Dada Mail 4.x Changelog

Twitter Support is currently not working, as the type of authorization Dada Mail was utilising (Basic) has been dropped by Twitter in favor of a more substantial authentication scheme called oAuth.

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues#issue/66

The Habeas Watermark isn't really used anymore, Habeas The Company was bought by a different company, that has a vastly different scheme, other than attempting to legally go after unauthorized use of their copyright material. The new system requires different headers to be present, which Dada Mail does not currently support. We'll see about supporting them, in the future.

4.2.0

Changes 4.2.0

Dada Mail Installer

Dada Mail now comes with an installer - manually setting up and configuring Dada Mail is now longer needed. Heavens be praised.

Dada Installer directions may be found at:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/manually_install_dada_mail.pod.html

Upgrade instructions may be found at:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/upgrade_dada_mail.pod.html

The installar script may also be run via the command line - instructions can be found on how to use it, by invoking the script with the, --help flag,

 shell>./installer.cgi --help

Installation Terminology Changes

The, "Advanced" Installation of Dada Mail is just known as a, "Manual" installation of Dada Mail.

The Dada Mail Installer will install Dada Mail the same way as one would install Dada Mail manually. Directions may be found here:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/manually_install_dada_mail.pod.html

The, "Basic" Installation method is not recommended or supported. If upgrading from a, "Basic" installation, it's recommended to move to a more contemporary installation setup:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/basic_two_contemporary_installation.pod.html

Setup Info Screen

The, "Setup Info" Screen, that you can access using this URL:

http://example.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi

has been completely rewritten. In light of the Installer, it does not attempt to help configure Dada Mail for you, but will tell you what type of installation it recognizes, will present to you the entire contents of your, dada/DADA/Config.pm file as well as your .dada_config file and will show you how all config variables are being interpreted.

$ADMIN_MENU Changes

The $ADMIN_MENU variable has been changed to add the, "Dada Mail Setup Info" menu item. It looks like this:

        {-Title      => '<!-- tmpl_var PROGRAM_NAME --> Setup Info',
         -Title_URL  => "$S_PROGRAM_URL?f=setup_info",
         -Function   => 'setup_info',
         -Activated  => 1,
        },

MySQL 4-specific schema REMOVED

The MySQL schema shipped for Dada Mail, specifically for v4 of MySQL has been removed. The reason for the schema was more because of UTF-8 incompatibilities, rather than problems with this version of MySQL v4.

Bug Fixes

Profile Email Addresses aren't normalized for case sensitivity

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues#issue/60

PlainText Backend - subscribed addresses with a, ' (single quote) will disrupt subscriptions

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/61

4.1.0

Changes 4.1.0

Screen Cache Working Again, Enabled by Default

The Screen Cache API allows Dada Mail to save fully-rendered Dada Mail screens that are commonly viewed.

Enabled by Default

The Screen Cache is enabled by default, via setting the $SCREEN_CACHE config variable, to 1

Changes to the $ADMIN_MENU

A new entry under the, "Plugins" heading has been added to the $ADMIN_MENU variable in the Config.pm, dada/DADA/Template/templates/example_dada_config.tmpl and, dada/extras/examples/example_dada_config.txt

More information:

Optimizations in Mass Mailing Speeds

Small Tweaks have been made to the Mass Mailing code in Dada Mail through code profiling which should positively impact Mass Mailing Speeds, upwards of .10 to .25 seconds faster, per message.

Social Bookmarking/Link Sharing Buttons for archive screens Enabled by Default

Older, unused social bookmarking sites have been removed (as well as Fark, because,well...)

The Facebook link sharing button has also been added.

Bug Fixes 4.1.0

4.0.5

Changes 4.0.5

POP3 and SMTP Passwords Saved in List Settings

This is not a security bug/issue/notice - rather, this is a bug that was introduced with the full UTF-8 support.

