EZ NewsLetter Emailer for vBulletin - Movie Preview

[Greg]

Here is a movie showing the actions of creating an email in the EZ NewsLetter for vBulletin add on.

Please note that in the video the SKIPPED members are not something you will see in normal usage, we just disabled sending to anyone but ourselves for the demonstration.

The run time of the movie is just over 6 minutes.

On the first EZNL page, the intent is to configure all the settings and create an email with bbcodes. This is for those with no experience in HTML. The settings are remembered for next time via a MySql database.

On the second EZNL page, the top box will be the email message converted from bbcode to html. The bottom box is the text version of the email message with bbcodes and html stripped.

On the second page, you can start from scratch in either box and have a custom html message and a different text message if you wish. To aid in building the messages, you can preview your work without any commitment.

If you are html savy, you can skip the first page message box and move right to the second page. If you want a custom html message and text message only, turn off all the forum info boxes.

On page 3 the html and text message bodies are saved, the data for the selected data blocks is pulled from the forum and saved in a MySql database and EZ NewsLetter stops so you can review the entire html and text email that you are about to send.

On page 4 after you click send on page 3, the emails go out. If you set the javascript timer, you can walk away and let the EZ NewsLetter Emails go out.

The emails are sent via an SMTP connection and with the php smtp class we have used, we believe that you will be able to connect to just about any smtp mail server on linux or windows.

I'm no expert at this movie stuff, so here is the full version of the video for download. It's 640x480 and readable. EZ NewsLetter Preview Movie zip download (http://www.cpurigs.com/ez_newsletter_preview_movie.zip)

EZ NewsLetter Preview Movie Stream (http://www.cpurigs.com/eznl_0002.wmv)

YouTube.
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[Dave]

Doesn't seem to be working yet (the video)! Quit being such a tease!!!

[Greg]

I hope when it posts you get as excited about EZ NewsLetter and I am. I am really pleased with this work. Thanks for your patience and interest.

[Dave]

it works, watching now!


edit: Where can i buy it and do I get a discount for being the first! :D


double edit: Expect a blog review soon as i get my hands on it :D

[Greg]

I am finishing up the product install file. I hope to have this posted and for sale by early tomorrow. I have to stop today, I'm tired.

[bigH2O]

So is this designed to be an opt in package, or an opt out package, or neither? I've been getting the test messages while you've been developing this, and as an admin over here I don't mind, but as a normal user I certainly wouldn't want to get bombarded with newsletters that I hadn't asked for just because I joined a forum.

[Greg]

So is this designed to be an opt in package, or an opt out package, or neither? I've been getting the test messages while you've been developing this, and as an admin over here I don't mind, but as a normal user I certainly wouldn't want to get bombarded with newsletters that I hadn't asked for just because I joined a forum.

It is controlled off of receive admin email which is opt in or out at registration. Most only send a bulletin monthly, so the frequency is at the senders discretion. It's not automatic.

As for you getting the emails, that's life as an admin. Get over it. :p Someone has to help debug.

I think I'll send the first actual EZ NewsLetter in the AM.

[Big Dan]

I cannot wait to see the newsletter. :) Is there any way we can get some screenshots of the ACP side of things? It's hard to see in the video too small. I would offer to beta test but seeing as how we're with the same host it's probably the same setup.

The main thing I'm looking for is to automatically exclude certain forum IDs from the newsletter like staff forums.

I guess Santa will come in the morning with the email. :D

[Greg]

The forum permissions for selecting threads is admin controlled, not user permission controlled. I'll make screen shots tomorrow. I'm barely awake.

And on that note, I hate the way usergroups are handled in the original idea. I'm recoding it tomorrow. Sorry. This has got to be right the first time. :)

[bigH2O]

As I said, I don't dislike getting testing email when you're developing code, in fact I find most of them quite amusing. Sometimes I think you need an opt in list for "greg's goofy test emails" so other people can get a laugh. So... there is nothing for me to "get over". I was just curios as to whether this was something a user had the option of opting out of. In this day and age of spam. unsolicoted emails could be problematic for the owner of a site. Was more of a heads up question than an indictment of your process.

[Greg]

I was just bustin' your chops. Is it your sensitive day? Don't go getting all EMO on me now. But I do kinda like ya, so...

The opt in and out part is important. I forgot to add it and will. But there is code for the footer with opt out info.

And on that note... There needs to be separate settings then admin email. We don't want people turning off that arbitrarily because of a newsletter.

If we're gonna throw around the word ultimate, it's gotta be right. Thanks for the heads up.

[Greg]

I think I have the group selection and opt in/out problem solved.

I'm thinking the best scenario is a usergroup called newsletter opt in. If a member joins it, they get the news letter. If not, no news letter. But the option to blast to any usergroup will still exist.

I need some feedback on this on folks.

[Big Dan]

The usergroup option would work on boards without a lot of different user groups set up. On my board for instance I've got 4 primary user groups for members plus 2 publicly joinable. Adding an extra UG to the mix seems like extra work for the admin going back to double check permissions when adding private forums and such. Plus dealing with inherited UG permissions even with the newsletter UG being a secondary UG would be a pain for someone in my situation. I think all in all going the user group route would leave you will a support nightmare for users that don't understand how to properly use user groups, which is arguably one of the most complicated aspects of vB.

I'm in favor of the standard opt-out check box on edit options that other hacks like commbull employ.

[Big Dan]

PS: Why is firefox telling me I need WMP for this page?

[Greg]

PS: Why is firefox telling me I need WMP for this page?

I embedded the original movie of the demo that is readable.

[usacarry]

Any update on when this will be available?

[Greg]

I had hoped for Friday and then in testing I saw some things that needed to be added now, not later. I sent a newsletter today and things looked good. I hope we can release Monday.

[usacarry]

Thanks. How much will it be?

[Greg]

Cheaper then the others. We're looking to stay a bit under $30.00.

I have a email bounce management add on that we will include too for those that want it. When we implemented it and stopped our bounces, we found that the next time we sent a bulk email, they went right through because we had little to no bounced emails.

We also use SPF1 DNS Records to get our email through.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/
http://www.openspf.org/Project_Overview

[daPLAYBOY]

I've just received one of your EZ Newsletters which brings me here today, and I'm impressed by the professional look of it...well done! Hope I can get a copy for BETA testing! :)