Hi, we had a chat this morning about mailing solutions for Drupal.   If anyone is interested in doing development for mail solutions for Drupal please let me know.

To-do lists coming.

Thanks,
Kieran

Ok, let's get started

I'd like to start by going around the invitees talking about what your interest in mail for Drupal is.








drob____ joined the chat room.


My main goal is to introduce everybody and hope that we can develop some solutions collaboratively

drob___ we are just starting introductions

I'll start

My name is Kieran and I am the development manager for CivicSpace labs

we release mass mailer in our distribution

and we are integrating it with CiviCRM for our next major release

next











hand







dave-civicrm


go ahead











my name is dave greenberg

project manager for civicrm

we have two main thrusts







dave-civicrm



hand







drob____



one is that we want to make sure the civicrm core can be used for folks who want to

as the people/contacts datastore

for various mass mailing solutions in drupal

second is we are building a high capacity massmailer solution

for release later this year

based on the now open-souced EmailNow implementatoin which lobo, brian and others built

at Groundsrpring.org

done







dave-civicrm


drob











morning







drob____


go ahead











dan robinson  - civicactions

we're a prof'l services firm

using all this stuff for our customers

we are working on civicgroups

see my email for more info/background

done







drob____



hand







georgeh


go ahead











My name is George Hotelling and I'm working on porting http://www.citizenspeak.org/ to a Drupal node module

We're releasing the module under an OSI approved license (probably GPL) and want to make sure it's useful to as many people as possible







georgeh
chx joined the chat room.



hi all







chx


chx we are using hand system and doing introductions

georgeh: more?











So whatever techniques for scaling that the mass mailer projects come up with, I want to integrate with them to avoid wheel duplication

done







georgeh


next person?











hand







killes


go ahead











I am Gerhard Killesreiter, I am a Drupal IT consultant and working for CivicSpace on CivicRM integration for a few Drupal modules.

Among them the massmailer module.

I am also the maintainer of the listhandler module.l

done







killes
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next person











hand







MegaGrunt


go ahead











Robert Castelo [MegaGrunt] - I'm developing eNewsletter module, which packages nodes based on terms to create a personalised newsletter.

which has now been split up into component modules to handle various email tasks for any other Drupal modules which want to use them

done







MegaGrunt


next person











hand







chx


go ahead








drob____ is now known as drob.



I am Károly Négyesi (Charlie // chx) -- I am a core developer.

for now, that's it







chx


brian?

brian-civicrm











brian mcfee (civicrm).. dave pretty much said it all, but i'm working on the update/reimplementation of emailnow

(done)







brian-civicrm


great

ok, so I hope those introductions will lead to partnerships

Michael Haggerty won't be here today but will be reading transcripts

he has a professional mailing service that is bonded

get's 93% success rate

it's a service that many folks in the CS community would like to see integrated

Jo Lee from Citizen Speak isn't here yet

georgeh: do you want to describe what Citizen Speak does











Sure

Citizen Speak is a non-profit that allows organizations to create email forms with pre-selected recipients and pre-filled content

Basically a small, free version of CapWiz







georgeh


ok thanks











The goal is to allow organizations to create advocacy campaigns on specific subjects to people who can make change

done







georgeh


thanks

So killes is doing development on mass mailer which uses php list

php list is a php based mailing solution that should give better performanance than the php mail function











hand







killes


we have had problems getting it installed on hosts

killes

go ahead











I just want to suggest that everybody who has it reads the mail from Michael Haggerty from yesterday.







killes



hand







drob



it isnot onyl about sending x mails /hour

it is also about how many of those actually get through to the recipient.

done







killes


drob go ahead











not sure which email - i just saw one about the "agenda"

i have two issues i would like to deal with in the nearterm

a) can we use phplist to do "listserve" i can explain later

b) why don't we just let "phplist: be phplist" i can explain this as well if you want to go there

done







drob



hand







killes


georgeh and MegaGrunt: how can we make mass mailer useful for you

killes: go ahead











to drob: a) I am not sure phplist can do that. We need to check this. I was under the impression it is just a announcemnet type mailign list thing.

b) people apparently want the integration.

done







killes


georgeh or MegaGrunt?











georgeh is gathering his thoughts







georgeh



what functionality does MassMailer have that is not tied into PHPList?







MegaGrunt



hand







killes


killes











i.e. take PHPLIst away and what is left?







MegaGrunt


go ahead











massmailer itself does do much.

doesn't







killes



hand







MegaGrunt



it is just the Drupal glue that you need to get list management screens and so on.

the advantage of massmailer is that you can have also other backends than phplist.







killes



hand







georgeh


MegaGrunt go ahead











everybody can have an account on my testsite and check massmailer out.

done







killes


sorry

georgeh your in queue











the functionality of PHPList is locked into PHPList







MegaGrunt










killes



can't be leveraged

by other modules

done







MegaGrunt



hand







drob



hand







killes


georgeh go ahead

drob then killes











me?







drob


georgeh go ahea











What I would need from MassMailer is an API doc saying "this function will send mail" and some thing saying how to plan for scaling

