Along with the mass mailing layouts shipped with Dada Mail (Full, Minimal, For Discussion List Messages, Old School) you now have the ability to set your own custom mass mailing layout. Look for this feature in the list control panel under, Appearance: Custom Mass Mailing Layout.
First, understand the difference between a public, and private mailing list:
https://dadamailproject.com/d/features-public_and_private_lists.pod.html
For private lists, a new option allows you to set if the Request Removal buttons/links will show in email messages sent with Dada Mail. This option can be found in the list control panel under, Mailing List: Options, under, Run This Mailing List As A: Private Mailing List: Show, "Request Removal" links and buttons in email messages
If a user tries to access a specific list control panel screen when logged out of Dada Mail, they're redirected to that screen after a successful login. Before, the user would be redirected to the default list control panel screen (Send a Message).
If the option is enabled (disabled by default) to send a user who is subscribed via the list control panel a welcome email, they'll be sent the same email message as they would if they signed up themselves, rather than a different message, using a different email template. The previous email template was a bit out of date, and really only duplicated what was in the regular welcome email.
Javascript found in script
tags will be, by default, removed from the source of mass email messages. Many times, the inclusion of Javascript in an email message will be grounds for a email filter to flag a message. There's no real great reason to have Javascript present in an email message, but sometimes it sneaks in, if you fetch the content of a message via URL.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/716
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.7.1 release of Dada Mail.
When using Amazon SES for mail sending, the Bounce Handler should almost always be installed as well, as taking care of bounce and abuse reports is critical to working with the Amazon SES environment. The Bounce Handler takes care of both bounces messages, and any abuse reports sent to it. One issue we've uncovered is that abuse reports can be sent from messages other than mass mailings - say, a nefarious person fills out a subscription form, then sends an abuse report after the confirmation email is sent to them. In previous versions of Dada Mail, there would be no way within Dada Mail to know that that abuse report was made. Dada Mail would not send out an email to the list owner to easily unsubscribe the address, since that address wasn't subscribed!
Starting with this version, that abuse report would be forwarded to the list owner, so that they then can take action. All abuse reports sent by Amazon SES will be sent to the List Owner by default, and this option can be enabled/disabled from within the Bounce Handler plugin options, independently of the option to forward bounced messages to the List Owner. The former hopefully happens rarely, the latter may happen on every mass mailing - easily overwhelming the List Owner.
Look for the options,
[ ] Forward bounces to the List Owner after success
[x] Forward abuse reports to the List Owner (Amazon SES only)
in the Bounce Handler plugin. It's suggest that anyone using Amazon SES for mail sending upgrade to this version, so that ALL abuse reports originated from email sent from Dada Mail get sent to the appropriate List Owner!
Dada Mail has the ability to enable/disable many of the user-facing Profile features, from disabling them entirely, to just turning on/off most every feature separately. We've changed a bit some of the defaults. The following features are now disabled by default:
Registering for a new profile
Deleting a profile
and the following feature has been completely removed:
Logging into a Profile
Perhaps, "completely removed" is a little rough. What's really happening, is that we're simplifying the options. There's already an option to enable user-facing Profiles and all the features allowed with them. If that's enabled, so is a user being able to log into their profile, or what's the point? Two options are saying basically the same thing, so we're getting rid of the explicit, "log into a profile" option.
See issues #712 and #710 for more information.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/713
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/712
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/711
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/710
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/709
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/708
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/707
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/703
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/700
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/699
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.7.0 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/697
Webpage caching is generally a good thing. Caching dynamic screens in a webapp is not, if you don't know what screens have data that's specific to say, a login cookie. Dada Mail is set up to try to sidestep any caching that's configuring by sending a series of server headers that say, "hey, don't cache this, don't look at a cached version", but the previous server headers just weren't enough. So, we've modified them to be a bit more robust. They'll look a bit like this:
Cache-Control: "max-age=0, no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
Pragma: "no-cache"
Expires: "Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT"
There's currently no way to adjust these headers within the app, but if you would like to make your own adjustments, the easiest way is to put them in the .htaccess file that lives within the, dada
directory. Directives to set these headers already exist within this file, they just need to be uncommented be live.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/683
In other words, any time this email template tag was used:
<!-- tmpl_var subscriber.email -->
It would be replaced with the List Owner's email address, and not your specific Subscriber's. This was because internally, the template variable for, subscriber.email
was set to the List Owner's email address. Fixed!