The binary-in-nature encrypted passwords saved by Dada Mail in the List Settings table/files in Dada Mail may have become unusable/corrupted with version 4.0.3 and/or 4.0.4 of Dada Mail.

If you are having trouble/an impossible time using any of the POP3 or SMTP connection stuff in Dada Mail, including Dada Bridge, Mystery Girl (Bounce Handler) or POP-before-SMTP and/or SMTP SASL authentication - or even the Twitter stuff, you may be bitten by this bug. 4.0.5 should provide a fix for this problem, BUT (big but), 4.0.5 could potentialy break any currently stored passwords.

The fix will be to simply re-save the correct password, after you've upgraded to 4.0.5.

New users of Dada Mail will not be affected by this problem.

This problem does not impact your List Password, or the Dada Mail Root Password - both of which are saved in a one-way encryption, that is separate from the way POP3/SMTP passwords are saved in Dada Mail.

Bug Fixes 4.0.5

Subscriptions are not logged in the usage log.

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/37

Subscribers can be subscribed more than once to the black list

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/38

Dada Bridge sending broken if, "Strip attachments that have the following file ending or mime-type:" is enabled

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/41

"Soft_Max_Size_Of_Any_Message" Dada Bridge plugin var not in "example_dada_config.txt" or the .dada_config semi-auto install template

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/42

No List-Unsubscribe header in some email messages

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/43

Can't call method "prepare" on an undefined value at /DADA/Profile.pm line 59"

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/44

Dada Bridge doesn't give friendly message about info being saved when you save info

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/47

POP3/SMTP passwords corrupted?

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/45

Archived messages for discussion lists may have member-specific unsubscribe links

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/46

Send a Webpage gives unhelpful error if you enter a wrong URL of a missing page

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/17

4.0.1 Open discussion lists broken

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/13

This bug wasn't actually closed with this release, but from a previous release. It has though, been confirmed to be closed with this release.

4.0.4

Changes 4.0.4

UTF-8 Issues

MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite schema changes

Some compatibility issues cropped up, regarding UTF-8/unicode character set/encoding in re: to the SQL schemas. The schemas for all supported SQL backends have been modified to better work, mostly by changing fields with type, text(320), to type, varchar(80). Other notes have been added to the UTF-8 FAQ.

dada3_to_dada4_sql.pl changes

Along with looking into changing the default schema in Dada Mail, the v3 to v4 migration script will now make the necessary schema and character set changes.

The character encoding changes and SQL schema changes could potentially be desctructive, so we do, in fact, highly encourage you to make a backup of the entire database, before running the migration tool. Most notably, the character encoding change does not work perfectly. If your data contains a lot of non-Latin1 characters, we'd highly suggest you do your own ASCII/Latin1 to UTF-8 migration, before upgrading your Dada Mail.

If you are running a verion of Dada Mail 4.0.0 to 4.0.3, you'll still need to make those schema changes manually if you're having trouble (exactly what to do, including example SQL is located in the UTF-8 FAQ).

Bug Fixes 4.0.4

Dada Bridge always reports that IO::Socket::SSL isn't available

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/#issue/36

"Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)" option sometimes not available, even though appropriate CPAN module installed

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/#issue/35

Dada Bridge will always say that SpamAssassin isn't available

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/34

Moderation broken on Dada Bridge

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/33

Fallback Variables aren't used.

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/32

"Save, Then Test Your Sending Preferences..." button broken in Sending Preferences

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/31

CPAN Modules 4.0.4

CGI::Sessoion upgraded to: 4.42
CGI::Session handles all session management in Dada Mail.
List-Utils Scalar-Utils
The CPAN perl modules, Scalar::Util and List::Util are included with Dada Mail, but aren't actively used (and are probably outdated), so that any server-wide installed versions will be used, instead. This is because the XS versions of these modules are needed for POP/SMTP SSL connections and having these usable by default, breaks SSL connections. The directories,
```
 dada/DADA/perllib/List
```
and,
```
 dada/DADA/perllib/Scalar
```
have been renamed,
```
 dada/DADA/perllib/List-remove_to_install
```
and,
```
 dada/DADA/perllib/Scalar-remove_to_install
```
renaming them back to their original name will make them, "active"

4.0.3

Changes 4.0.3

Unicode/UTF-8 Work

We have worked very, very hard to get Dada Mail working with UTF-8/Unicode.

