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

Zanza · 2007-01-17 18:25:20

infusion wrote:

Ok I’ve read through this forum and I still can’t seem to be able to send customized “Welcome to the newsletter” emails sent out to the subscriber.

Neither did I. I followed Ben instruction (at the best I could understand) and read ZCR help. Tried different attributes (thanks, thanks_form, form, subject_form…), none of them affecting the response email to the subscriber.

Different from Infusion, I do receive the admin email, though.

Z-

benbruce · 2007-01-17 19:06:55

Guys,

I think the best place to ask your question about customizing the email is here, as this is really a question about how ZCR works. Sorry my help didn’t do the trick …

Maniqui,

You’re right about screenshots. I’ll add that to the to-do list.

Ben

gerhard01 · 2007-01-17 19:18:48

benbruce,

when I change txp tag in the subject line from the default <txp:site_url /> to <txp:sitename /> I got the following warning upon sending a test mail:

“Warning: unknown_tag: sitename in /home/[…]/textpattern/publish.php on line 968”

Plus, the subject line as cut for the unrecognized tag.

Is there a list of (un)allowed txp tags?

benbruce · 2007-01-17 19:46:20

gerhard01,

In the TXP > EXTENSIONS > POSTMASTER > LISTS > EDIT screen, you enter the name of the form which you created in TXP > PRESENTATION > FORMS tab. Make sense?

I don’t have a list of allowed or un-allowed tags. We’ll begin one in the documentation now, how about.

Ben

gerhard01 · 2007-01-17 19:56:53

benbruce wrote:

In the TXP > EXTENSIONS > POSTMASTER > LISTS > EDIT screen, you enter the name of the form which you created in TXP > PRESENTATION > FORMS tab. Make sense?

yeah – figured that out and that makes perfectly sense. How about replacing the textareas in the TXP > EXTENSIONS > POSTMASTER > LISTS > EDIT screen by input fields? IMHO, that would be more intuitive and the stuff going in there (e.g. subject line) should not exceed one line anyway.

I don’t have a list of allowed or un-allowed tags. We’ll begin one in the documentation now, how about.

If I can help you out in any way, just tell me.

Thanks,

Gerhard

RussLipton · 2007-01-18 13:18:42

Latest on Firefox cycling on Macintosh:

1. Can send a Test mail to myself on default list – works (mail completed message appears).

2. When I send a mail to another list, Firefox cycles. After I know the mail has been by inspection of actual email in Gmail, I click ‘refresh’ as you have proposed. This hangs the browser tab entirely; must close tab. Mail completed message never appears.

Any tips on how I would be able to tell that a batch has completed under this scenario – I need to send, 1000 at least once a month? It seems like a bit of a show-stopper for that – not sending but being confident a batch has been delivered?

I ‘spose I could use Bootcamp (which I have) and mail under Windows for now … but for one scenario in which emails would be routinely sent to 20 team members, it’s a bit nasty; don’t want to work routinely in Windows if I don’t have to ;-).

benbruce · 2007-01-18 15:38:40

Russ,

This is obviously a workaround and the real fix needs to be made in the code somewhere [or in browser preferences], but here’s how you can tell if the mails were sent:

As each mail is sent by Postmaster, a note is written into the database table, in the column “flag.” If you have Rob Sable’s database plugin, you can easily check this by going to TXP > EXTENSIONS > DB MANAGER and clicking on “bab_pm_subscribers” and making sure that each email has “mailed” in that column.

It’s a bit awkward since you have to scroll over to the right to see the column, etc — it’s meant to be used internally — but it’ll do the trick.

Postmaster cleans this column out the next time you send mail, before beginning.

Ben

PS. Thanks for your continued efforts on the recycling issue.

Last edited by benbruce (2007-01-18 15:39:13)

RussLipton · 2007-01-18 16:18:09

Ben – Yes, I do have the database plugin; this solution, once tested, will work fine for now – if this is the biggest glitch for me, um, like … ;-). On a positive note: though I am only testing it with very simple cases, subscribe and unsubscribe (including email notifications to me) are working well to this point.

This is a world-class plug-in; if (when?) I cross the hump of confidence and can start sending large batches of mail successfully, PayPal will be receiving a visit on your behalf. Obviously, it ain’t Mailman, but then again, Mailman isn’t usable by ordinary people like doctors and mothers and musicians (my son’s Austin band needs the upcoming calendar plugin and this one desperately; when you’re in Austin sometime, let me know and I’ll suggest they network with you).