Dada Mail now makes it easy to add UTM parameters to the links in your email messages.
If you use a platform like Google Analytics, you can then see when visitors come to your site, from a link originating from your mass mailing messages.
This support works fine with Dada Mail's own clickthrough tracking, and you may use both at the same time.
See our blog post for details on this new feature:
Dada Mail's outgoing SMTP library have been updated, which should provide more successful connections to a wider variety of SMTP servers and authentication flavors. Of note:
STARTTLS
is now an option when connecting to an SMTP server.
If something does go wrong, more information will be returned to help you get to the root of the problem.
Dada Mail's incoming POP3 library has also been updated, which should provide more successful connections to a wider variety of POP3 servers and authentication flavors.
Of note:
POP3 is used in Dada Mail in both the Bounce Handler, and Bridge plugins. Both now support SSL connections, being able to specifically choose which port to connect to, and if you would like to explicitly verify the SSL Certificate or not.
Both SMTP and POP3 SSL/TLS options require the IO::Socket::SSL
Perl CPAN module to be installed (as they both required in the past).
Installation can be done separately, or by installing the Bundle::DadaMail
module, if this module is not already available in your server environment.
Bird Of Paradise
Exotic
Digging in the Dirt
For all you green thumbs out there
Plain White T
Nothin' but simple and white
Summer is Coming
Or is summer already here?
These themes - and all other themes (except the, "default" theme) are now ONLY distributed with Pro Dada (https://dadamailproject.com/purchase/pro.html).
Grab a Pro Dada subscription yourself, and help support the project!3
Old School is very similar to the mass mailing layout used in Dada Mail < v10. If you prefered that layout, well, it's back!
Since discussion lists rewrite the From:
header, it can be slightly difficult to contact the original sender, becauset their address is not as easy to get to.
Now, the original sender will be listed a the first line of the discussion list message. You may use the following email template tag to customize this:
<!-- tmpl_var sender.email -->
Many of the template tags for subscriber
are also available for, sender
:
<!-- tmpl_var subscriber.email_name -->
<!-- tmpl_var subscriber.email_domain -->
As well as, subscriber_profile
which reflects the profile
tags, if you are using custom profile fields.
See how this is done in the email theme files, mailing_list_message-discussion.html
and mailing_list_message-discussion.html
Speaking of discusion lists, sometimes you would like to have all subscribers start off getting digests, rather than individual messages.
Now, you can!
The Global Config plugin allows you to easily drop back into the install to reconfigure Dada Mail's global configuration.
It's now enabled, by default. Careful! As it's powers are unmatched in this world.
To make it easy to see some of the vital information about your mailing list, the menu will show the List Owner and List Administrator right in the, Mailing List: List Information menu.
The JS + Flash copy functions you may notice in Dada Mail have been replaced by a pure Javascript version, removing a small dependency (Flash!)
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.5.4 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/673
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/672
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/675
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/676
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/677
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.5.3 release of Dada Mail.
By default, Bounce Handler would send an email notification out, whenever an address met the Bounce Threshold. This would cause problems when using a service like Amazon SES, since the total number of bounces can count against you. Since most of the time this email message will bounce back, removing a bounced message will count against you, by default.
In v10.5.4, this feature may be disabled - and is disabled by default. You may re-enable it in, Plugins: Bounce Handler by checking the option, Send Unsubscription Notification to Bouncing Email Address and saving.
Some of Dada Mail's more advanced features require the installation of outside CPAN Perl Modules. Sometimes, these modules are installed in a path that Dada Mail does not check by default. In the past, you would have to modify the app directly to add in these library paths. Now, Dada Mail will allow you to add/edit these paths from within the installer. When you upgrade, the library paths from before are remembered, and will carry over.
