Announcing: the ZAP News Machine Just completed testing on the ZAP News Machine, a PmWiki-based mailing list manager for newsletters built using ZAP. My goal was to make it
# Easy & secure for subscribers to join/drop lists. # Flexible and powerful for administrators to use. # Simple to plug into existing sites. You can give it a try at www.fast.st/zapnews. To login as a webmaster, use Admin/test for access. Currently, only webmaster's can send newsletters, but it could be easily adapted to allow member submissions, for a community based forum, for example. You should also try it out as a user (requires a real email)--just to see how easy it is to subscribe/unsubscribe. One step authentication, and one click subscribe/unsubscribe. I'd appreciate feedback on the approach I've used, as it is a bit innovative. Note that while no actual newsletters will be sent (the site is in demo mode)--your email could be seen by others logging in as webmaster, so you may wish to avoid leaving your email on the lists. Member Features: * Members enter an email address into the homepage, then they are emailed a random passcode, which enables them to subscribe/unsubscribe that address to any maillist on the server. No member names, accounts or passwords to worry about. * Passcodes are only valid for a specified period of time, by default 20 minutes. * Subscribing/unsubscribing is as simple as picking a list from a pulldown menu and clicking a button. The subscriptions list for that email is automatically updated and displayed. * Members can view archived messages, sortable by date, maillist, or subject, or searchable by phrase or key word(s). * Extremely simple, streamlined interface. Administrator Features: * Multiple "webmaster" accounts can be created, with separate login information. Webmasters can do most actions on ZAP News, but not edit the site. * Maillist creation is simple cut and paste of email lists. * Maillists have one click cleaning, which sorts alphabetically, and deletes duplicates. * Newsletters are fully templated, and can even include html formatting if desired (but not wiki markup), by simply editing a template page. Each list can have it's own optional template. * Recipients email addresses can be dynamically inserted into the newsletter template, as well as the subject, sender, list name, or other form fields. * Newsletter sending can be scheduled up to a year in advance. * Newsletters can be throttled, with configurable options per list of batch size, and seconds delay between batches. Settings are saved between sendings, but can be updated at any time. * Newsletters can be sent manually, but the news engine is designed to operate automatically, in the background, using cron. * The mail queue is viewable, allowing you to check progress on pending messages, stop sending, and/or modify the message/settings/mail list, while in process. * Completed newsletters are fully logged. * Custom Newsletter forms can be created allowing even greater flexibility and control over how newsletters are sent. * Sent messages are automatically archived (see above). Would appreciate any feedback anyone has on the app. Cheers, Dan _______________________________________________ pmwiki-users mailing list [email protected] http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users
