mod_mailinglist

This module implements a mailing list system. You can make as many mailing lists as you like and send any page to any mailing list, including confirm mail and unsubscribe page.

Mailing lists are pages of the category mailinglist, which is installed by the module upon activation. In the admin there is support for managing these mailing lists where you can import, export, add or delete recipients.

For details on configuring e-mail sending and receiving in Zotonic, see E-mail handling.

Including the subscribe custom tag on your pages

The module includes the signup tag tag (and template) that you can use on your site.

When you want to add a subscribe template to your page then you will need the following scomp include in your template:

{% mailinglist_subscribe id=mailing_id %}

Where mailing_id should be set to the page id of your mailing list. This scomp includes the template _scomp_mailinglist_subscribe.tpl. The subscription form itself can be found in the template “_mailinglist_subscribe_form.tpl”. You should overrule the latter template when you want to add or remove fields from the subscription form.

Pages for the mailing list category

The mailinglist module predefines the following dispatch rules for the mailinglist:

/mailinglist/1234
/mailinglist/1234/my-mailinglist-slug

Where 1234 stands for the id of your mailinglist (which is obviously another id).

The mailinglist page is very simple. It shows the title, summary and body of the mailinglist, followed by a subscribe form and finally a list of other mailing lists.

Template used for the e-mails

All e-mails use the mailing_page.tpl template. It is a very simple template that just tells why the recipient received the e-mail, refers to the sent content page on the Internet and finally shows the title, the summary and the body of the sent page.

In the footer there is a link to the unsubscribe page.

All e-mail templates extend from the email_base.tpl template. The following templates are used for e-mails:

Template Description
email_mailinglist_confirm.tpl Sent after subscribing to a mailing list, requests to click on an url to confirm the subscription.
email_mailinglist_goodbye.tpl Sent after unsubscribing from a mailing list.
email_mailinglist_welcome.tpl Sent after subscribing and confirming the subscription.

Sending mailings in the admin

On the resource edit page of any page (remember: the mailinglist module can send any resource as a mailing!) there is an link in the right column called Go to the mailing page.

The mailinglist recipients page

Each mailinglist has a special page in the admin that lets you view the recipients that are part of the list. On that page you can perform varions functions on the recipients of the list.

  • Add new recipient - Opens a dialog to add a single recipient to the list.
  • Download recipient list - Downloads a .txt file with all the e-mail addresses and name details of all recipients.
  • Upload recipient list - Upload a new file with recipients. Each e-mail address goes on its own line. There is a checkbox which lets you clear the list before the import, effectively overwriting all recipients in the list.
  • Clear recipient list - After a confirmation, this removes all recipients from the list.
  • Combine two lists - this opens a dialog which lets you combine two lists. Using this new dialog, the recipients of two lists can be combined according to the three set operations union, subtract and intersect.

The mailing status page

From the mailing status page you can send the current resource to a mailing list, to the test mailing list or to an email address.

Sending mailings

The status page lists every mailing list in the system. On each row you see how many recipients the list has, and the status, e.g. if the mailing has already been sent to this list or not.

Todo

finish description of the mailing status page

Mailings are only send when the to be send page is published and publicly visible. The page should also be within its publication period.

You can schedule a mailing by publishing the page but setting its publication start date to the date and time you want your mailing to be send. The mailing list module checks every hour if there are any mailings ready for sending.

An exception is made for the test mailing list, mailings to that mailing list are always sent.