If you are using the Core5 Filemanager, which uses the Perl backend connector, these paths will be added to this outside app as well.
Details of this release of Rich Filemanager can be found here: https://github.com/servocoder/RichFilemanager/releases/tag/v2.4.0
Rather than having a user try to subscribe to an invitation-only mailing list, the mailing list is now labeled, "Invitation Only" in the popup menu, and is disabled.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/666
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.5.2 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/663
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/664
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.5.1 release of Dada Mail.
This is a feature/bugfix version release of Rich Filemanager:
https://github.com/servocoder/RichFilemanager/releases/tag/v2.3.2
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/662
Unfortunately, the schema change we made for the, dada_message_drafts
is incompatible with v5.5 of MySQL, so anyone trying to install Dada Mail and using v5.5 of MySQL will fail. This new schema:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS dada_message_drafts (
id INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
list varchar(16),
created_timestamp TIMESTAMP default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
last_modified_timestamp TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW() ON UPDATE NOW(),
name varchar(80),
screen varchar(80),
role varchar(80),
draft mediumtext
);
SHOULD work. Any previous schemas for this table will be automatically be updated when you run Dada Mail, but you may also do this manually, by either:
Dropping the dada_message_drafts
table and recreating it (this will delete ALL mass mailing drafts/stationery/schedules), or issuing the following SQL (current drafts/stationery/schedules should not be removed):
ALTER TABLE dada_message_drafts MODIFY COLUMN created_timestamp TIMESTAMP default '0000-00-00 00:00:00';
ALTER TABLE dada_message_drafts MODIFY COLUMN last_modified_timestamp TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW() ON UPDATE NOW();
This isn't an issue that affects either PostgreSQL or SQLite, only MySQL.
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.5.0 release of Dada Mail.
Dada Mail has been tweaked slightly to set permissions of files it creates to, 0644
, rather than 0666
. This is to enhance security of the files that Dada Mail creates and modifies.
To complement the change in default file permissions, the included installer for Dada Mail now supports customizing the default file and directory permissions. Check the option, Configure Security Options and look under, File/Directory Permissions.
Great care must be made to make sure the permissions you set will work with your server environment.
There's support for adding a website URL as part of your List Information. If set, this URL will show up in the footer of the email messages sent by Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/660
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/657
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/656
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/652
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/653
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/650
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/649
Dada Mail has come shipped with multiple file managers:
KCFinder
Core5 Filemanger.
These all your to upload/remove files that live on your hosting account, that Dada Mail can then use for inline images and file attachments.
We're adding a new filemanager called, Rich Filemanager (https://github.com/servocoder/RichFilemanager) which will be set as the default.
Rich Filemanager is an update of Core 5 Filemanager, which has shown a slowdown of development and is listed as, "deprecated" by its developer.
Rich Filemanager comes with some pretty great features and enhancments over Core 5 Filemanager:
Drag-and-drop support
Clipboard feature: copy, cut, paste, clear
Multiple & chunked uploads support - based on jQuery-File-Upload
New design of multiple upload window; New upload controls for each previewed file (start, abort, resume, delete, etc.)
Online text / code editor - based on codeMirror
Online PDF & OpenOffice documents viewer - based on viewerJS
Online MS Office documents viewer - based on Google Docs Viewer
Extended list of previewed file types via ViewerJS
and more.
We will be deprecating support for both Core5 Filemanager and KCFinder, unless these projects release security and feature updates in a timely manner.
You can learn more about Rich Filemanager on its Github project page: https://github.com/servocoder/RichFilemanager.
Thanks to all the contribtors to this project for all their hard work!
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/642
We've upgraded the bundled version of CKEditor that comes with Dada Mail to v4.6.2, and we've implemented the necessary backend component to allow support for dragging and dropping images and files right into the rich text editor! Images may also be pasted right into the rich text editor, without you needing to save the image to a file beforehand.