FR (perhaps already requested and/or do-able): convenient subscription to multiple lists at one time and/or solid performance of multiple subscription forms on one page.

gerhard01 · 2007-01-18 20:03:52

benbruce,

1) when you change the timestamp of an article that you publish to a past or future date, I still could send a (test) newsletter, but I encountered the following warning in the “bulk mail” pop-up:

Notice: error_article_context in /home/[…]/textpattern/lib/txplib_misc.php on line 1821
Your mailing is complete. You may now close this window.

2) Is there an option to switch from 1 article per newsletter to a bunch of article per newsletter? E.g. Say, I put 3 articles online, but want to inform subscribers about that update in a single newsletter instead of 3 individual ones?

benbruce · 2007-01-18 20:08:49

gerhard01,

There is a very easy way to do what you want, with caveats:

Use the article you’re mailing from as sort of a “launch pad,” and in your email form, use <txp:article_custom category="this_weeks_articles" form="another_form_for_these" etc />.

This works great if you’re sending HTML emails; otherwise it becomes a lot more complicated (because <txp:article_custom /> is outputting the HTML version of the articles) — but you could still do it if you made all the articles text only (with no line breaks) or maybe if you used the strip_html attribute in 0.3.

This needs more testing but when I tried it (with HTML emails) it worked great.

Ben

Last edited by benbruce (2007-01-18 20:10:13)

dimitriko · 2007-01-23 05:59:14

Hi Ben,
I’m considering using this plugin for a client. His list is over 3,000 subscribers. My question is will this work..what are the limitations of your plugin? I really like the integration into textpattern and the simplicity of it, over phplist, which would probably confuse him.

Thanks,
Dimitri

benbruce · 2007-01-23 06:35:40

dimitriko,

I tested Postmaster on over 1200 email addresses (not a very wide variety of domains, though). Technically, there’s no reason 3000 would be any different than 50 — Postmaster breaks up the mail into batches. But as far as I know PM hasn’t handled a list that big.

There are some bugs being worked on, so make sure you read through the latest posts in this thread (and through the Postmanual) to see if these would effect your customer.

Everyone,

What are some numbers? Has anyone mailed to a list? How big was it? Post your numbers, if you happen to read this.

dimitriko · 2007-01-23 07:16:41

Thanks Ben,
I’m goin for it, right now I’ve got 2766 in the db. I’ll post in a few days with the results. Hopefully, we’ll break some new ground…

kees-b · 2007-01-23 08:16:56

benbruce wrote:

What are some numbers? Has anyone mailed to a list? How big was it? Post your numbers, if you happen to read this.

imported: 3400
sent: site is not ready yet, but I tried with smaller batches and these went out ok. Anyway this is a great tool to setup and maintain a subscribers database. I am storing all kind of (adress related) information in the 10 zemSubscriberCustom fields. I’ll let you know how the first big mailing goes out when the site is ready.

kees

Last edited by kees-b (2007-01-23 15:49:28)

Zanza · 2007-01-23 15:40:35

‘cause it’s now evident that ZCR can’t send customized mail to subscribers, I have to abandon your interesting plugin.

Just to know, there are plans for supporting customized mail, or this is definitely out of your scope and should be addressed by ZCR? This thing could be of interest of other plugin too (i.e., a web-survey system plugin). Anyway, do you think this could be managed by you or should we ask for it at ZCR forum?

Thanks.

Z-

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#136 2007-01-17 18:25:20

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

#137 2007-01-17 19:06:55

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

#138 2007-01-17 19:18:48

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

#139 2007-01-17 19:46:20

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

#140 2007-01-17 19:56:53

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

#141 2007-01-18 13:18:42

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

#142 2007-01-18 15:38:40

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

#143 2007-01-18 16:18:09

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

#144 2007-01-18 20:03:52

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

#145 2007-01-18 20:08:49

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

#146 2007-01-23 05:59:14

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

#147 2007-01-23 06:35:40

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

#148 2007-01-23 07:16:41

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

#149 2007-01-23 08:16:56

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

#150 2007-01-23 15:40:35

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

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