Re: [vps-mail] A suggestion for an announcement list

["Jonathan Duncan" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim,

You might look into PHPlist (http://tincan.co.uk/phplist) for an announce only
list.  Pretty simple, yet not as basic as what you just described.  For some
people, less truly is more.

Regards,
Jonathan Duncan



Jim Smith <maillists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

> I have a computer-phobic client using an announcement list to send periodic
> bulletins to her customers. She uses AOL only and the backend of MailMan
> scared her to death. Even when I swapped her over to majordomo and
> configured everything I could for her, she had lots of problems
> understanding how to put the "approved" headers in an email. Either she or
> AOL messed them up too many times. I even had to go in and change her
> password late one night when she sent it out in an email to everyone on her
> list <sigh>. 
> 
> After too much hand-holding and her getting very frustrated with "too much
> technology", I decided I'd better create something even more user friendly.
> Here's what I did for her and will likely use again. I thought some other
> folks may like to use the idea so I'm sharing it here.
> 
> I set up a password-protected directory with a CGI mail form with exactly
> two fields for her to deal with: Subject (max 40 characters), and Body. Now
> she goes in, puts in the subject and pastes in the body and can see exactly
> what it will look like when she hits submit and sends it to everyone's
> email. No more AOL hidden tags, no more dealing with lines of passwords or
> From/To fields. All of that stuff is in the mailtemp.txt file. Actually, to
> keep the approved password inside the password protected directory, I made
> it a hidden field that gets passed to the mailtemp.txt file. Both Subject
> and Body are required fields so she can't accidentally send out a blank
> email.
> 
> She tried the new system yesterday for the first time and was dancing for
> joy. Something so simple has just made her life (and mine) so much better
> <grin>. Here's the mailtemp.txt info that I used. 
> ========================
> Approved: [approved]
> Reply-To: webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: Bulletin Update List <bulletins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> From: The Bulletin <webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [subject]
> 
> [content]
> ========================
> That's all there is to it. The form completes the approved, subject, and
> content areas and sends it out. Hope that helps someone else. Any
> suggestions for tweaking it or improving it further are welcome.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jim Smith
> 
>  --------------------------------------------------------
>            Jim Smith, Blarneystone, LLC.
>   Website Design, Hosting, Development & Enhancement
>    E-MAIL:      jimsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>    WEBSITE:     http://www.blarneystone.com
>  --------------------------------------------------------
> 
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> 



-- 
Jonathan Duncan
Administrator
801.376.7796
JKD Web Magic
http://www.jkdwebmagic.com
Web Site Hosting and Design



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