
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:
- 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. :-)
- 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.
- 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! :-)
- 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
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