Images (jpg's, png's and gif's) will show up inline; all other supported files will be uploaded, and added to your message as a link. Some files, based on their file ending, will not be allowed for security reasons.
Since the backend component of this feature is implemented right in Dada Mail, there's no additional setup or configuration required and all security checks are handled by Dada Mail.
The included file managers: KCFInder and Core5 Filemanager, are still bundled with Dada Mail and can work with these new capabilities. Previously drag-and-dropped files/images can be viewed, selected, and reused using either of the file managers.
By default, images are resized if they're larger than 640px to make the size of your mailing list messages a little nicer for your recipients. This option can be enabled/disabled in the list control panel under, Mass Mailing: Options. Look for the option labeled, Resize drag-and-drop images. Resizing requires the CPAN Perl Module, Image::Resize
and can be installed by itself, or by installing the Bundle::DadaMail
CPAN Perl Module.
You can now add a phone number to your List Information. The phone number will appear with the rest of your contact information, in the footer of your mass mailings. It's a clickable link, which works well for those reading your messages on their mobile device!
Dada Mail has support to show the results of a subscription in a modal window, using the subscription forms in its own screens, or through its jQuery plugin subscription forms. Dada Mail also has support for redirect your users to a custom page once their done, say, filling out the subscription form. Wouldn't it be great to combine the two? Show the custom URL in the modal window. Now, Dada Mail can do exactly that. Look for these options in the list control panel under, Mailing List:Options - there's a few places custom redirect URL's can be used. Where this new feature is supported, you'll also see the following option, Show the URL instead in a modal window, if that's being used
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/640
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.3.5 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/638
Along with a Facebook Page, Twitter URL, and Google+ URL, you can now set a Youtube link
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.3.4 release of Dada Mail.
Several of the included docs have been refreshed significantly, including:
https://dadamailproject.com/d/features-CAPTCHA.pod.html
https://dadamailproject.com/d/features-amazon_ses_support.pod.html
https://dadamailproject.com/d/FAQ-installing_CPAN_Perl_modules.pod.html
=head2 Bugfixes
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/636
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/634
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/633
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/637
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.3.2 release of Dada Mail.
This release also refreshes and clarifies the install process and the documentation that goes with it.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/631
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/632
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.3.1 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/630
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.3.0 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/627
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/628
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/626
Dada Mail can transform a RSS Feed into an email message to tbe sent as a mass mailing. Read how to work with this in the following article:
Find this option in the list control panel under,
Mass Mailing - Send a Webpage
In the HTML Version tab, click the option,
Grab content from an RSS/Atom feed
and enter the URL of the feed in the textbox below this radio button. Additional options are available, including adding HTML content before and after the entries from the feed, setting how many entries are included in the message, and if the full entry is included or just a summary should be used.
Sending content from a feed becomes very powerful, when set up to send on a recurring schedule. If the option,
Only send the next scheduled mass mailing, if the primary content differs from the previous scheduled mass mailing
is checked, only newer entries that have not already been sent will be included in future mass mailings.
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.2.3 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/623
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/624
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/625
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.2.2 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/621
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/602
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.2.1 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/618
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/619
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/613
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/610
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in the v10.2.0 release of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/614
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/615
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/616
We've added support for showing a CAPTCHA on the initial signup form!
See the post about this feature for more details:
http://blog.dadamailproject.com/2016/12/06/add-google-recaptcha-on-dada-mail-subscription-forms/
as well as the docs on advanced installation configuration,
https://dadamailproject.com/d/install_dada_mail-advanced_configuration.pod.html#Configure-CAPTCHA
We've also removed support for reCAPTCHA v1, and the Default CAPTCHA type. You're so much better served with reCAPTCHA v2, that these other choices just aren't worth your time.
reCAPTCHA v2 requires the following CPAN module: Google::reCAPTCHA
, which you can install on its own, or through our, Bundle::DadaMail
module, which will install all the other optional CPAN modules Dada Mail takes advantage of. Here's how you install CPAN modules,
https://dadamailproject.com/d/FAQ-installing_CPAN_Perl_modules.pod.html
Themes! Dada Mail now comes with 10+ new themes, to complement the Default theme that first shipped with v10.0.0. Themes can be selected per mailing list in, Appearance: Email Themes. A preview of the selected theme will be shown below the form on this screen.
