mailinglist

Does anybody know how to create those mailinglists that every decent site has on its pages? I know that I can send a mail to a lot of people with outlook or something, but then you can see all those people's adresses...someone once told me you could do that in php...does anybody know a tutorial on that, or a suggestion how to make that???


thanks,
CyberoX

well, the easiest way to handle it requires a couple things.

1) You need to have a mail server - SMTP or Sendmail, depending on the servers OS.
2) A script, php,coldfusion, perl or xml to process the info they enter and add them to the list, then send them an email message to notify them that they have been added.


Or, you could just have the form processed where the mail server sends you an email with a specific subject for joining the mailing list and take thier email addy and add it to your address book, then when you send out your info, just send it to that part of the address book in outlook/outlook express.

try here for some info on php forms processing

http://www.melonn.com/tut.php?id=9

-- 1) You need to have a mail server - SMTP or Sendmail, depending on the servers OS.

Does any server have that service or not?

-- 2) A script, php,coldfusion, perl or xml to process the info they enter and add them to the list, then send them an email message to notify them that they have been added.

can you do it using asp too? so basically, you should make a form for an emailadres that comes into a database and then you send a mail to everyone in that database..that's the idea, no?


thx, for the reaction

You need to have a mail component on the server and SMPT. That's what oblivious meant, but it's a little hard to explain. You have the basic concept right. You would insert into a DB then select distinct email from it and send it to those people.

If you need ASP code talk to me on AIM - tsg1985 or MSN - thespacegeek@passport.com . I have a few sampes of how I have done it there.

http://mojo.skazat.com/

seemed like a pretty good one to me...

yeah thats a good one pank.

There are a couple steps to setting it up.

1- you need a mail server that can do SMTP or Sendmail. This will handle the mailbox for the mailing list account, etc.
2- you need listserv software. Thats the link that pank just gave you. It doesnt do any mail management, but it manages your list for you buy talking to the email server to send and recieve emails, as well as archiving old messages incase someone needs to get them to read them.
3- you will need to set up a form that will take any information you want the member to submit. Usually, this is good enough with just thier email address, and allow them to decide on the personal details the reveal by sending a greeting to the mailing list.
4- you will need some type of script that will collect the information from the form (mentioned above), and then send it to the listserv software. Then the listserv software will perform its own work on the information and send the person a 'welcome' message.

the script in part 4 will most likely come along with your listserv software, as it will need to call specific funtions of the listserv and mailserver. *crossing fingers*

I hope this explains what I meant. Try the link that pank gave you. The package is very easy to install and configure from what I saw in the help files.

thx for the help guys... now I have at least something to go on for the moment... if i have any other questions regarding the subject, I'll be posting it here;..

thanks, CyberoX