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

sugoo · 2007-04-12 14:07:43

I’m trying to figure out a way to get date/time information about each subscription into the PM subscriber table in the database… any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Atlas Scruggs · 2007-04-13 08:17:31

Hey, pretty nice little plugin. But you should include in your tutorial to TURN POPUPS ON. The mailing function doesn’t work with popups disabled. And FireFox doesn’t even tell you that it’s trying to pop something up. So this resulted in hours of fun!

Atlas Scruggs · 2007-04-13 08:40:45

Also, I side with the people who want to send out the HTML. It’s in all our interests to send out emails that look like the big players’ emails, that have the bulk (or all) of the story in the email itself. I mean, heck, the article is there, it’s just been posted, it would seem like it could be run thru the txp interpreter somehow to be picked up on the other side as html. Maybe I’m just dreaming. But as for all this “text mail vs” stuff, the last time I got a non-html email it was from my grams.

For instance, my current pro bono client has an “action alerts” section. It would be nice if, whatever he is posting to the section (if it’s important), he could simultaneously send out to his email subscribers. Instead of sending out some blank ??? that says click here and find out if what I’m sending you is worth your time.

benbruce · 2007-04-13 15:27:04

Atlas,

Postmaster is HTML-capable right now.

The debate of “text vs HTML” is mostly me — It just seems to me that it makes sense to do the simpler, more reliable method. But you are not the only one who disagrees with me (in fact I’m the extreme minority), and Postmaster makes it really easy to send HTML emails. There are actually some neat tricks that are really only possible with HTML emails, too.

Good feedback about the Popups. In the next version this will go away — originally it made sense to pop up the Bulk Mail page, but subsequent changes make it pointless.

Sugoo,

I think this requires a new tag ~~, but it shouldn’t be that difficult~~. All you need to do is get a hidden input into your form, with the current time as the value (which you then insert into a subscriber custom field). ~~I was toying with it last night and it shouldn’t be too hard.~~ Here’s the bit you need:

Enter the following code in your Postmaster plugin code:

function bab_pm_zemTime($atts) {
	$today = date("F j, Y, g:i a");
	extract(lAtts(array(
		'custom_field' => '',
	),$atts));
$form_line = <<<yawp
<input type="hidden" name="$custom_field" value="$today" >
yawp;
	return $form_line;
}

Enter this line of code in your subscription form (but choose whichever custom field makes sense to you):

<txp:bab_pm_zemTime custom_field="zemSubscriberCustom2" />

That should be it.

Ben

Last edited by benbruce (2007-04-18 23:14:16)

kvnmcwebn · 2007-04-18 11:16:40

Im having a problem. When i try to send an article to a subscribers the page/message below gets stuck in a loop, constantly refreshing itself. I let it run overnight once and the next morning the loop had stopped and the page said database not available-this might have been because the connection was interuppted. Im only sending a small article with a jpeg attached to a list with one subscriber so it must be bug somewhere. Maybe i should unistall and reinstall it? Dont know.
>Bulk mail
>Mailing …
>Please don’t close this window until mailing is complete.
>You will receive a written message here when mailing is complete.

dont know
Please advise

sugoo · 2007-04-18 13:26:46

Ben,

It worked perfectly! Thanks so much for a great plugin and for your generosity and help!

benbruce · 2007-04-18 23:17:20

Sugoo,

I had a thought which is you should paste the new code into the Postmaster Library, since that may not change when the next version of Postmaster comes out — that would save you some trouble.

kvnmcwebn,

It sounds like you’re running into this issue here. There is a “fix” you can try (it worked for me but not for others) and notice this is unresolved. If you can try it in a different browser, or if you can submit your setup here so we can keep aggregating information on this problem. It’s possible this will just “go away” with the next version.

Ben

gemal · 2007-04-19 15:36:24

1) Is there a way to require a confirm mail when you subscribe?

2) Is there a way to have <txp:bab_pm_unsubscribe /> return a error when it doesn’t succed? Fx if you click on the link multiple times. It only the first time the user is actually removed

sugoo · 2007-04-19 18:14:16

benbruce wrote:

Sugoo,
I had a thought which is you should paste the new code into the Postmaster Library, since that may not change when the next version of Postmaster comes out — that would save you some trouble.

even better! thanks!

kvnmcwebn · 2007-04-19 19:41:49

hi ben,
k, the browser’s i am using are firefox and safari 2.X mac os x 10.4.8.
Turned off pop up blocking in firefox but still no getting out of the refresh loop. However manually refreshing in safari worked – thanks for that. Also when i select the test button both browsers said it had sent.

Regarding what you said about submitting my setup.
Will this cover do or do you want more info?
I’ll give you access to the admin if you want.

Last edited by kvnmcwebn (2007-04-19 19:44:35)

kvnmcwebn · 2007-04-19 22:57:33

Darn this is a handy plugin.

Im trying to send an image out to subscribers with it. – But i think i need some help because
nothing is showing up in the emails at all now after i modified the form…
Heres my form.