We think we did a pretty good job and you'll have a most amazing experience when comparing this version to any previous version of Dada Mail (ever), but there may be tiny things still to work out.

We need to know about them, don't be shy!

SQL table schema changes!

People who upgrade to 4.0.3 (and any version afterwards, until things change!) should note that the MySQL and PostgreSQL Table Schemas have changed!

You may need to update your own tables, to support UTF-8 (if they aren't already in that encoding).

Changes to Default List Settings

We've changed a few of the default list settings, hopefully so that everyone has a more pleasant experience, right off the bat:

Activate Black List

We've enabled the setting to active the Black List, by default.

We're also enabling the below settings:

Move Unsubscribed Subscribers Automatically to the Black List
Continue to Allow Subscriptions From Subscribers of Black Listed Addresses

You still have the option to change new lists to the previous behavior and already created lists will have their previous behavior, if Black List Settings have already been edited.

Print List-Specific Headers option Removed

The option, Print List-Specific Headers has been removed from, Mail Sending -Advanced Sending Preferences has been removed, but the functionality has not. All mailing list messages will have these headers.

Send Unsubscription Confirmation Emails (Closed-Loop Opt-Out) - disabled by default

Send Unsubscription Confirmation Emails (Closed-Loop Opt-Out) has been disabled by default (you can still enable it)

This option, when enabled, requires that when someone wants to unsubscribe, they have to confirm this unsubscription by clicking on the unsubscription confirmation link in a URL sent their subscribed address.

When disabled (the new default), they simply have to fill out the subscribe/unsubscribe form.

Subscription and Unsubscription links now include an Email Address

When available, both the Subscription and Unsubscription links will have the potential subscriber's (or unsubscriber's) email address in the link itself, so that the user does not have to do the two-step of first following the link and then typing in their email address.


These links are created per-subscriber (or potential sub/unsub), when you use the:

 <!-- tmpl_var list_subscribe_link -->

or,

 <!-- tmpl_var list_unsubscribe_link -->

tags. Previously, these tags only provided a link to the subscription/unsubscription form, without the email address embedded within the link itself. There is no way to revert this behaviour, but you can still roll your own links, like this:

Subscription Link:

 <!-- tmpl_var PROGRAM_URL -->/s/<!-- tmpl_var list_settings.list -->

Unsubscription Link:

 <!-- tmpl_var PROGRAM_URL -->/u/<!-- tmpl_var list_settings.list -->

Unsubscription Links Now Mandatory for Mass Mailing Messages

Dada Mail will now do a quick check to make sure that there is a Dada Mail Unsubscription link in your mass mailing messages, before sending them out.

If one is not found, one will be automatically appended to the end of your message.

It will not be very fancy.

We suggest that you make sure that you have a real, valid, Dada Mail unsubscription link in your Mailing List Messages.

Bug Fixes 4.0.3

Send newest archived message may have outdated header information

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/30

pop3 username/password not saved when "Save, Then Test..." button pressed in Sending Preferences

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/29

Beatitude: Months are listed out of order

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/28

profile field names can contain more than just ascii letters, numbers and underscores

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/27

list short names can contain more than just ascii letters, numbers and underscores

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/26

Beatitude: Scheduled List Not in Any Useable Order?