That may exist, but I haven't seen it

done







georgeh


drob

go ahead











my understanding is that the phplist team is currently working to separate their front-end from their back-end

also it looks like if you look at the phplist engine

that the api's are pretty straight forward

but my question is why we expose a management interface to phplist at all

i think i would be happy as a clam

if if could just populate the db from cs

and then use phplist to manage my mails

they have a nice welll worked out mgmt interface

done







drob



ok, now me again.







killes


killes, brian-civicrm comments











MegaGrunt: you are wrong, massmailer is the tool to leverage phplist.

georgeh: those apis are there.







killes



hand







MegaGrunt


MegaGrunt: go ahead











drob: we shoudl get into touch with the phplist maintainers. I know that Aaron was.







killes



but no other module can leverage tasks like bounce handling







MegaGrunt



I think that the future massmailer version will use civicrm much more than massmailer used contact manager and so some stuff might go away.







killes



?







MegaGrunt



hand







drob



there is currently no bounce handling implemented in massmailer.







killes



hand







brian-civicrm



but phplist has this feature,.

done







killes


MegaGrunt you want to respond, killes, then brian











but I mean for instance, ecommerce module can't react to bounce back after sending

sale confirmation

via PHLIst bounce handling?

done







MegaGrunt


killes











no, because massmailer does not yet provide the interface.

done







killes


brian-civicrm











i'm not too familiar with phplist (maybe dave can chime in?), but we have a pretty extensive set of bounce handling tools leftover from the old emailnow.  much of it is currently in perl, but i'd be interested in working with other people to open it up and abstract it

done







brian-civicrm


chx: could Drupal have mail interface in core?

long term











hm

depends







chx



I think it could, there have been discussions about it.







killes



currently it has an SMTP interface

as core itself does not mass mail, this seems to be enough







chx



hand







MegaGrunt


MegaGrunt











hand







killes



not just bounce handling, but all other email related tasks

they are all locked away in the third party application

unless we expose them, or write our own component modules to handle specific tasks

done







MegaGrunt
geilhufe joined the chat room.


killes: go ahea

d











chx: I think there will be this subscription module

by your SoC student.

if Dries will use it on drupal.org, how long do you think it will take that it is in drupal cor?e ;)

done







killes



hand







drob



hand







chx


drob











i have to go pretty soon

i would like to know if we can move forward

on anything in short term

as i said i think it would

make sense to contact the

phplist folks

and clean up the use of the "engine"

also would like to talk about using the phplist management interface instead

of using drupal parrallel interface

also the issue regarding Listserve capability

done







drob


chx

and then let's make some plans going forward











ok

so, that SoC applicant will not focus much on mailing itself

he concentrates on "subscription"

like you can subscribe on watchdog and such







chx


chx?











done, sorry







chx


Ok list of tasks

1) get mass mailer API to MegaGrunt and georgeh

2)talk to phplist, drob or killes?

3)Look at a larger API drob and brian-civicrm and killes

that's all suggestions











hand







drob


drob











what do people think about simply using phplist to do management?

is that what you mean in 3)

done







drob


brian-civicrm: is there an interest is integrating your mailing solution into Drupal or just CiviCRM











hand







dave-civicrm


go ahead











our mailing solution will be tied to CiviCRM

but CIviCRM should be open to be used for contact and group storage for 'any' mailer solution

for our solution - there will be lots of linkages between the mailer actions and the contact datastore

so we don't think it will be separable







dave-civicrm



hand







brian-civicrm


hand

go ahead











hand







georgeh


georgeh in queue

brian-civicrm go ahead

ok georgeh go ahead











If someone could point me to CiviCRM API docs that would be nice too, I'd like to look at any ways to integrate CitizenSpeak with CiviCRM where it makes sense


I'd looked for API docs but didn't see them







georgeh



irc needs one of those aim "person is typing" icons..







brian-civicrm



done







georgeh


sorry brian-civicrm

go ahead











in addition to what dave said about our solution being integrated to civicrm, we're also trying to not rely on much other code for mail delivery.  much of what we do happens at the mta level

done







brian-civicrm



hand







drob


Ok, another meeting in the future? or follow up on email? I have to get going in 5 minutes

drob

go ahead











yes is there an email list?  i can set one up if you want

done







drob


I'd like to see the traffic on Drupal-dev if possible

see who else might show up











hand







drob


go ahead











ok so could you set up the discussion on drupal-dev with an email







drob


Yes, but not until tonight

is that okay?











k

done







drob


Anyone else?











hand







MegaGrunt


MegaGrunt

go ahead











I'd like to chat about coding in future

or via email

stratergies for scalability

and such like

done







MegaGrunt


Anyone else?











hand







dave-civicrm


go ahead











we'll be posting spec, progress etc. on our confluence site

and will include info about architecture, scaling methods etc

so we can post periodic updates to drupal-dev if that would be useful







dave-civicrm


Yes











also would like to f/up w/ drob on his idea for just pushing DB stuff from CS to phplist

and understand that better

so - i can start that conversation after you announce start stuff on drupal-dev

done







dave-civicrm


Anyone else?

Ok thanks everybody, please feel free to contact each other about common interested

I'll post this transcript and some follow ups to drupal dev

please feel free to send me parts that you want me to conclude, to make sure I cover everything

thanks everyone

bye