208 lines
8.0 KiB
Plaintext
208 lines
8.0 KiB
Plaintext
How to Send Customized E-Mail
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So you wish to send out customized e-mail to many people? Please reconsider
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doing that, if it is unwanted spam. Still want to do it? Here's one way of
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doing it:
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Save your message text in a file named "TemplateLetter.txt". It should look
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something like this (I didn't word wrap the paragraphs, leaving each as one
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long line, because the length would change depending on the inserted text
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length):
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Hi there NAME, how are you today?
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I'm sending this message to EMAIL to inform you about a good deal for your company, COMPANY.
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Hope you like it.
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- Alex
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Then save this following text as a script file, call it "MailToTemplate":
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#!/bin/sh
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# Make a mail merge letter by combining data from a given people file and a
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# template letter text file.
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# $Revision: 1.2 $
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# Some code from Scot Hacker's PeoplePorter http://www.bebits.com/app/1747
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PeopleFile=$1
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echo "Mail merging using people file: $PeopleFile"
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Name=$(catattr META:name "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)
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EMail=$(catattr META:email "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)
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Company=$(catattr META:company "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)
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sed "s/NAME/$Name/g" <TemplateLetter.txt >/tmp/stage1
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sed "s/EMAIL/$EMail/g" </tmp/stage1 >/tmp/stage2
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sed "s/COMPANY/$Company/g" </tmp/stage2 >/tmp/stage3
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mail -v -s "Test Message to $Name" "$EMail" </tmp/stage3
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After you have saved it, make it executable with the "chmod a+x MailToTemplate"
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command. Then run it with a people file as an argument:
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Fri Jun 13 12:13:11 67 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Test\ Person
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Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Test Person
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EOT
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sent successfully!
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And the result will be an e-mail like this:
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Subject: Test Message to Mr. Test A. Person
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To: test@be.com
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Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0400 EDT
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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Hi there Mr. Test A. Person, how are you today=3F
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I'm sending this message to test@be.com to inform you about a good deal for your company, Masters of Scripting, Inc..
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Hope you like it.
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- Alex
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If you want to use the BeOS attribute indices system to select people, you can
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run the results of a query though the mail customizing script like this example
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(watch out - very long line) which sends the e-mail to all people (presumably
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the people files are on the /boot disk volume, which is why the -v is needed)
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with "test" in their groups listing:
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Fri Jun 13 12:24:14 78 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>query -v /boot META:group=*test* | sed "s/^/MailToTemplate /g" >/tmp/BatchMailCommands ; source /tmp/BatchMailCommands
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Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Test Person
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EOT
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sent successfully!
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Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Another Test
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EOT
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sent successfully!
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Just so you know how it works, here is the batch commands file which was
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automatically generated and used in the previous step:
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Fri Jun 13 12:24:20 79 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>cat /tmp/BatchMailCommands
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MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Test\ Person
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MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Another\ Test
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Finally, if you want to do fancier messages, like HTML mixed ones, you have to
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also specify the headers. Since the usual "mail" program doesn't let you do
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that, you have to prepare the entire message and use the attribute system to
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tag it for mailing. Look at an existing message in your out box to see the
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attributes needed.
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Prepare the message elsewhere (use some other e-mail package which lets you
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insert HTML and pictures) then mail it to yourself, open the resulting file in
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BeIDE (it takes care of the CRLF end of line conversion problems automatically,
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you want this template file to have CRLF line ends, the earlier example doesn't
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use them) and edit it to make it into a new message like this one:
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To: "NAME" <EMAIL>
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From: "Imaginary Test Account" <test@be.com>
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Subject: Hi there NAME
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: multipart/related;
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type="multipart/alternative";
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boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080"
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080
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Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
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boundary="----=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080"
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------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080
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Content-Type: text/plain;
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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Hi NAME, this is a reminder that you shouldn't annoy people with [No Spam Icon] spam!
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Fine print: Even if it is customised and otherwise pretty.
