdfs had to be attachments, but figured I’d give the link-to-the-.pdf solution a shot … attachments are a good idea, though.
pieman,
Hmm. I’ve tested this plugin on 4.0.4 and 4.0.3, but it’s possible there’s something there.
I grabbed your form, entered it on a site running 4.0.3 and Postmaster, and I received the mail with the content in there, so I think the trouble is somewhere else.
Other possibilities:
- Have you associated the form with the list (in TXP > extensions > Postmaster > Lists)?
- Are you writing the custom tags into the form, and then writing content in the article? From what you wrote above, it looks like your form is set up ok … are you then writing an article, and filling out the title and the body with regular content (not the custom tags)? I couldn’t be exactly sure but it sounded like you might be placing the custom tags in the article as well.
Last edited by benbruce (2006-11-15 04:58:57)
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Hi Ben
It was a schoolboy error on my part! I’d associated the form with the list, then changed the name of the form and not updated the list prefs. Duh.
All is looking rosy now. Thanks again – I’m really loving this plugin :)
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Ben
I’ve been feeling my way around this… the help notes are excellent I should say, but there’s a few things I can’t quite figure.
Before I go hacking around in the plugin source, I thought I’d ask you incase some of these features already exist, but I’m missing something.
mailout title
Is there any way to put the article title into the mailout title?
admin notifications
Can the list manager receive notifications when a subscriber joins or leaves the list?
subscriber notifications
I set copysender=“no” in my ZCR form, but when I subscribe myself I still get sent an email. A confirmation email is good, but I’d like to define what goes in it. Is that possible? At the moment, it’s lacking a personal touch ;)
Your Name:: << my name >>
Your Email:: << my email >>
list: << list name >>
This is not Spam. : yes
Textile
I only want to send plain text emails, but I’d like to use Textile to style up the message for when it’s viewed in the site.
Is the best way to acheive this to write separate Excerpt and Body messages (as descibed in the #text_linkToHTML part of the plugin help)?
Instead, would it be possible to write a unified article (Textiled excerpt & body) and strip out the Textile (via the email form) before it’s sent?
unsubscribing
I wrote an article called ‘unsubscribe’, put a personal message in the excerpt, and the <txp:bab_pm_unsubscribe /> tag in the article body.
It works, but the help says
“Note that this tag does not output anything to the page at all — if you place it in an article with nothing else, the article will appear empty.”
which is all good, though if I click on an ‘unsubscribe_link’ in an email (using the messy URL) it says “deleted.” Is there a way to stop that?
Finally, if someone wants to unsubscribe without clicking through from an email, how do I enable that – write an unsubscribe form in my page template to appear only for the Unsubscribe page?
That’s a bit to get through I know… any help appreciated :)
Stu
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Re: [archived] Postmaster -- A simple email-on-post / newsletter manager
Stu,
It’s a lot of questions — all good — and it all helps fill out our knowledge here. Some of these answers should be in the help (but aren’t). So here goes:
mailout title
Is there any way to put the article title into the mailout title?
The quick answer is yes. This should be made more explicit in the help text, but the sub-tabs under TXP > extensions > Postmaster do not show every field … you have to select an item to edit in order to see all the fields associated with that item (it was just a matter of making the front page clean). So to add the article title to the subject line of a list, click ‘edit’ next to the list you want to edit, and then in the field “Subject Line:” enter the TXP tag “@<txp:title />@. That should do it.
admin notifications
Can the list manager receive notifications when a subscriber joins or leaves the list?
The ZCR form will send you an email when someone subscribes from the form, so enter your admin email address in that tag and you will be notified when someone subscribes. Unsubscribes is a different matter, and not built into the script. We’ll have to add that to a list of possible enhancements.
subscriber notifications
I set copysender=“no” in my ZCR form, but when I subscribe myself I still get sent an email. A confirmation email is good, but I’d like to define what goes in it. Is that possible? At the moment, it’s lacking a personal touch ;)
Here I’m relying on the Zem_Contact_Reborn plugin, which is also fairly extensively documented. Have you read through the ZCR “help” section?
Textile
I only want to send plain text emails, but I’d like to use Textile to style up the message for when it’s viewed in the site.
Is the best way to acheive this to write separate Excerpt and Body messages (as descibed in the #text_linkToHTML part of the plugin help)?
Instead, would it be possible to write a unified article (Textiled excerpt & body) and strip out the Textile (via the email form) before it’s sent?
Hmm … I see what you mean with this. Will you test what happens when you simply write the article with Textile and then send it as a text email? It’s possible that the tags will not appear in the text, I don’t know. If not, then you should be good to go. If they do appear in the email, then the solution for now is to write two versions; This would be another good item to add to the To Do list — it could be a checkbox on the “write” tab.
it says “deleted.” Is there a way to stop that?
This should be gone. It’s hardcoded in the code, so you could changed it to “return;” if you know php, or else I’ll have to go make an update — I want it to actually show nothing publicly, so that’s a nice catch.
Finally, if someone wants to unsubscribe without clicking through from an email, how do I enable that – write an unsubscribe form in my page template to appear only for the Unsubscribe page?
You are able to do this using a ZCR form. Check the default form in the help to see how to build that (the default has both subscribe and unsubscribe in it).
Hope that helps,
– BenOffline