By boytaichi on

hi, i want to implement a mass mailing newsletter which can be easily subscribed and unsubscribed for both anonymous and authenticated users. i checked phplist + massmailer. but i saw massmailer does not seem to be still in use or supported. any suggestions?
thanks,
eric

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

marcingy’s picture

marcingy commented

You could try simplenews

-----------

-----------

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

thanks for pointing me to this module.
i have installed and enabled it. but i don't know where to set it up. i checked admin/settings, and admin/block, there's just no new items i could click to edit the module. can you give me more hints?
thanks,
eric

marcingy’s picture

marcingy commented

Options are under administer->content->newsletter

-----------

-----------

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

yes, it works. thanks a lot. :-)

the only issue is that if an anonymous user type in email in the subscribe form, and click subscribe, his email does not show in the subscriptions list, even though i have given permission for anonymous users. do you know why?

thanks,
eric

marcingy’s picture

marcingy commented

The reason why is that for annonymous users a confirmation email is generated. The lonk provided in this email need to be clicked to add the entry to the database. When the user selects the subscribe option it gives them a subscription id and but doesn't associate them with a newsletter. Once they have clicked on the email link a realtionship between the user and newsletter is created.

-----------

-----------

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

yes, thanks. the user got a confirmation email. he has to click it to confirm. then the link take him over to the page. and he has to confirm it again - total 3 times (subscribe, click in email link, confirm on webpage). it feels tedious, but ok.

but i got a new issue. if i have hypertext in my email, and if the address is http://www.mysite.com/..., drupal automatically changes it to /.... but this becomes an invalid address when the email arrives at the subscriber. so unless i manually force the full address for every hypertext, i got invalid link. is there a way for me to make drupal use full link rather than an abbreviated one?
thanks,
eric

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

also, when the subscriber receives the email, at the end of the email, it says "-- Footer will be appended here". i'm not sure where this comes from. usually it should give links for the subscriber to unsubscribe if he does not like to continue. but i'm not sure if we can set it up.
thanks,
eric

marcingy’s picture

marcingy commented

Hi I think if you have a lot of support requests you are best posting issues here

http://drupal.org/node/add/project_issue/simplenews/support

That way you will be able to get help from the person responsible for maintaining the module

-----------

-----------

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

i have submitted request for support. thanks.

jeanhr’s picture

jeanhr commented

Hi,

Not sure Simplenews is very supported lately. And don't know why it isn't.
Unfortunate.

Any other good alternatives (and better supported) inside Drupal?
Besides going back to external PhpList?

karunadave’s picture

karunadave commented

Version 1.9 of CiviCRM, a very feature rich 'Constituent' Relationship Managment solution integrated with Druapl (and Joomla), is a release dedicated to substantial improvments to their mass mailer CiviMail. Worth checking out.

drupalista’s picture

drupalista commented

Hi, I think the author of simplenews was not completely aware of the implications with mass email sending, otherwise he would not release this uncomplete piece of code. In fact with simplenews you not only will miss major features, you could also end up blacklisted with your server an thus demaging your business completely, so beware of this "solution"!

The best thing to use for mailing to a lot of users is mailman - this is a standalone software that can be found on list.org. I do not know if the integration of mailman with drupal has evolved to any usable state so far, but you could simply link to the mailman subscription pages from your site - also it is easy to build a form, that sends subscription data to mailman.

Mailman handles many problems that you will come across with a lot of list subscribers - bouncehandling, spam, moderation are just the most important things you would like to keep an eye on - simplenews is really a bit too simple for real life usage.

PHPLIST is a little bit better than simplenews but still far away from "industry proven" mailman.

jeanhr’s picture

jeanhr commented

I just read Drupalista's comments and find them inaccurate.

I also like to use "industry proven" tools or systems all the time as much as I can.