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------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080
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Content-Type: text/html;
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>This is your Spam!</TITLE></HEAD>
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<BODY BGCOLOR=3DWHITE>
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<P>Hi NAME, this is a <STRONG>reminder</STRONG> that <FONT COLOR=3DBLUE SIZE=3D5>you</FONT>
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<STRONG>shouldn't</STRONG> annoy <FONT COLOR=3DRED>people</FONT> with
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<IMG alt=3D"[No Spam Icon]" WIDTH=3D32 HEIGHT=3D32
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SRC=3D"cid:000801c331cb$88136380$42ae10ac@be.com"
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BORDER=3D0> spam!
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<HR>
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<P><FONT size=3D1>Fine print: Even if it is customised and otherwise
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pretty.</FONT>
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</BODY></HTML>
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------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080--
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------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080
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Content-Type: image/png;
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name="NoSpamIcon.png"
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
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Content-ID: <000801c331cb$88136380$42ae10ac@be.com>
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iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgCAYAAABzenr0AAABTElEQVR42r2XDQ6DMAhGuVPvtHP0
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GN5ph2KpqY5QoF/xx4Rs2UzfAysKMXAQUSqgtREwJwMRoQhuLVon4YksCVAAnh2eiCdBMzgKRkQs
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CZrBrxwEVILehFsS9BbcuxyDwGPwvi8GgTuzj+BaQPQJ/J6ddUcLrjtjvSpwLrZ9mL/bHmHm7bwe
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pPbCIGDepzqLDm1RgswlmEv5f4oqhAIW8IyefQjv553VavAeoYALFiUP4fJ8HYiABhfx2/F9mrkU
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VnC5D3wBla1cFMo8KP9yBaDdLs4pcgMem2+pAn2xomQ8eAGvu9UL4AqEZQ+gGqw74v6f2aOR3Q5A
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rb4yNKJIAG4yQbbLArzQ21ffgk2OZ8Y3vyO4j2PP7km4KeBJPAk334prYrjIwt25oCanHPkUTb2W
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zyQYmQcXpyPKTDmZGTE1nGqR+uZweseojhw/XAq+WQDwT5wAAAAASUVORK5CYII=
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------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080--
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Then in the mailing script, rather than calling "mail" to do the job, you have
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to add attributes to the final file. Some you can clone from another outgoing
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mail (like the chain), others you need to set to specify the recipient. Here's
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the current full set:
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Type Size Name
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---------- --------- -------------------------------
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MIME str 13 BEOS:TYPE
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Text 46 MAIL:recipients
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Text 43 MAIL:to
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Text 1 MAIL:cc
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Text 42 MAIL:subject
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Text 1 MAIL:reply
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Text 46 MAIL:from
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Text 4 MAIL:mime
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Text 18 MAIL:account
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0x54494d45 4 MAIL:when
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Int-32 4 MAIL:flags
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Int-32 4 MAIL:chain
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Text 5 MAIL:status
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You need at the minimum:
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BEOS:TYPE set to: text/x-email
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MAIL:recipients lists the address you are sending to, for example: <test@be.com>
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MAIL:from lists your return address: "Imaginary Test Account" <test@be.com>
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MAIL:chain set to your outgoing mail chain number, happens to be 1 here.
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MAIL:flags set to 5.
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The commands to do that look like:
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addattr -t string BEOS:TYPE text/x-email /tmp/stage3
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addattr -t string MAIL:recipients "<$EMail>" /tmp/stage3
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addattr -t string MAIL:from "\"Imaginary Test Account\" <test@be.com>" /tmp/stage3
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addattr -t int MAIL:chain 1 /tmp/stage3
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addattr -t int MAIL:flags 5 /tmp/stage3
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Then move the message to the /boot/home/mail/out folder, using a unique name,
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since there has to be one file for each person. A suitable command might be:
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mv /tmp/stage3 "/boot/home/mail/out/MessageTo$EMail"
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Finally, tell the daemon to check for mail. Right click on the mailbox icon in
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the deskbar and pick "check for mail". It will then send all the pending mail.
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