Thread

The adventure continues.

I create links using CKEditor. I view them in source (screenshot attached). I send the email. The recipient clinks the links. However, instead of going to the URLs specified, their email contains links back to the sending site (me). When I view the email in FireMail after sending, sure enough, the URLs were rewritten en route.

Hmm.

EDIT: Checked the Firemail database tables. The links as I originally entered (wanted) them were saved correctly.

yeah again this is expected functionality. to register that someone clicked on a link, FireMail must be notified about it. so what FireMail does is it rewrites links in the email (the html version only) so that when a recipient clicks on a link in the email, they go to your site, which has stored the location of the actual link, and are immediately redirected to the actual link.

the user shouldn’t even realise that they have been redirected as it happens nearly instantaneously. again this is exactly how MailChimp and other such sites work.

Ben, you see the problem is that I am too precise in my observations, heh.

What got me going is that I had the site ‘off’ for testing. In that case, there is no redirect, but a halt at the ‘system is offline’ screen before the redirect completes. Understandable, since the link isn’t quick enough on its feet to go to its target before completing its click-reporting task. In a real-world situation, sites are ‘on’ almost always, so this is faintly relevant at best.

Is there anything else I can do to establish that FireMail has followed best practices (e.g., of software like Mailchimp)?

Let’s hope not! Have a great weekend ...

Hi Ben,

Firemail looks like what I want.  Thanks for this.

I have a question about generating lists.  In the EE Mailing List module, to create a list, you have to manually enter addresses, or, at the very best, cut and paste.

Does Firemail have the ability to create mailing lists by filtering on channel data?  That may sound a bit weird since a channel isn’t a person.  I have members who have profile data contained in a profile channel and the member is the author of their entry in the profile channel.  What I would like to be able to do is create lists based on content in the profile channel.  For example, create a list of every member who goes to the same university, where the university is stored in a custom field in the profile channel.

I hope this makes sense!

Is this possible with Firemail?

Thanks.

well actually FireMail uses EE’s existing mailing list module rather than having its own mailing list manager. so in short, no it can’t import channel data into mailing lists.

Hi Ben,

Does Firemail embed a formatted plain text version of the e-mail along with the HTML for people who want plain text?

Thanks.

yes it has a html and plaintext version

Hi Ben,

Looks like a great module! I’m just trying to work out if it’ll be suitable for a client project I’m working on. Basically it’ll need to send to a list of several thousand - will this be do-able in Firemail, assuming we’re on a decent sever and we use EE’s batch sending? If not then theres not really any other options for EE2.0 right, since the campaignmonitor and mailchimp EE plugins aren’t 2.0-ready yet?

Thanks,
Dave

hi dave,

if your server can handle it then yes, firemail should be suitable. i would first check with your webhost to make sure its possible, and then set the batch size to around 200.

as far as i know they’re not yet EE2.0 ready.

I bought this module but I have a problem.

When I ‘m trying to send to an e-mail list of 254 e-mails the process is crashing my VPS. My httpd goes down and restarts within 10 minutes.

I tried using batch of 30 and 100 e-mails but still the same problem. I’m wondering if this is a problem with Firemail or EE 2.0.

I never had a problem with EE 1.6.8 sending 1000+ emails without batch on the same VPS. I used PHP mail and Send mail. I didnt test the SMTP mail.

OK I manage to send the e-mails using without using batch option.

It seems there is a bug with batch option no matter what options you choose. I get a lot of php errors. Can anyone else confirm this?

Cheers

I’d be keen to know the answer to this too before I get firemail - I need to be able to send to a list of 3000+. Problem is theres no way to test without actually sending to the list!

hi Aenarion, can you please let me know what php errors you received?

DaveNZ, you’re right, there is no way to test without actually sending. also it depends on your server, if you’re on a dedicated server then it should be fine, but if you are on a shared server and your host limits your email sending abilities then it might not be the best idea to use firemail for lists of over a thousand.

Hi Ben - can you confirm it actually does work with the batch sending option?

Also, do happen to know anything about the relative advantages/disantages of php mail vs smtp? Does firemail support all the built in EE email settings?

Whats the max size list you’ve tested on?

Cheers,
Dave

yes, batch sending is a built-in feature of Firemail, and it supports the EE email settings (it actually uses the built-in Email module).

the issue with php mail is that it opens a separate socket connection for each iteration, so using sendmail is a better idea for mass mails. see this post for further insights:

http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/47389/

max list size i’ve tested on is 800 with batch sending.