Scripts 
for Educators Presents:

CGI-Subscribe v2.0!

Simple CGI Mailing List Manager

Contents:

Program Summary
What it's Not! :-)
Who's Using CGI-Subscribe?
System Requirements
Download!

Program Summary

CGI-Subscribe lets users sign up on your website to be on your mailing list. You can use this for information about site updates, newsletters, announcements, etc.

Configuration options and features include:

"Opt In" settings You can configure the program so that users must confirm their subscription before getting on the list. This prevents people from abusing the system by subscribing people without their consent.


"Opt Out" function: Users can "opt out" permanently, so that they cannot be subscribed again without confirmation.


HTML or Plain Text email: When you send your mailings, you may choose to send email Plain Text, HTML, or both.


Notification of new Signups: You may choose to be notified (or not) whenever someone signs up for your list.


Tested on Windows and Unix/Linux: Configuration options allow email to work on Windows and Unix/Linux web servers. (Tested on Windows 98, BSDi, and Linux with Apache


Unsubscribe Link in every email: Every email sent by the program contains an "unsubscribe" link so that users can easily get off your list. Or, you can delete them yourself with the Admin interface.


You may Try out the subscription form here, or Login to the admin interface here. Use the password "password" to log into administration.


What it's NOT!

Several people have asked me if CGI-Subscribe can do various things, so I'd like to point out a few of its limitations:

  1. It is NOT (in general) good for lists of more than, say 100 members. While I have seen people use it successfully for lists of 500 - 2000, this is NOT the norm, and usually requires modifications to the server itself. If you don't have control over your server timeouts, and, especially, if you don't know what I mean by that, don't try to use this with a big list. :-)
  2. It is NOT to be used for buying a list of email addresses from someone so that you can mail people who have not used CGI-Subscribe to sign up for your list themselves. Please note that this is against the license agreement. The whole point of this program is that you can build a list of people who have ASKED to get mail from you -- not that you can have a program to blatantly send mail to whoever you like.

    Please note that most lists of email addresses you buy are not lists of people who have asked for email. They are not "opt-in" lists. I know this because I get many email messages every day that say I have "opted in" when I know for a fact I have not. With CGI-Subscribe, used properly, you will know that your list is okay because people can't get on it without asking, and each subscription is confirmed to try to prevent people from signing other people up without their consent.

  3. It is NOT good for sending huge files, say, 100K+ Word Documents and suchlike. It's intended for newsletters and announcements, and not book publishing, folks! :-)
  4. It is NOT a substitute for an email list server such as Majordomo, ListServ, Listproc, etc. You can get a free list like this from eGroups if that's what you're looking for.


Who's Using CGI-Subscribe:

CGI-Subscribe 2.0 has just recently been released, so I don't know who's using it yet. If you've gotten it to work, send me the address of your website and I'll post a link to it. Oops, here's one:

LetsGetFruity.com: Dance parties in the UK.

System Requirements:

The web server where CGI-Subscribe will be installed must have Perl 5.000 or higher. If it is a Unix/Linux system, it must have the "sendmail" program installed. While I think this may work with "qmail-inject," I'm not certain the HTML mail part will work.

You must be able to execute cgi programs on your web server. If you're not sure whether you have permission to do this, or are not sure how to configure the files, please ask your system administrator, or check the web pages of your web hosting provider for Help or Support information. For a free web hosting provider who supports CGI scripts, I recommend HyperMart or Virtual Nine Network.


Required Files

You can view the individual files below, or download the package:

English
Gzipped Tar format: cgisubscribe.tar.gz
Zip format:cgisubscribe.zip
German
Gzipped Tar format: cgisubscribe-ger.tar.gz Graciously translated by G.S. Please note that the German version is unsupported.
Zip format: cgisubscribe-ger.zip
On a unix system, typing 'gunzip cgisubscribe.tar.gz' then typing 'tar -xvf cgisubscribe.tar' will usually work. If you're not very familiar with Unix, you may want to ask someone who is to help you.

If you have MS Windows, there is a program called WinZip (available at TuCows which will uncompress and de-archive tar/gz files.

The following files are required. (Please ask your system administrator if you have sendmail available):

sendmail
cgisubscribe.cgi:
The actual program that subscribes people, does the mailings, etc.
subscribe.html
This is just an HTML web form that you can modify and use to call the program to let people subscribe.
optin.txt
A file that will keep track of people who have "opted in" for your mailing list.
optout.txt
A file that will keep track of people who have "opted out" of your mailing list.
temp_signup.txt
A file to temporarily keep track of people who sign up before they have confirmed their subscription.
passfile.txt
The password file for you to log into administration.
README.cgisubscribe
contains information on how to get started using the program. READ this before trying to install this!
This File

Update/Bug fix Notification

I strongly recommend that you sign up here for update and bug fix announcements about this script. I will not spam you with advertising: I just want to make sure you have the latest fixes. :-)
You may also sign up for announcements about other scripts on the main Scripts for Educators Mailing List page.
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