[opencms-dev] Module to manage mailing lists and mass (group) mailings?

[Laurent Gauthier]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Matt.

It seems to me that there is an opportunity (and a need I guess) to
write some backend module(s) and functions for group mailing in OpenCMS.
Obviously, one should try to leverage as much functionality as possible
on one side from existing listserv solutions such as Mailman or Lyris
and on the other side from OpenCMS webusers, groups, content management
and workflow. I guess this is far from a trivial task and one that
requires quite a bit of analysis and design.



-----Original Message-----
From: opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org
[mailto:opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org] On Behalf Of M Butcher
Sent: 13 janvier, 2004 23:19
To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] Module to manage mailing lists and mass
(group) mailings?



I worked on something like this a while back. I created a module that 
connected OpenCms to Lyris' mailing list software. I used a JSP to 
create HTML-based email messages, and used the mail libraries in 
mail.jar to send messages to the lists. Rendering the mail was 
difficult... seems to me I ended up reading through a good chunk of the 
XMLTemplate code to figure out how to get the JSP to render. Also had to

be careful that I didn't use any code that relied on user-specific info 
from the session, etc.

With the Lyris module, I could subscribe users to lists based on their 
user information in OpenCms, and subscribing and unsubscribing could be 
done with the checking/unchecking of a text box (as well as through the 
standard listserv-like email commands).

Since then, I've wanted to try something similar with mailman -- a 
package I much prefer. However, I've not had the time.

If all you were interested in was creating an email list, what you might

want to consider is creating OpenCms groups for each mailing list, and 
giving users the ability to change their membership to the group. Then, 
to send mailings, you could write some code to retrieve the email 
addresses of each of the members of the group and then send a formatted 
email to them.

Matt

Laurent Gauthier wrote:
> Many web projects require the possibility to collect email addresses, 
> to
> group these by interest profile and then to create and send (rich) 
> emails to these groups.
>  
> Has anybody worked on integrating such functionality into OpenCMS 
> either
> as a native function/module or a as a bridge to mailing list system?
>  
> One aspect of creating rich (HTML) email content for distribution 
> lists
> is QA. It should be possible to use OpenCMS templates and workflow to 
> handle this aspect (content creation, page assembly and preview).
There 
> are some specific needs for HTML email such as the use of absolute
HREFs 
> for images and links but the OpenCMS template and possibly the 
> publication process could take care of this aspect and make it easy
and 
> opaque to the user. Some cutomers also want to be able to track email 
> delivery, again, an OpenCMS module could present reports on email 
> distribution, click rates etc. Obviously, we are talking about opt-in 
> and responsible email practices.
>  
> I would be interested in having people share their experience or plans
> for handling email distribution for OpenCMS communities.
>  
> Laurent Gauthier
> Mirasol Op'nWorks Inc.
> www.opnworks.com
> tel (514) 229-8730
>  

_______________________________________________
This mail is send to you from the opencms-dev mailing list
To change your list options, or to unsubscribe from the list, please
visit http://mail.opencms.org/mailman/listinfo/opencms-dev