From: Samer Bechara This is my first post on this mailing list, and hopefully it won't
be the last :) (make sure to post to: dadadev@dadamailproject com !) :)

1) How should I add the subscribers to the db, is it enough to
populate the dada_subscribers table, or is there anything else that
needs to be done? I am using the MySQL back end

It usually easy enough to just add it through the list control panel -
is this not working?

You can also add it via SQL, something like:

ALTER TABLE dada_subscribers  ADD COLUMN your_new_field TEXT

will do the trick (in 3 0 x)

2) When sending an email, the partial sending options are only
limited to "where" and "like" This is understandable as all the
subscriber field tags are being added as text However, I sometimes
need to email all subscribers who have a total transactions number
bigger than X, or whose birthday is during the next week In this
case, the text field isn't enough, we need a date and an integer
field for subscriber tags

I agree, it's limiting

I am willing to add this functionality to dadamail, however I need
some guidance What files are responsible for this functionality,
what documentation should I read, etc

It's a very large job ahead of you The 3 0 3 and 3 1 versions of Dada
Mail are extremely different in how they work with subscriber fields
I'd probably encourage you to fork off either of those versions in git:

3 0 3 http://github com/justingit/dada-mail-3 0 x/tree/master

3 1 http://github com/justingit/dada-mail/tree/feature-subscriber_editable_fields

The 3 1 version is in major flux and it would be very hard to fold
your changes into whatever becomes more stable The 3 0 3 is in no
flux, so it would be much easier to make your changes there, and then
use those changes as a proof of concept for 3 1

In 3 0 3, the places you'll want to look closely is the,
"create_mass_sending_file" method in
Dada::MailingList::Subscribers::baseSQL You should see lines that look
like this:

     if(keys %{$args{-partial_sending}}) {

             foreach (keys %{ $args{-partial_sending} }){
                 if($args{-partial_sending}->{$_}->{equal_to}){

                     $query 
= ' AND ' 
 $_ 
 ' = \'' 
 $args{- 

partial_sending}->{$}->{equalto} '\''; #carp 'QUERY: ' $query;

                 }
                 elsif($args{-partial_sending}->{$_}->{like}){

                     $query 
= ' AND ' 
 $_ 
 ' LIKE \'%' 
 $args{- 

partial_sending}->{$_}->{like} '%\'';

                 }
             }

         }

Which will need editing - but you can see how the query is built up -
very easy

There's a few calls to this subroutine and sadly, there's also code
around the program, especially in DADA::App::MassSend that massages
the paramaters passed to Dada Mail to work well with the
"create_mass_sending_file method", as well as the
"fancy_print_out_list" method in
DADA::MailingList::Subscribers::baseSQL Look in the
previewMessageReceivers() subroutine in the mail cgi file to see how
that's called

It's a pretty dragon-filled part of Dada Mail, sadly and something I'm
currently cleaning up a bit in 3 1, but it's still very scary, as I'm
not done with my cleanup

But please, by all means give it a shot! :)