[drupal-devel] Chat about mailing solutions with CivicSpace/Drupal

Sat Jul 16 03:53:31 UTC 2005

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
luksedj left the chat room.

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

(http://civicrm.civicspacelabs.com /home/ <== testsite)

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

My email is george at hotelling.net

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

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