$Id: README,v 1.2 2002/02/09 22:54:42 olivier Exp $

			basic-mailing

(c) 2001-2002 Olivier Berger <olberger@club-internet.fr>

This directory contains a tool allowing you to make any customized
mailing.

This tool is used to send customized mails to a series of recipients
using a template file containing replacable fields.


This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version (see the COPYING file).

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.


In writing this tool, I was inspired by vqtolist
(http://www.inter7.com/vqtolist/), the only mailing tool that I could
find looking for a rather generic tool to make mailings.

Unfortunately, vqtolist only works with qmail, and the machine I'm
using only works with exim.

The tool mailing.py is generic enough since it uses SMTP.

Usage :

 ./mailing.py -t to_list.csv -b template.tmpl

where to_list.csv contains some kind of CSV file with addresses of
recipients of the mailing and the values of the substitution
variables.

This to_list.csv file is of the form :

dest1@hisdomain.org|100 FF|01/10/2000|15/01/2002
dest2@herdomain.com|200 FF|01/10/2002|16/01/2002
dest2@anydomain.org|300 FF|01/10/2004|17/01/2002

The first column always holds the recipients' addresses. The separator
is |.

The other file, template.tmpl holds the template of mail to send. It's
of the form :

From: me@mydomain.org
To: ${{01}}
Cc: someone@someotheraddress.com
Subject: Someting about you dear ${{01}}
Reply-To: anyother@address.net

	Hi

	You have to send me ${{02}}.

	You said that you would send it on ${{03}}... but I may have
	misunderstood.

	Anyway, it's gonna be great.

	Until ${{04}} I'll welcome your cheques ;)


The variables corresponding to the columns of the recipients file. The
variable ${{01}} is then always bound to the recipient's address.

Attention : at the present time, the To: and Cc: fields can only hold
one address each.


O. BERGER - $Date: 2002/02/09 22:54:42 $