Mailman Mailing List

[wiccan1]

Hi all,

 

I have a question about the mailman mailing list.

 

I am wanting to set up a mailing list for a bi-monthly newsletter. The newsletter is published in PDF format.

 

Is there a way that when i set up the mailing list that i can attach the newsletter and send it to the subscribers or is there a different way i have to go about it instead of using mailman?

 

Any and all help is appreciated

[KevinW]

Sorry no one had posted a reply to your query.

 

IMO, why tie up Internet bandwidth by including the actual PDF file in your email you send out? Instead, consider simply uploading your pdf file to your web site, and then supply the appropriate http: link to your PDF file within your email.

 

For example, here is a link to a PDF file I created for setting up Outlook Express:

http://tch.kwsupport.com/HTMLobj-184/OE_Setup.pdf

 

HTH,

kw

[wiccan1]

Thanks for your reply kw

 

I never thought of doing it that way, it would make much more sense then using up the bandwidth. Thanks much for your help and advice

 

BB!

[KevinW]

You're welcome! We all miss the obvious or simple solution at times.

-kw

[Sully]

KW -

 

As a newbie to this whole hosting thing, I'm still trying to figure a few things out. 1st, can you tell me how to send an email to one's list using Mailman? I have my list set up (I think) but I don't know how to get a message to them. Perhaps I'm daft, but I don't see an option within Mailman to "send to list." I tried checking out your website, which has lots of other good useful info BTW, but nothing that covers this very basic question.

 

Also, I'm trying to figure out how to get information from a sign-in sheet to the mailing list. Is there a way to do this? What I mean is, I'd like to set up a page or a pop-up that would allow people to sign up for my company's newsletter. How do I tie a formatted page like that (where it would take 1st name and email) and get the info into a DB or a mailing list?

 

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Sully

[Sully]

OK, I think I have figured a bunch of this out, after a good deal of trial and error. Whew! However, I'm still trying to figure something out with the Mailman/Database thing.

 

I can see where I could just take the URL for the Mailman list subscribe page, and put that link on my web page, but I would like to do something that is a little more "behind the scenes" with my visitors. I would like to do something like have visitors fill in a very basic popup screen, putting in their first name and email address, if they are interested in receiving information from my company. What I can't figure out, however, is how to tie something like that to either Mailman, or to something like My Guestbook in mySQL. Is it possible to do something like what I'm describing with the tools we have at our disposal through TCH? Or do I need to figure something else out and load it onto my site?

 

I've been through documentation, etc., but I don't seem to be finding these answers. I get the feeling that much of this documentation is written for intermediate users and above, not for those (like me) just getting started with some of this.

 

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

Sully

[rayners]

After looking through the Mailman docs, there is no immediate way to do what you seem to want to do.

 

However, there are ways around it. Mailman comes with a script, add_members, that will allow you to add email addresses to a mailing list (whether you can run that script or not, I have no idea). What you could do is write a custom CGI program to pull out the information you want to gather from your subscribers, and then pass on the address to the add_members script. Though it seems at the moment that you're not gathering much more than email addresses anyway.

 

You can also edit the HTML that is displayed on your list subscribe page through Mailman's admin interface. I don't know what degree of control you have over how the data is collected from that page, but it's worth looking into.

 

Is it safe to assume that you have figured out how to send to the mailing lists that Mailman creates?

 

On an interesting side note, Mailman's future plans include things like using an actual database, instead of the hokey flat-files that are used now.

[Sully]

Rayners -

 

Thanks for the help! Yep, I figured out how to send messages to the mailing list; I may just have to leave it at that for the time being and just wait until they finish with their plans to use an actual DB (go figure!). I'm good at a lot of things (IMOHO!!), but writing scripts at this time is not one of them. I'm really only the "webmaster" by default, as I have the most experience out of all of my partners. As you can see, that's not saying a lot!

 

I am, however, keen to learn, and will (when I get some more time) endeavor to learn these kinds of things -- I just don't think I should be testing them out on the company's site. Actually, I bought a reseller plan for just that purpose; I figure I can host another "dummy account" which will afford me the opportunity to get my feet wet, without causing my firm damage.

 

Thanks again for your feedback, I appreciate it! It's good to know that I'm not completely daft -- I didn't think I saw anything in the Mailman docs, but after staring at something that you're just starting to learn for 12 hours or so, it's hard to discern whether or not you're capable of finding what you're looking for. These boards are great!!!

 

Sully

[Lianna]

Actually, I bought a reseller plan for just that purpose; I figure I can host another "dummy account" which will afford me the opportunity to get my feet wet, without causing my firm damage. 

 

Very smart if I may say so. That's exactly what I do with my stoverdatasystems.us domain. I just kill the account when I'm done testing and then recreate it. I test a lot of stuff and play with a lot of the cpanel functions using that account. So to make sure that my tests for people here are legit, I start with a clean, new account each time. Very convenient aspect of the reseller accounts.

 

Lianna

[Sully]

Thanks Lianna! Now if only I could figure out how to set up my "dummy" account...

[Lianna]

 

From your WHM panel, Create a New Account

Fill in the domain as something completely bogus or a spare domain name that you own but are not currently using. I bought the .us domain just for this purpose.

Fill in a username and password that you want to use.

Select the package that the account should be opened with and click create.

 

Now, take note of the IP address in the creation log that is displayed. Also note the Name Servers if you will be using this with a real domain name.

 

If using a real domain name, visit the registrar for that domain and change the name servers to those listed in the creation log. Wait 24-48 hours for propagation to access the account features via domain name.

 

Otherwise (and/or during propagation of the NS for the domain name), you can access the cpanel for that new account by typing in the browser address bar:

123.123.123.123/cpanel

 

then enter username and password that you used to create the account. (Of course replace 123.123.123.123 with the IP listed in the account creation log.)

 

You can view the site by typing in the browser address bar:

123.123.123.123/~username

 

(replacing the 123.123.123.123 with the IP from account creation log and username with the name used to create the account).

 

That's it. Now everytime you want to start over with a clean slate, just open WHM, click Terminate an Account, select the account from the list and click Terminate. Then rebuild using the steps above. If you are using a real domain name, you will NOT need to change name servers each time. You will have instant access to the clean account via domain name.

 

Lianna

[Sully]

YOU ROCK!!! Thanks.