$listEmailForm = <<<eop_form

<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“text” />
Dear <txp:bab_pm_data display=“name” />,
The weekly image at <txp:site_url /> has been posted.
Image Discription: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />
View it here: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“link” />

<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“html” />
<txp:bab_pm_data display=“image” />

eop_form;

Does that pm_data = “image” need the image number or anything and does it need the mime type before it?

Thanks in advance. sorry for the ignorance.

quickestpastor · 2007-04-20 00:05:27

Great plugin,

Is there a way to set up a list of the subscribers from a postmaster list on a textpattern page? I am using Postmaster to gather contact info and would like to set up a directory of sorts so that people can use it to contact other people in the list. (it would be password protected of course)

thanks jason

benbruce · 2007-04-20 06:53:46

gemal,

confirmation could be done, sure. It just hasn’t been :). It’s on the Feature Request list. As for returning a message when it fails to unsubscribe … it looks to me like it should. May I ask you to go into your Postmaster Library plugin, right near the top (about 20-30 lines down), and look for this …

// ---- BAB_PM_UNSUBSCRIBE ------------------------------------------------

… underneath there, do you see a line of code like this …

return 'That is not a valid unsubscription. Please contact the list administrator or website owner. ';

… or what do you see in that block of code?

The line I’m seeing should be pulled out into the preferences in any case, but I’m wondering if I’m looking at an older version and it WAS pulled out.

kvnmcwebn,

Thanks for your info. We’ll just add it to the list and at some point we’ll see the bug.

As for your your form, it looks like you’re in the PHP code? You shouldn’t need to go into the PHP code to create the forms — just go to the TXP > Presentation > Forms tab and create a new one. In it, paste this (from the bit you posted):

<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“text” />
Dear <txp:bab_pm_data display=“name” />,
The weekly image at <txp:site_url /> has been posted.
Image Discription: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />
View it here: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“link” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“html” />
<txp:bab_pm_data display=“article_image” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“end” />

Just to be clear: this will show one of two emails to your subscriber, depending on whether or not their email client accepts HTML. If it does accept HTML, the email will be JUST the image (all that’s below the HTML mime is the image tag) — none of that text will show. If it does not, then the email will be all the text, with the link. If you wanted the text to show in the HTML version, you need to place that in there as well. Something like this …

<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“text” />
Dear <txp:bab_pm_data display=“name” />,
The weekly image at <txp:site_url /> has been posted.
Image Discription: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />
View it here: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“link” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“html” />
Dear <txp:bab_pm_data display=“name” />,
Here's the weekly image from <txp:site_url />:
<txp:bab_pm_data display=“article_image” />
Image Discription: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“excerpt” />
View it here: <txp:bab_pm_data display=“link” />
<txp:bab_pm_mime type=“end” />

Finally, the tag <txp:bab_pm_data display=“article_image” /> uses the article_image field from the write tab to call the image — so you’ll need to have associated an image with the article you’re launching your emails from in order for that tag to display anything.

Is all of that making sense? Try here for pretty extensive documentation.

quickestpastor,

There’s not currently a tag that does this, but it wouldn’t be too hard.

Ben

kvnmcwebn · 2007-04-20 21:03:59

Hi Ben, first thanks for the brilliant reply. The multipart mime solution makes perfect sense. But im confused about this:

>>As for your your form, it looks like you’re in the PHP code?

Yes because after going through the documentation a couple times i didnt understand how postmaster would insert the form into the article i was trying to mail. I still havnt coped on. I took the examples you provided, which btw are dead on, and created a form called postmaster, type = misc. I even tried inserting <txp:output_form form=“postmaster” /> into the article i was trying to send.
How does this work?

benbruce · 2007-04-20 22:55:11

kvnmcwebn,

Have you read the tutorial here? It takes you through the basic steps so that you get a better understanding of what’s going on with this plugin.

I think your confusion is in the difference between “inserting a form into an article” or “inserting parts of an article into a form”. For Postmaster, the email template is the FORM itself — this is what Postmaster emails. The bab_pm_data tag pulls in data from the article into the form, so that each email can be fully customized. When you select “Yes” on the write tab, and a list, Postmaster takes the form you’ve associated with that list, inserts the content from the article (if any — it’s not required) and sends the mail. It’s associating a form with a list that I think you’re missing.

Do read through the Postmanual to see if that helps — if you’ve already read through it and it’s not helping, please let me know where it’s going astray.

Ben

Last edited by benbruce (2007-04-21 03:19:58)

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#211 2007-04-12 14:07:43

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

#212 2007-04-13 08:17:31

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

#213 2007-04-13 08:40:45

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

#214 2007-04-13 15:27:04

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

#215 2007-04-18 11:16:40

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

#216 2007-04-18 13:26:46

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

#217 2007-04-18 23:17:20

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

#218 2007-04-19 15:36:24

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

#219 2007-04-19 18:14:16

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

#220 2007-04-19 19:41:49

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

#221 2007-04-19 22:57:33

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

#222 2007-04-20 00:05:27

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

#223 2007-04-20 06:53:46

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

#224 2007-04-20 21:03:59

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

#225 2007-04-20 22:55:11

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

Board footer