A long time ago there was an attempt made to develop a module that could be used for sending newsletters and the like. As far as I'm aware, the attempt died.

Our club, for which I maintain the web site, sends out a monthly newsletter. Currently that is done by sending an email to recipients on an email list, attaching the newsletter as a PDF.

That means we have to maintain an email list as well as our membership roster on the web site (those registered users who are in the "member" group). It would make life simpler if there were a module that could send out the email with the attachment to users in the member group.

Such a module would have to be able to throttle the sending of messages so that web providers don't treat the email as spam.

Am I missing something? Does such a module exist?

barryC

Hi, Barry,

what about using the message function? You can send the message as PM or (much more interesting) as email.

I haven't used this yet and I don't know what kind of newsletter you send. Of course the message body box isn't very comfortable, but maybe there's a solution to copy/paste a separately edited file. Or have the complete newsletter online and only send a mail with some text and links to this document (some kind of "click here to read more..."). This would increase traffic, on the other hand you could track your users.

Just some suggestions

kind regards
markesh / karim

I am assuming you checked out the "Mail users" portion of the admin?

Does not support a multi send, automation or appending a file but you can do a news letter type email with it.

I will be looking into redoing some of the modules for my own site in the future but I have some projects I am working on now between working and going back to school. PM and Profile are two of those modules and some of the planned enhancements to PM will do what you are looking for but this is down the road as I am working on some other things first.

Since I will plan to be looking at some "core patches" that I hope to get into the core eventually I can at some point look into this for you.

For now, is there a method that you can use to import a user list into the current way you are doing this?

I can see a quick workaround for now could be to be able to provide you with an importable user list from your site based on the group they are in then you can import that and use that if that will work for you?

Pm me and I will see what I can do if you can't find another way to do it.

Yes, I've thought about that but, as far as I'm aware, the Mail Users function does not allow attachments. Also, I don't know if the sending of messages is throttled at all. If it's not, the web provider will block them as suspect spam. We would be sending out over 800 messages. I have used Dada Mail to send occasional mass emails to members. That program sends one message every 8 seconds, which prevents them being identified as spam.

As you say, the message could include a link to the newsletter on our site, which would get around the lack of ability to attach files.

Does anyone know whether the Xoops Mail Users function is throttled?

barryC

I think that the core admin does NOT throttle email at this time.

@redheadedrod

You must have posted while I was typing my previous reply. Our newsletter would be too long and complicated to send as an email. However, I could just send the link to it on the web site. My main concern would be the send rate. If Xoops just spewed forth 800+ messages, they'd be blocked, as I have said. If the functionality could be added to that Mail Users function to limit the send rate, it would be much more useful.

barryC

I will check it out this weekend and see if I can figure out anything for you.

Would you be OK with a manual send of the email that may take a while?

In other words, if I can find a way to throttle the email but it will make you sit at a screen for a little while are you OK with that?

I may be able to have it give you a status as it works through the emails but you would have to sit on that screen until it is done.

Something like a throttle control with a pause between mailings and a limit on the number of mailings per attempt. Thus if you set to 2 seconds and 50 messages per mailing. It would send 50 emails every 2 seconds. Thus for 800 users it would take 160 seconds (Almost 3 minutes) but you would have to sit on the screen for the 3 minutes until it finishes.

Also what format is your newsletter in and how big?

I have a module for newsletters, simplenewsletter. It is a commercial module made by Herve Thouzard (Instant Zero). A few months after the purchase, Hervé stopped his activities for Instant Zero and Xoops. I have considerd several times to publish the module at this site, although it is forbidden, because it isn't a public module. But ...

- in the agreement with Instant Zero is stated that Instant Zero would provide support, maintenance and development of the module. Since they stopped their activitities, they didn't actually do anything;
- I tried to reach Hervé several time to ask him whether I was allowed to publish the module at this site, because I am not capable to do maintenance and development';
- in the agreement a yearly maintenance fee should be paid: Instant Zero didn't ask for it.
- perhaps now, two years later, it is a good time to publish the module.

With simplenewsletter you have to make newsletters with a text editor (e.g. Notepad ++) using html or xoops codes. A standard header and footer can be stored within the module. People can subscribe to the newsletter without being a member of your site. It is difficult to store drafts for review in the module. Sent newsletters are shown on your site.

Where can I attach the module file ? Should I sent it to the moderator of the module repository ? I don't want to be the owner/developer of this module.

SMEDrieben

@SMEDrieben
Technically any module written for Xoops using the xoops API has to be open source due to the nature of Xoops and how the modules use Xoops to exist. So even if there was current development being done with this module you could release it to the public without worry. If a bunch of people use the module without donating to the original developer that developer could get upset and stop development so it is always a great idea to donate something to the original developer to keep them updating them. However in this case since they have left the xoops scene for something else this would likely not apply unless they come back at some point.

Having said that, does the module work well as is? This might be a good module to add to the basic module pack as well if it gets upgraded to the 2.5 interface.

I will go over this module and check for anything obvious and upgrade it to the 2.5 interface if you send it to me and make sure it gets put in the module repository.

See your PM.

There is this module for Xoops, Hermes, I never installed and do not know if it works according to the suggested.