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in v10.0.2 of Dada Mail.
This is a small feature, but could be useful for people who normally send messages using Bridge, but want to use a layout that's not the default (Full) layout. Now, you may set which template is used by default, on allyour mass mailings. Look in the Mass Mailing: Options screen for the option to set this up under, Default Mass Mailing Layout
This release has more work on scheduled tasks, and making sure that they're not run concurrently, which could cause the tasks needed to be done, done two or more times. There's also work on quashig any race conditions that could potentially happen. This work is a continuation of the work described below under, Bridge, Lock Files, and zombie processes.
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in v10.0.1 of Dada Mail.
By default, all images in an HTML message are attached and embedded within the email message itself.
This can lead to large email messages, so we've added a new option to simply link to these images instead. Look for the option in the List Control Panel under, Mass Mailing: Options. This will affect all email messages sent out from a mailing list, not just messages sent out in a mass mailing.
Related to the abov change, the Content-Disposition
header appears to have been missing from the MIME part that relates to the attached images. This may cause the embedded image to show up by itself at the end of a message, depending on your mail reader. We hope the iclusion of this header will stop this from happenig in most mail readers.
This is a big one, if you are running discussion mailing lists. We've made a few changes, to help make running multiple mailing lists with Bridge a lot smoother.
The first change we've made is making sure the lockfile created is specifically named for the mailing list being worked on. In the past, the SAME lockfile was used for all mailing lists, so if there was a problem with one mailing list, the next mailing list worked on may not be successful, because the lock was still "live", basically. Bridge would also not unlock the lockfile if there was say, a error with logging into the POP3 server, causing problems on additional runs of the plugin. This may culminate into zombie processes of Dada Mail, as well as perhaps even the POP3 daemon, which may have a connection kept open by a zombie process. All of this isn't good stuff, and we hope to have cleared out this problem.
If you're experiencing zombie processes, and you're running mailing lists with Bridge enabled, these above issues may be affecting you. Upgrading could help you out, immensely.
For the time being, the Javascript scrubber for Dada Mail has been disabled, as it also breaks HTML links that have template tags embedded within them.
This is mostly a bug-fix release for issues found in v10.0.0 of Dada Mail.
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/604
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/606
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/605
https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/603
Foundation for Emails (http://foundation.zurb.com/emails.html) is a framework to develop HTML email messages that, "Sucks Less": they're beautiful, responsive, and look correctly in most HTML-capable email readers - even Outlook!
Work with these HTML emails via Sass Workflow:
https://foundation.zurb.com/emails/docs/sass-guide.html
Dada Mail's quiver of HTML email templates has been turned into its own Github project:
https://github.com/justingit/dada_mail_foundation_email_templates
which you may use as a starter for your own customized email templates for Dada Mail:
https://dadamailproject.com/d/features-email_themes.pod.html
Dada Mail now has support for Email Themes: collections of email templates that you may use to customize the look and feel of your email messages.
Currently, Dada Mail comes with one email theme and supports additional custom themes.
Email Themes include the ability to choose a specific layout for your mass mailing to be wrapped up in.
Currently, the following layouts are available:
Full Layout
Minimal Layout
For Discussion List Messages
Don't use a Layout
Without needing to send a test message out, you may now preview how your mass mailing will look, right in the Send a Message screen. This makes it easy to try different layouts and other options out, before comitting to sending to your entire mailing list.
Set a Preheader for your mass mailings in the Send a Message and Send a Webpage screens. Use the preheader to summarize, preview, and entice subscribers into reading the rest of your message.
The newly improved HTML email messages also support showing a logo, and list social media likns - these all can be set under Mailing List - List Information