For one,
Mailman has been used for a long time but it is not really a newsletter management system.
It is primarily used for managing electronic mail discussion. Which it does very well.
It can also be used for newsletters but it is not its primary function. And I have rarely seen it used in this way.

For two,
PHPLIST is just not a "little better"...
PHPLIST is by far the most complete Open Source newsletter management system. And it fully works.
It fully manages the subscriptions, bounces, etc, opt-ins, as well as sends out as many emails as you need without any major problems even to hotmail or yahoo users. No fears of being blacklisted unless your content is not right.
A total solution I have been using for years. Its support has been relentless since its beginnings and it's definitively getting better every year.
In fact, it has been working non-stop for several sites I manage, including my own and customers.
An Open Source solution to trust.

By my comment "Any other good alternatives (and better supported) inside Drupal? Besides going back to external PhpList?",
I meant do we need to use an external system for managing Drupal newsletters?

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be "yes" until further development and improvements are made to Simplenews.
Or until PHPLIST is integrated within Drupal via a module.
I think some have tried but I have not seen any recent news about it.

Wait n see... and let's hope there is a suitable better solution soon for managing newsletters within Drupal.

Jean

ipwa’s picture

ipwa commented

Related thread: http://drupal.org/node/128219#comment-283572

I think that this module may be closer than people think (there is already one cvs module for drupal 4), imagine the possibilities. We should all get together and make this module a reality. I'd be willing to put a few hours every week into making the cvs module compatible with Drupal 5 using the handbook. I've never done this but I'd be willing to give it a try.

Nicolas
-------------------------

jeanhr’s picture

jeanhr commented

I'm willing to help with a few hours each week on the testing side... if that's any help.

I agree... we really got to get this going.
Hopefully, it's possible in a reasonable time span.

And more hopefully, with the help of one or two gurus... to get things on the right track.

Everybody will profit from this unique and powerful integration.

KMNL’s picture

KMNL commented

please upload your beta/alpha module when ready, here to test!

karunadave’s picture

karunadave commented

The CiviCRM folks had a MassMailer component that integrated PHPList as one email engine. They have since backed out of this approach and gone with their own build of a newsletter management system, that is fully integrated into their membership/donation/events contact database.

So look for the old mass mailer contributed module for some Drupal PHPList integration. I had it working briefly, until I went with CiviCRM's CiviMail.

Denver Dave’s picture

Denver Dave commented

So far I've been able to send emails with PHPList, but not with CiviMail. Anyone else interested in an integration of CiviCRM and PHPList? Or maybe a contact management mod to PHPList.

BMorse’s picture

BMorse commented

When I first looked at CiviCRM implementing CiviMail required root access on a server and some pretty gnarly configuration. This was quite a while ago. Is it still that way in the current version?

boytaichi’s picture

boytaichi commented

jean,
i heard that phplist could not prevent the server being blacklisted. the solution has to be mailermailer or constantcontact. what do you think?
thanks,
eric

jeanhr’s picture

jeanhr commented

Eric,

Strangely enough... or luckily enough I never had a PHPList server blacklisted.
That's my experience in the last 3 to 4 years. Guess I was lucky ;-)

I also think that PHPList's is a well known mailer, accepted by most ISPs, if not all.

But I have to admit that the PHPList team seems to have worked hard enough to avoid those problems by following closely some standards. On the other hand, it will also always depend on your content.

Jean

apv’s picture

apv commented

Hi all,

I installed this phplist module in drupal5. anyone please help me to configure this.

onemore thing, where is congig.php contains?

Denver Dave’s picture

Denver Dave commented

I encourage you to carefully review your basic purpose. We initially thought that we needed a replacement system to send out emails. However, after considering what we were really after, we were needed a system to do Contact Management (or perhaps called constituent management) with a need to track lots of characteristics and support several methods of communiciation (like phone number). We don't have an email address for 30% of our database, but that doesn't mean that they are not important.

Given our objectives, we are using CiviCRM, CiviMember, CiviContribute and CiviMail

Dave