Hello everyone,

Here's the first, very rough release of v4 9 0 of Dada Mail This release has all the feature branches I've been working on merged together (mass sending optimizations, HTML::Template::Pro additions, Amazon SES optimizations, new Date/Time tags, and the bounce handler changes) + the bugfixes in 4 8 4

Download: https://github com/downloads/justingit/dada-mail/dada-4_9_0-alpha1 tar gz

uncompress_dada cgi script: https://github com/justingit/dada-mail/raw/v4_9_0-alpha1_2011_11_21/uncompress_dada cgi

Docs: http://dadamailproject com/support/documentation-4_9_0-alpha1/

The changelog is below This version is not ready for prime-time, so don't use it on your production server But, if you're following a feature, or would like to help out, I would appreciate any testing and feedback There's a ton of changes over a lot of different parts of Dada Mail I can use any help you can contribute:

4 9 0 This release is currently in ALPHA and there are many unknown bugs Many Probably

Please do not use in a production environment Only use for testing purposes

Summary 4 9 0 This release focuses on many parts of Dada Mail to optimize performance Benefits of all this work include faster mass sending speeds Potentially must faster

• Sending performance has been optimized Less memory used, faster template parsing

• Amazon SES sending performance has also been improved

• New time and date template tags available

• HTML::Template::Pro support Added

• Bounce Handler improvements, including per-list preferences and a "bounce score decay" feature

  Features 4 9 0 Bounce Handler Bounce Handler preferences, including the Soft Bounce Score, Hard Bounce Score and Score Threshold are now set per mailing list, instead of having to be set in the global config

  Bounce Scores can now, decay, or be reduced every time a mass mailing is sent out This is to help minimize scores from email addresses that temporarily have had problems with delivery, but are otherwise valid email addresses An email address's bounce score will also now be automatically removed, if the score goes at or below, 0

  The Bounce Scorecard is now presented on the main screen for the bounce handler, instead of being shown on a separate screen Navigating the scorecard is now a little more intuitive, as well

  HTML::Template::Pro support, Faster Template Rendering "HTML::Template::Pro" renders the templates that Dada Mail uses throughout the app, including HTML screens and custom email messages, much faster than what's included with Dada Mail ("HTML::Template") "HTML::Template::Pro" will need to be installed separately

  See the features doc on "HTML::Template::Pro" for more information:

  Faster sending using Amazon SES Dada Mail now uses a persistent HTTP connection when talking with Amazon SES This can speed up sending by 3 - 7 seconds/message

  New Template Tags for Date/Time Dada Mail now has support for various simple Date and Time formats to use in HTML and Email templates, as well support for more flexible/advanced "strftime" formats:

  New import script, dada_archives_backup_to_sql pl This script allows you to import archive data from the backup of a DB File, to the SQL backend This helps if your DB Files are corrupted/incompatible with your current server environment

  Changes 4 9 0 Documentation Updates A new/update entry in the General FAQ, Tuning Dada Mail to Send Mass Mailings Faster:

  CPAN Module Changes and Updates LWP unbundled The "LWP" group of Perl modules is no longer available with Dada Mail "LWP" is used for such things as, Send a Webpage and some web services, like Amazon SES You will have to install "LWP" yourself Most shared hosting companies will have this already installed, for you

  MIME::Tools upgraded to v5 502 This upgrade to MIME::Tools has a very positive improvement on sending speed