Hello everyone,

Really really soon now, I'd like to do the following:

Release Dada Mail 3 0 1

3 0 1 is a bug-fix only release of Dada Mail and comprises as many
bugfixes from the snapshots I've been posting as possible, without
touching the html templates, configuration or outside configuration
examples in any real way and doesn't change the public API of Dada
Mail This is to make upgrading as easy and painless as possible, in
hopes that a whole lot of people will upgrade

Release Dada Mail 3 1 0 alpha 1

This'll be essentially the same as the snapshot I just posted The
3 1 0 version is mixed feature release/bugfix release and is currently
very much in beta The program itself currently is very stable, but
the documentation isn't up to speed (as happens)

Start the Features Fundraiser

Like I did for the multiple fields feature WAY back in 200 5?, I'd
like to have another fundraiser to help offset the cost of adding new
features in Dada Mail The cost is basically for hiring me to work
full time on this, for, well, still peanuts (I'm guess, around $10/ hour for a month's time) I've culled some of the top-requested
features and some of my "really would like to have" features in the
list below

The idea is kinda simple:

* The fundraiser is looking for at least $1,000
 That's an easy thing  

to hit

* People who donate to the fundraiser, also will be allowed to vote  

on which feature they'd like most to be added into Dada Mail

* If I can fundraise *more* than $1,000, I'll add the second most  

requested feature from the list and go down the list of popularity, for each $1,000 I can raise

Each feature is slated to take at least a month to deliver in a beta
state Like I said, that basically means I work full time+ for $10/ hour for a month, or a little more than half time for $20/hour This
is chump change for programming efforts - I made more as an intern
when I was 18 (green hair and all), so I hope people don't think I'm
trying to be money-grubbing What I hope to do is make Dada Mail a lot
more economical for me to work on, without having new features be non- existent in the program

It's still possible to voice your opinion on the features listed
below If I can add to the list, or clarify what any of the features
mean, or just open this up to general discussion, I'd like to do this
now, since I'd like to announce all this, Real Soon

Thanks everyone - here's the list of features (major features are
preceded with a heading that starts with a, "*"):

• Multiple Fields: Subscriber-Editable Fields Currently, Dada Mail supports adding/editing/deleting of arbitrary
  subscriber fields

It also supports the list owner logging into the list control panel
and editing the subscriber information, on a per-subscriber basis

Dada Mail currently does not support the actual subscriber to edit
it's own subscriber information and we'd like to add that feature into
Dada Mail

This would also mean we'd have to overhaul the session management part
of Dada Mail to not only support admin sessions for the list owner,
but to also support sessions for individual users

Once completed, individual subscribers will be able to edit their own
subscription information, add/edit/remove themselves from mailing
lists their subscribed from and view other meta information about
their current subscriptions

We'd also like to have more advanced web-based features available for
subscribers, once logged into Dada Mail, including the option to
posting and replying to discussion list messages from within your web
browser, having the archive accessible to subscribers only

• Multiple Fields: Meta Information Currently, multiple fields only allow you to set a name and fallback
  value, per field

We'd like to extend these features to include various meta-data about
the field itself For example, we'd like the option to allow you to
set if a field is optional or required and what sort of HTML form
field should be presented to the would-be subscriber, when they fill
out the form itself

• Sending Mailing List Messages: Preview

There's currently no way to preview a mailing list message, before you
send it

We'd like to add one that works really well and is incredibly easy to
use

We'd like this previewer to allow you work well with the subscriber
fields and the advanced Dada Mail templating language, so you can see
exactly and instantaneously what your advanced if/unless/loop blocks
do to the customized message you're creating

• Dada Bridge: Rules Currently, Dada Bridge isn't completely flexible on letting you
  specify arbitrary and complex rules when it comes to the email
  messages it handles

We'd like to add in Mail Rules, similiar to Apple's Mail app
application, where you can have Dada Bridge look for specific criteria
in messages it receives (who, specifically it's from, specific text it
may have, if the message contains attachments) and, depending on the
criteria met, have Dada Bridge to something specific to the message
(broadcast to the list, reject, flag it for moderation, strip out
attachments, forward to another address, etc)

• Dada Bridge: Moderation Enhancements Currently, the moderation system is slightly less than rough It
  works, but is a little kludgey We'd like to make it much more easy to
  use, extendable and convenient

Currently, The options for moderation look something like this:

[ ] Use Moderation Messages sent to your discussion list will have to
be approved by the List Owner

[ ] Send a Rejection Message The original poster will receive a
message stating that the message was rejected Fairly spartan

We'd like to extend the functionality to include:

[ ] Use Moderation Messages sent to your discussion list will have to be approved Send moderation accept/reject messages to:

 [ ] the list owner (recommended)
 [ ] A separate Moderation list ( View/Add )
 [ ] A random pool of subscribers
     Randomly pick [-- 5 --] Subscribers
     to moderate

[ ] Moderate messages sent by non-subscribers

[ ] Allow moderator list to send messages to the entire list

 [ ] Send messages sent by a moderator to all moderators

[ ] Send a Message Received Confirmation Message The original poster will receive a message stating that the
message has been received, but need moderating

[ ] Send an Acceptance Message The original poster will receive a message stating that the message was accepted

[ ] Send a Rejection Message The original poster will receive a message stating that the message was rejected

