The Pages:

The following comprise the mail list page-set...

• mail subscription page - This is the page made available to the population at large. It allows folks to subscribe and unsubscribe to one or more of the defined mail lists. This demo has three example mail lists defined: Announcements, havBpEtt and User Communications.

  The mail-list database is owned by the page owner and maintains one record per subscriber. Each record contains the following information:

  1. the subscriber's name,
  2. the subscriber's user-id,
  3. the subscriber's email address (key)
  4. the date/time (in seconds) of the last change to the database record and
  5. the subscribed/unsubscribed status for each defined mail-list.

• list the mail database contents - This page is intended for the system administrator's use. It allows one to view a list of all records in the mail-list database. It also allows the viewer to manually delete one or more records from the database.

  NOTE:

  This is the only mechanism for deleting records from the mail-list database. Unsubscribing from a mail list changes the subscription status for a mail-list - it does not delete the associated database record.

• Send a message - This is the facility by which mail is distributed to one or more of the defined mail-lists. It is intended for the use of authorized individuals only. It offers the user a form consisting of Subject, From and Message-body fields. Also, the user is allowed to select one or more of the defined mail-lists for distribution of the message.

  There is also a Public Send Mail page that restricts the mailing list and news group posting selections to those deemed appropriate for public access. In this demo, only the "Customer Communications" mail-list allows public access.

Known Problems:

1. -none- ... which is not to say there are none {;-)

Possible Improvements:

1. Only allow subscribed users to send messages to the publicly accessible mail lists.

2. Include the sender's IP and remote hostname (if avaiable) in all messages alomg with the time the message was sent.
   Done 4-14-96 - hav

3. Hide the To: list so that no recipient can copy the list for spam.
   Done 4-14-96 - hav

4. Add checkbox options to the mail dispatcher page to allow messages to be posted to selected news groups as well.
   Done 4-13-95 - hav

5. Add a page that allows all users to send messages to only selected mail lists - like the General Info list.
   Done 4-13-95 - hav

6. Add a mechanism to allow the sys admin to "easily" create new mail lists with no (or only minimal) manual modification of the pages.
   Done 4-13-95 - hav - All pages now use a set of constants to determine things like the number and name and label values of mailing lists and news groups. These constants are define in a configuration file which is shared by the pages (included using the load_virtual neoscript command). To add/delete mailing lists or news groups, one need only change the configuration file contents.

   This will allow VERY easy changes such as...

   • addition/deletion of maillists and newsgroups
   • application for different customers
   • creation of restricted access pages

7. Add a full edit capability to the Mail List database review page - to allow sys admin to edit any and all fields in a subscription record.

8. Whenever a user subscribes/unsubscribes to one or more mail-lists, send a notification message (email). A weak guard against folks subscribing or unsubscribing others.

9. Better subscriber information validation. Currently, subscription information is validated for blank fields only. Also, the user's email address is checked for embedded spaces. This could be improved.

10. Implement some sort of software controled authorization scheme for the mailer and the database viewer. Currently access is controled only by page location and system access authorization.