Hello Everyone,

Dada Mail 4 4 0 alpha 1 has been released It's (probably) a very unstable version, so don't use it for production work, but please, if you can, give it a test drive and let me know if you find any glaring problems I'm hoping to actually release a stable version within the week, so there won't be any new features, just fixing the bugs I (or you) find

Download: https://github com/downloads/justingit/dada-mail/dada-4_4_0-alpha1 tar gz

uncompress_dada cgi (Save Page/Link As ) https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/raw/v4_4_0_alpha1-2011_01_31/uncompress_dada cgi

Below is the changelog for v4 4 0 alpha 1 -

http://dadamailproject com/support/documentation-4_4_0-alpha1/changes_4_x pod html#4_4_0

Changes 4 4 0

Closed-Loop Opt-In Subscription Not Enforced by Default, Anymore

In v4 3 0, Closed-Loop Opt-In Subscription model was applied in Dada Mail to mailing list by default and by default you were not able to change these list settings to tailor it to your needs, without first changing the config variable, $ENFORCE_CLOSED_LOOP_OPT_IN to, 0

It was also noted that in future versions of Dada Mail, features that did not conform to Closed-Loop Opt In would be removed from Dada Mail

The, $ENFORCE_CLOSED_LOOP_OPT_IN variable is now shipped with a value of, 0 by default, making Dada Mail's behavior the same as pre-4 3 0 versions of Dada Mail

We're also opening up the dialogue to all users of Dada Mail on how they see is the best way to balance power and versatility of Dada Mail, with accountability and adherence of the rules of a legitimate mailing list We will put on hold the plan to deprecate these features, until we got more feedback from the users of Dada Mail Please join the discussion:

http://dadamailproject com/support/boards/viewtopic php?f=25&t=2457

Code Cleanup

Code cleanup has trimmed 500+ lines from the mail cgi file Many of the changes can be seen from moving from theDADA::MailingList::Settings::save method to the, DADA::MailingList::Settings::save_w_params method and from moving from the DADA::Templates::Widgets::screen sub to the DADA::Templates::Widgets::wrap_screen sub

Dada Bridge: Reply and Reply-All Behavior

Dada Bridge has simplified some of its options to make it more inline with other discussion mailing list apps, when it comes to discussion lists You now have two choices:

Have replies always be addressed to the mailing list (with an option to reply-all), or, Have replies addressed to the discussion list

Template System: initial "tmpl_set support", template wrapping

There's initial support for what's called the, tmpl_set template tag, that basically allows you to set a variable within your template, to be used somewhere else within your template

This is interesting when coupled with initial support with wrapping one template, with another

In one way, Dada Mail already supports this - many template screens you see use either the default list template, or the default admin template and add content to another template inside it

Internally, this was done in a very kludgey way and has now been cleaned up There could be a potential for a 33% speedup for screen creation (which is nice)

What has also been cleaned up is a problem with the title of many HTML screens in Dada Mail being saved within the program files itself You can now set the title of the HTML screen from within the template that gets wrapped You'll see a line like this near the top of many of the templates:

Since moving to this way of setting the title for HTML screens, many, many of the templates have been changed If you've made custom changes to the templates, you will want to do a diff on your version, with the version that ships with Dada Mail

AJAX: internal changes

Many instances of using a package called, CGI::Ajax (http://search cpan org/dist/CGI-Ajax/) has been replaced to use prototype(http://www prototypejs org/)

The only place that CGI::Ajax is still being used is in the, ajax_include_subscribe cgi extension - and we'll most likely remove it from there, soon as well

Mailing Monitor: AJAX

The Mailing Monitor in the list control panel is now refreshed via AJAX, so that only a portion of the screen you see needs to be updated, instead of a refresh of the entire screen This seems to make things appear much more snappy

Subscription/Unsubscription Custom URL Redirect API Change

If there's an error with a subscription/unsubscription request, Dada Mail would add a list of the errors it came across by passing them in query string with a paramater named, errors This name has been changed to, errors[] to help out php folk This is tied to this bug:

https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/issues#issue/109

Web Services Examples

Examples for initiating a subscription request have been updated and added to Currently there are server/client examples in SOAP and REST There's also a command line example Profile Fields are now support for all clients and servers

The example scripts can be found in the distro, at:

dada/extras/scripts/subscribe

Documentation can be found at:

dada/extras/documentation/pod_source/COOKBOOK-subscriptions pod dada/extras/documentation/html_version/COOKBOOK-subscriptions pod html

Test Mass Mailings, Mail Merging

If the email address you're using has a profile, its fields ("First Name", "Last Name", etc) will be used in test mass mailings, instead of not using any fields This is also true if the list owner email has their own profile

Bug Fixes 4 4 0

• Sending Test Messages does not pick up on any profile fields of the test recipients email address

https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/111

• Beatitude: Yearly repeating schedules repeat in less than a year

https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/110

• Multiple use of parameters in redirect to URL

https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/109

• Discussion List Reply/Reply-All behaviour is broken

https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/96