• Mass Mailing Enhancements

Auto-Ajusting Batch Settings Currently, Dada Mail's batch settings work by sending the specified
amount of messages, and then waiting the specified amount of time It
can then only be estimated how long a mailing could take

This leads to a lot of confustion as people find that sending one
message could take a few seconds, and their mailing time is much
longer than expected

It seems like a small feature, but it would be wonderful to be able to
tell Dada, Hey, if we're not sending up to the allowable limit,
let's skip the next, ''x rest periods, until we're back on track

It would also be nice to bring back batch notifications via email in
some way/shape or form

• Bundle FCKeditor within Dada Mail

It may be possible to somehow bundle FCKeditor within Dada Mail, for a
installation-free support FCKeditor will, ``just be available''

• Smart Groups/Save Partial Sending Options Being able to save a set of your subscribers, based on a saved query
  of your subscriber fields would be incredibly helpful to help keep
  track of various activities of your mailing list

Smart Groups can be created/edited/delete and Smart Groups can be used
to view a specific part of your mailing list

• SOAP Server/Client API

Currently, it's not very easy to work with a Dada Mail mailing list
from an outside application A SOAP API will allow a platform and
language neutral way to access part of the Dada Mail API

Some major subsets of the Dada MAil API that could be useful in the
SOAP API include administration duties, such as Sending a List
Message, adding subscribers en-mass, import/exporting a subscription
list and handling archived messages

The SOAP API could also be useful to add features of Dada Mail into
your own application that deal with individual users, such as
validating a subscription and subscribing/unsubscribing a subscriber

We're hoping to work on the server-side part of this, with a fully
documented API and hopefully, a very simple client example

• Envelope Sending

Envelope sending allows you to send one message to a specific domain
that will go to more than one user of that domain

This allows you to send out a mailing list message to your entire
subscriber list very fast, since you could, in theory, only have to
send a tenth of the messages you currently do now This would cut down
your sending time also by a tenth of what it would currently take

The downside of envelope sending is that you would lose absolutely all
your mail merging capabilities and each message would have to be
generic This comprimise may be worth it, if raw speed is important to
you If you have a discussion list, the mail merging capabilities may
just be a moot feature anyways

• Click through Tracking Enhancements The Click through Tracker plugin currently tracks the following:

  � How many times certain urls are clicked on in your list messages � How many times a message is opened � How many subscribers are present every time a message is sent � ``Hard'' email Bounces We'd like to extend the tracking to include Subscriptions and
  Unsubscriptions

We would also like to have the addition of graphing features in Dada
Mail, so you can graph the data that's saved in the clickthrough
tracker logs in practically any way you'd like

• Dada Mail Installer

Currently, there is no installer for Dada Mail - you have to, albeit
minimally, edit Dada Mail's source file's manually to get Dada Mail
installed

Installation should be as easy as uploaded the files to your hosting
account, changing the permissions of one or two files and visiting a
script in your web-browser that will then go through the steps needed
to complete the installation process in a wizard-style, step oriented
way, much like applications, like Joomla, Wordpress or Moveable Type

The installer should be able to configure Dada Mail using any of the
backends, including any of the SQL backends, as well as some of the
plugins and extensions that are included in Dada Mail, but currently
have to be installed separately of Dada Mail itself

• Make Templates Easier to Work With Most all HTML in Dada Mail is separate from the actual Perl code, but
  it's still not as accessible as it could be

We'd like to have the template files completely separate from the Perl
program part of Dada Mail to allow easier editing and theming Instead
of the template files almost hidden far in the program itself, they
should simply be in a directory you upload into your public_html
directory on your hosting account

This would also allow a much richer application experience, as
currently, images cannot be used in Dada Mail in a big way for layout
and design

We'd also like to make a web-based editor for these templates

Finally, we'd also like to make all Email Message templates exist
outside of the Dada Mail program code an as easy to edit as the HTML
screens

• Under the Hood: Move Dada Mail to a mature Web Framework

Dada Mail does not use an underlying web framework This is fine on
its own, but it does mean that development focuses on features
specifically to Dada Mail, as well as common features that most
complex web applications have to create This includes session
management, security issues, database interfaces, plugin schemes, AJAX- stuff, form and data validation and a whole bunch of other things that
users of a program may never see on the surface of a program, but can
make a big difference in making sure an application, like Dada Mail,
is easy to add features to and keep bug-free

The web application framework I suggest using is CGI::Application:

http://cgi-app org/

• Under the Hood: SQL backend for Mailing Monitor

The Mailing Monitor keeps track of your Mass Mailings It's fairly
complex and it's backend is created simply using the filesytem - it's
a bunch of files and directories

In the name of performance and stability, we'd love to port this to an
SQL backend No new features would initially be added, but the added
stability of the SQL backend should help things, such as corrupted
mass mailings, given that we have very interesting tools, such as
table/row locking and transaction support in the various SQL backends

• Under the Hood: Make Dada Mail mod_perl compatible

mod_perl runs a web application, like Dada Mail in a completely
persistent environment, which can dramatically increase performance of
the web application in a busy server environment

• Under the Hood: Making Dada Mail Completely Unicode Compatible

Making a program completely unicode compatible is hard But, we'd like
to do that

100% Unicode support would help Dada Mail achieve fantastic language
support