ezmlm help

[jack]

I'm setting up a newsletter facility using ezmlm on an older account where I've never used ezmlm before. A few questions:
- when I create a new list, am I getting the latest ezmlm-idx?
- is it just me, or are the ezmlm tutorials in knowledge base out of date?
(several things described there don't appear to match what I'm seeing)
- where is the relevant text/ folder to edit pages sent by ezmlm?

the folder at /big/dom/xDOMAIN/USERNAME/newslettername/text in my newsletter is blank -- what gives?

This is a test site, so I subscribed to the newsletter with a couple of email addresses, it went through the opt-in and approval processes, and I sent a test newsletter, which was distributed just fine.

Several years ago I set up a still functioning newsletter using Webscriber, but there were some issues with using it in Wordpress that neither Kohan or I wanted to deal with, although we got it working there is one instance.

I might use Webscriber again, but wanted to try running just ezmlm, but neither the FQ knowledgebase nor the ezmlm.org documents seem to match - or in my case be much help.

help.
Thanks, Jack

[jack]

Never mind.... I just looked in the new newsletter page in CNC and found the page to edit the text files...how embarrassing...

When am I going to learn you guys are waaay ahead of me and include help hints everywhere!!!

Now, about those pages in the Knowledge base.... I think they still imply having to edit the text files somewhere else, right?

Jack

[Bob]

Jack,

ezmlm-idx has the ability to edit the text contents of messages within the Mailing List Manager, from the Management page for a specific list you will see:
Edit listname Text Files
Edit listname Subject Lines

-Bob

[Melissa]

Now, about those pages in the Knowledge base.... I think they still imply having to edit the text files somewhere else, right?

Hi Jack,

Where specifically are you seeing this? There are many ways to work with lists in a manual fashion and you will certainly see this reflected on the ezmlm.org site (FutureQuest doesn't own ezmlm, we just use the software).

In the first paragraph in the "Managing and Customizing Your ezmlm-idx Mailing List" kb article (http://service.FutureQuest.net/kb141), we mention that:
Many customizations can be made to your ezmlm-idx mailing lists by using the CNC Mailing Lists Manager. For example, the CNC makes it easy to modify the subject lines and body text of your administrative messages, add a subject prefix to all messages sent to the list, and add a footer ("trailer text") to outgoing messages.

[jack]

Hi Melissa,

I suspect you're right, I did see references to manual editing of the 'text' folder somewhere in the ezmlm.org site -- I was chasing around from tutorial to manual for an hour trying to look up what you guys had put in front of my face!!

One source of confusion was that when I created a new newsletter, I looked at it's file structure, found the 'text' folder and discovered it was empty, as were a number of other folders that should obviously contain important information. Since editing missing files is a little difficult, I thought maybe FQ was storing that information elsewhere and I just couldn't find it.

After finally finding and using the "Edit {newsletter} text files" option that had been right there all along, I discovered the changes I made suddenly appeared in the text folder where I thought the prior text information should have been all along.

Out of curiosity, what would ezmlm have used for that text information if I had used it straight out of the box with no changes and while the 'text' folder was empty? Does it populate its files on first use or does it use some hidden defaults to use for any information not specified in the 'text' folder? Looking at that folder now, I suspect the latter, since the only files there now are for text regions I've made changes to.

I suppose if I had never used (the legacy) ezmlm before, I would never have looked for the old hard way of doing things in the first place! Thanks again for making it so easy -- even for bone-headed Legacy Netosaurs like me!

Jack

[Bruce]

Out of curiosity, what would ezmlm have used for that text information if I had used it straight out of the box with no changes and while the 'text' folder was empty? Does it populate its files on first use or does it use some hidden defaults to use for any information not specified in the 'text' folder?The text files are pulled from /etc/ezmlm/text/default if they are not present in the list directory. This was done to make future upgrades simpler, especially if new text files are required. Without pulling from a default directory, all existing lists would have to be upgraded simultaneous with the software upgrade.