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/16

Dada Bridge: Spam Assassin Level Picker isn't available

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/21

Sending Preferences don't correctly state if you can use Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for POP-before-SMTP

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/24

Double Subscriptions when using List Invitation

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/23

Archived messages not templated out in publicly displayed archives

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/20

Link to edit subscriber information broken when using the search

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/19

Unsubsciption Notice to List Owner doesn't have subscriber (profile) fields

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/18

Disabled Menu items return server error when using the, "Classic" session type

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/issue/15

4.0.2

Changes 4.0.2

Dada Bridge: "Allow Open Discussion List" option always viewable

For whatever reason, the, "Allow Open Discussion List" option wasn't viewable, until you first enabled discussion lists. It will now *always* be viewable, as long as the Plugin Config Param, Allow_Open_Discussion_List is set to, 1

Dada Bridge: New Plugin Config Param: Check_Multiple_From_Addresses

A new Plugin Config Paramater called, Check_Multiple_From_Addresses has been added and has a default value of, 1. When enabled, messages that have more than one sender aren't supported by Dada Bridge and these messages will be ignored.

Set this paramater to, 0 to revert to the previous behavior.

Mail Sending - "broken pipe" catch removed

Dada Mail had a very simple test to make sure mail using the sendmail command was successful, by looking at any error messages created from sending mail this way. If a, "broken pipe" message was found while sending a mass mailing, a mass mailing would be stopped, and would be picked up and sending would be attempted starting at the same address that gave the error. The complete logged error may look like this:

        [Mon Jan  4 16:40:08 2010] mail.cgi: Pro Dada 4.0.1 Warning: 
        [Mon Jan  4 16:40:08 2010] mail.cgi:                          didn't close pipe to '|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -fbounces@example.com' while 
        [Mon Jan  4 16:40:08 2010] mail.cgi:                          attempting to send a message to: '"My Mailing List" <me@example.com> because:' Broken pipe at ..//DADA/MailingList/Schedules.pm line 808
        [Mon Jan  4 16:40:08 2010] mail.cgi: Broken Pipe error! returning -1 - Mass Mailing should be exit()ed! at ..//DADA/MailingList/Schedules.pm line 808
        [Mon Jan  4 16:40:08 2010] mail.cgi: [listshortname]  Mailout:<20100104164007.54315974@nicky510.com> Bailing out of Mailing for now - last message was unable to be sent! exit()ing! at ..//DADA/MailingList/Schedules.pm line 808

This behavior is problematic, since the, "broken pipe" error can happen, even if a message (or part of a message) is actually sent. Sometimes this happens if you have a message that contains a dot by itself on one line, like this:

If this is problematic to you (messages being cut off because of a lone dot on one line) and you're using the sendmail command to send messages, consider changing the $MAIL_SETTINGS and, $MASS_MAIL_SETTINGS Config variables to include the, -i flag, like this:

 $MAIL_SETTINGS      = "|$MAILPROG -t -i";
 $MASS_MAIL_SETTINGS = "|$MAILPROG -t -i";

Bug Fixes 4.0.2

confirmation pins with '/' as the first character break the confirmation process

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed/#issue/6

Dada Bridge: "Deliver a Copy" isn't working

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/10

pop3_username paramater not passed to sending_preferences.tmpl

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/12

Dada Bridge: From: header validation can be spoofed

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/11

Use One SMTP Connection per Batch (Experimental) unsaveable?

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/14

4.0.1

Changes 4.0.1

New Documentation

The following topics were added to the documentation:

New MySQL 4 Specific Schema

A MySQL Schema specifically for MySQL 4 is now shipped with Dada Mail at:

dada/extras/SQL/mysql4_schema.sql

DB Backup to SQL List Settings import script added

Although not heavily documented (yet), a DB Backup to SQL script has been added to the distribution at:

dada/extras/scripts/dada_settings_backup_to_sql.pl

Misc. Changes

New List Screen
The, New List Screen has been giving minor formatting tweaks.
Caching for DADA::ProfileFieldsManager
Some work has been done to speed up DADA::ProfileFieldsManager by caching.

Bug Fixes 4.0.1

Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cannot be checked in the Sending

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/1

"List Password Reset" email message cannot be over-rided

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/2

MySQL schema isn't compatible with MySQL 4

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/4

Bounce Message reports that put email addresses in brackets <> can't be parsed?

