Perhaps I dont' exactly understand
"draft". If it means you can input a message and
then manipulate it prior to submission to the smtp then I had planned on
including that with the "web" application I eventually will offer our
clients. In fact that's why I set up my IMAIL database as ODBC to
Sql7. However, I had never even considered that Ipswitch might offer
components.
My
intention was to use ASPs and http://www.serverobjects.com ASPQMail
and ASPPOP3 components for sending and receiving. Then IMAIL is
simply another mail server to those components. The additional
benefit to the user is that he can have multiple POP3
accounts and he doesn't have to be using IMAIL smtp. Both of these
components work nicely for me and they are inexpensive -
certainly cheaper than I could write the same functionality.
I
regularly use ASPQMail for clients' email newsletters, form submissions, and so
on. If you use a component where you have to make the socket,
connect, and send you will spend at least 3 seconds per message in my experience
- a little less with Perl and a litle more with ASPs. ASPQMail just drops
the message to its queue which takes a second or les. Then the NT
service regularly polls the queue and whatever it finds it sends on to one of
three smtp servers and it runs multiple threads. So all in all we think it
is less taxing to the server.
For
email newsletter and other client lists where a personalized message or
customized message with other customer information is needed this works very
nicely. The create/edit message phase can be very complex depending upon
the number and complexity of database columsn in the message content. I
generally do these projects in steps: 1) create/edit message, 2) test message,
3) create/edit recipient list, 4) send all now, 5) send later. Send all
now can be a little tricky because even with ASPQMail you run the risk of script
timeout or database timeout if it is a very large list so I limit these or
create multiple batches.
For
send later I find the easiest system is to use the NT Task Scheduler in
conjunction with Windows Scripting Host (WSH). I've done this several
ways. On a recent project the script was scheduled to run
daily. When invoked it first checked to see if an input file existed in a
client directory. If the file was not present the script terminated and
logged the fact. If the file was present the script parsed the input file
for the message content and recipient lists, prepared individual email messages,
sent them to ASPQMail, notified the client by email, logged, and then changed
the name of the input file. The client uploads the input file by FTP but
obviously it would be trivial to do it by browser upload as
well.
I had
looked at http://www.chado-software.com spelling checker
server based component for one of the composition parts since some clients want
spell checking. It works nicely but is a little tedious for me.
Their ActiveX client-side component is great but of course only works with
MS.
I
don't quite understand the need to use IMAIl's app exclusively and it looks both
expensive to me for the program development and it presents limitations.
But I am rather new to running an email server so I am certainly willing to be
instructed.
By the
way this is one of the most interesting lists and many thanks to all
posters.
Terry L Fritts
http://www.smartbusiness.com
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Len
Conrad
Sent: Friday, December 03, 1999 2:32 AM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] drafts for
web mail
Been quiet on this one.... anyone have any good ideas on where to start?
you'll need a server-side application language such as Cold Fusion or PERL, plus a secured database to hold the draft messages. Most practical would be for the Imail database to be ODBC.
One tricky item would be, with a single logon, to pass between Imail's app and the msg drafting application the "logged on state and session management". ie, have a user who has logged on to Imail web msging be announce to the external/companion drafting application, and then how to move from the drafting application with the msg-to-send back into Imail, while keeping Imail's session alive, and do it all seamlessly.
Regards,
Len
