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Form Tools is already an awesome addition to any website that uses forms. Stepping it up with some rudimentary mass mailing capabilities would make it even more awesome.
A module to manage mail lists (e.g. sort, search, add, change, delete), built-in double opt-in logic (e.g. verified, unverified), enable adding the mail list as a recipient to a form would be some of the things I would love to see.
Thanks Ben!
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May 2nd, 2009, 8:53 AM
(This post was last modified: May 2nd, 2009, 8:55 AM by 2x4.)
(May 2nd, 2009, 8:20 AM)Chuck Wrote: Form Tools is already an awesome addition to any website that uses forms. Stepping it up with some rudimentary mass mailing capabilities would make it even more awesome.
A module to manage mail lists (e.g. sort, search, add, change, delete), built-in double opt-in logic (e.g. verified, unverified), enable adding the mail list as a recipient to a form would be some of the things I would love to see.
Thanks Ben!
Hehe...
Just wanted to post exactly the same!
But even something simpler...
For instance... a site I am building wants to collect the email addresses using FT (subscriptions to a newsletter). It would be nice if the "client" could select the addresses associated with the"subscription" form and then hit email button and a page with an input (textarea or tinyMCE) would pop up, the "client would enter the message and hit send.
FT would then loop through the "email list", filling the headers and queuing the emails.
I have to figure out some hack to make it work that way at the moment because the site needs that capability. and using another utility with another login (CMS and FT already is enuff) would be not desirable.
But FT has that potential "almost" built in already.
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This is a terrific idea. I've had the same request from a couple of my own clients. I'll definitely keep it in mind for a module.
Thanks for the posts!
- Ben
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(May 2nd, 2009, 12:45 PM)Ben Wrote: This is a terrific idea. I've had the same request from a couple of my own clients. I'll definitely keep it in mind for a module.
Thanks for the posts!
- Ben
Ben, any idea how long it may percolate in your mind before it would materialize? ;-)
Thx!
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To be honest, probably a while... several months at least.
I've several other modules on the go which I'd like to wrap up before starting another. Still, I just finished the first version of ONE today: the Mass Edit module, which lets you edit multiple submissions one on go (see: http://modules.formtools.org/mass_edit/d...tation.php). 1 module down, 50987019285 to go. 
- Ben
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This would make for a pretty cool module. Be advised, though, that you need to be careful if you use such a function to send out marketing mass mails to an interest list... If doing that, it's best to use a service like CampaignMonitor.com (my favorite) or ConstantContact.com, etc.
This is because it's really easy to get flagged as spam, which can potentially screw things over for your domain/IP. Those services take a lot of measures to reduce their chances of being marked as spam, and they are the best way to ensure that your legitimate marketing e-mails are received by your customers/leads.
(I'm not affiliated with any such service, I just do a lot of e-mail marketing for the ad agency I work at).
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I was wondering if there has been any work done on this? I am currently using POMMO ( http://pommo.org) on my site and I really love the way you can create templates for each type of letter. Really, the only feature it is missing is a module to have client accounts like in FormTools who can only send messages to specific lists. However, it appears as though it is no longer supported. I only wish it were as polished as form tools (which I love).
Anyways, I was wondering if there is any way to combine the two systems? Or is there anything in the works for Form Tools?
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Hi sogreen,
I'm afraid there's nothing in the works, no. All my time is devoted to version 2.1.0-and I'll be busy with that for some time. Once that's released I'll need to upgrade a number of the modules to work with the new version. So realistically, the next few months are going to be pretty busy.
Ahhhh to be rich, so I could work on this project full time... 
Sorry I couldn't be any help, but thanks for the post! Always good to know what people need.
- Ben
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How about a module for integration with mailing service providers like http://mailchimp.com or http://campaignmonitor.com? That would be easier to implement than your own mass-mailer module, and would be significantly better for ensuring your server's installation of FormTools doesn't get blacklisted as a spammer. As I said before, it is very much advisable to use a service if you're going to send out e-mail newsletters.
Cheers,
Kevin
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Hi Kevin,
Thanks again for bringing this up - it really helps to know what people need.
You're quite right about the problems of being flagged as a spammer, this has happened to several companies I've worked for and it was a pain to resolve. Writing a generic script to run on people's servers, potentially opening up any of them to be flagged as spammers strikes me as, well, a bad idea. So integration with established scripts with their full range of features definitely seems like the best approach.
Like I said above, our own clients have requested this feature a number of times, it just simply hasn't been feasible time-wise to solve it yet. I'll speak to my business partner today to discuss this. We need to prioritize the premium modules and this seems like a good candidate to focus on.
- Ben
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