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/5

Wrong version numbers in 3.x to 4.x migration assistant

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/7

parse_for_windows_live suboutine is broken

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/8

SQL Backend Clickthrough Tracker still requires a DBM package

http://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/closed#issue/9

4.0.0

Changes 4.0.0

4.0.0 Features

Multiple List Sending
Support has be re-introduced to allow Multiple List Sending. See the separate docs on this feature:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/feature-multiple_list_sending.pod.html
Subscriber Profiles
Please see the docs specifically about Dada Mail Subscriber Profiles:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/feature-profiles.pod.html
Subscriber Profile Field Labels
You can now have a, "Label" to your Subscriber Profile Field. A label is what's visibly shown and is not now created from the field's name.
Subscription Approval System (Experimental)
You can now have an, "open to all to subscribe" mailing list, that still requires approval from the list owner.

Please see the docs specifically about this new feature:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/features-subscription_approval.pod.html
Slightly better UTF-8 support.
This version of Dada Mail is currently shipped with all charsets and encodings to, "UTF-8", but Dada Mail itself is far from support this character set completely.

This is because it is hard.

Please see the docs specifically about this new feature:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/features-UTF-8.pod.html
Twitter Support
Yup. Dada Mail can Tweet. More information:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/features-twitter_support.pod.html
CKeditor Support (Experimental)
We're experimenting with bringing CKeditor support to Dada Mail. Please see the embedded Config.pm docs about this:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-4_2_0/Config.pm.html#ckeditor_integration____ckeditor_url__experimental__
Mass Mailings keep their own log
This means, that anything about the mass mailing is logged for that specific mass mailing - this should hopefully make debugging a little bit easier.
View the Mass Mailing Log from the Mailing Monitor
There's a new link entitled, "Open Mass Mailing Log in a New Window -> "

This functionality is currently extremely rough, but is a pretty easy way to see what, in fact, is going on.
Slightly Smarter Error Handling for failing sendmail mailings
We've started catching sendmail errors and, if we find an error, we'll exit out of the sending process, for the message to be automatically picked up and the last email that had a problem, to be tried again. It's currently not perfect, but it's a very small step forward.
Clone Settings
You can now clone the settings from one list, to another list, in the, "Create a New List" screen.
Remove All Subscribers
You can now Remove all subscribers at once in the, Manage List - View Subscribers screen.
prototype.js/Scriptalicious Support
For the most part, AJAX stuff in Dada Mail has been replaced by the prototype.js and Scriptalicious Javascript Libraries.
Black List Matching
If it wasn't clear or official before, it should be now:

The black list matching does not work with matching strings, but will only work to match the user or domain of an email address or the entire email address. These are valid black list entries:
- matchthis@
- @matchthis
- matchthis
- matchthis@example.com
Plugins Beatitude - Fetch message from URL has same options as, "Send a Webpage"
Mostly meaning, you can embed images within the email message itself.
Plugins Mystery Girl
You can now specify the Port Number of the POP3 mail server
Plugins - Dada Bridge
Simple moderation support is included, to Authorized to moderate messages.
Plugins - Clickthrough Tracker
The Clickthrough Tracker now has a new SQL backend option for the URL redirect list.

The log is still in PlainText.
Extensions - Update Subscriptions - REMOVED
The update_subscriptions.cgi extension has been removed, as its features have been superceded by the Dada Profiles feature. And then some.

CPAN Perl Libraries

The CPAN Perl Libraries needed for Dada Mail are now being saved within the Git Repository of Dada Mail. We don't know if this is the greatest idea, since we don't really plan on making changes to this modules. But, we're doing it. If any problems occur, please report!

API

There are many new modules in Dada Mail's backend, including:

DADA::Profile
DADA::Profile::Fields
DADA::Profile::Session
DADA::ProfileFieldsManager
DADA::MailingList::Subscriber
DADA::MailingList::Subscriber::Validate