Socialported ListMessenger to Mastodon

This is a brief post today to let anyone who follows my blog know that I have officially socialported from Twitter/X to Mastodon today. If you previously followed me on Twitter/X, I invite you to check out @listmessenger@mastodon.social and follow me there instead.

I first discovered Mastodon in November 2022 and quite enjoyed its positive federated approach to social media. I found it to be much less toxic and more about real engagement and collaboration. My ListMessenger account was actually my last Twitter account to officially move.

If you haven’t checked out Mastodon before, I encourage you to visit https://joinmastodon.org. While the concept of federation adds a small amount of complexity overhead, the idea of selecting your own social community server that matches your interests while still being able to engage with other audiences really makes a lot of sense to me.

Reboot of ListMessenger; ListMessenger.com Relaunched

You may have noticed that ListMessenger Pro has recently undergone some exciting changes; a 2.2.2 release in June 2022 that introduced PHP 7.4 support and upgraded some core libraries, and then a much bigger 2.2.3 release in January 2023 that introduced PHP 8 support, upgraded all internal libraries, resolved all known bugs and improved every PHP file within the software. Oh, and we made ListMessenger Pro free!

While long overdue improvements to our software were essential, a modern and functional website is right up there too. It has been twelve years since the last major website redesign, so today, I am incredibly excited to announce the completely redesigned ListMessenger.com website has been launched.

Our new site contains a lot of redesigned and repurposed content from the previous site, but it also has an incredibly functional Documentation section, a new Download section, and a new Blog section that includes all our historical announcements (From The Archives) dating back almost 20 years to ListMessenger Pro 1.0 in October 2003.

We hope you find this new site and our new software helpful. We certainly look forward to making more exciting announcements in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime, feel free to chat with us on Discord or give us a shout-out on Twitter.

New ListMessenger Website Launched

March has been a busy month for us! First we release the long awaited ListMessenger Pro 2.2.1 version, now we release a completely revamped shiny new website. Nice. Oh but there is still more to come. We will be releasing ListMessenger Light 2.2.1 later this week, and coming soon are some major updates to the way you purchase ListMessenger and manage your ListMessenger Pro licence keys.

I would also like to announce that as of today there are a few new official policies that have come into affect. All policies are now available on the Policies page:

  • ListMessenger Pro Refund Policy
  • ListMessenger Key Reset Policy
  • ListMessenger Support Policy
  • Support Forum Posting Guidelines

If you have any questions or have any feedback on our new website, please don’t hesitate to inquire.

As a final word of mention, I am currently recruiting PHP developers to help me with future releases of ListMessenger Pro, so if you are a talented developer who takes a keen interest in Zend Framework please let me know.

Listmessenger Pro 2.2.1 Now Available

I am quite pleased to announce that ListMessenger Light and Pro 2.2.1.0 are now finally available for download. ListMessenger Pro users can download the new release from the “My Downloads” section of the ListMessenger Members Area, and ListMessenger Light users can download the free version from the Downloads section on the new website.

The primary focus of the ListMessenger Pro 2.2.1 release is around stability and bug fixing. We have fixed nearly all known bugs discovered in the software over the past few years, and upgrade all major components and libraries within ListMessenger. Interface wise not a lot has changed just yet, although changes and refinements are definitely coming.

The changelog for ListMessenger Pro 2.2.1 is as follows:

  • ListMessenger now requires PHP 5.1.6 or higher. Please Note: future versions will require PHP 5.3 or higher.
  • ListMessenger setup now handles the initial config.inc.php creation where possible.
  • The subscriber import tool now adheres to Control Panel > Preferences > ListMessenger Blacklist.
  • There is a new “Message Line Ending” option in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • Added “E-Mail Address Format” option in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • SMTP Authentication is not attempted if it’s disabled in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • Text and HTML templates now show up on confirmation page during message composition.
  • Pagination now appears in the public message archive (archive.php) to break up long pages.
  • Fixed possible issue where messages sent to private groups were exposed in archive.php if private group was deleted.
  • All tabbed interfaces throughout ListMessenger now use jQuery UI tabs.
  • Significant improvements to the LM_Mailer class and use of PHPMailer class.
  • Fixed the broken German language file thanks to Jorg.
  • Fixed [unsubscribeurl] variable output when sending messages.
  • Fixed problem on Windows server with autocompleter not working, and other various Windows Server and IIS issues.
  • Fixed problems with updating custom field data, when the custom field data was allowed to be empty or null (i.e. a checkbox).
  • Fixed multi-byte character entry issues with end-user tools.
  • Fixed multi-byte characters in autocompleter, by replacing the autocompleter with jQuery UI.
  • HTML e-mail messages are now wrapped to prevent broken HTML, which will prevent exclamation marks from appearing in HTML messages on some servers.
  • IE8 now downloads exported files correctly as CSV files vs. Zip.
  • Fixed the install and update SQL to use ENGINE vs. TYPE=MyISAM.
  • TinyMCE now correctly enters the path to images and files folders.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE to version 3.3.9.3.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE SpellChecker plugin to version 2.0.4.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE MCImageManager plugin to version 3.1.1.4.
  • Upgraded InnovaStudio to version 3.6.0.
  • Upgraded ADOdb to version 5.11.
  • Upgraded PHPMailer to version 5.1.
  • Upgraded jQuery to version 1.4.4.
  • Upgraded jQuery UI to version 1.8.9.
  • Upgraded Flot jQuery plugin.

As always if you have a comments or suggestions, please feel free to use the Suggestions and Feedback forum.

ListMessenger Pro 2.2.1 Release Candidate 1 Available

After somewhat of an extended development break, I am pleased to announce that ListMessenger 2.2.1 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) is now available for download from the “My Downloads” section of the ListMessenger Members Area.

Please note that this is a pre-release version of ListMessenger, and not the final 2.2.1 release. It is being made available for those folks who are interested in testing out pre-release software.

The primary focus of the ListMessenger 2.2.1 release is around stability and bug fixing. We have fixed nearly all known bugs discovered in the software over the past few years, and upgrade all major components and libraries within ListMessenger. Interface wise, not a lot has changed just yet.

The changelog for ListMessenger 2.2.1 is as follows:

  • ListMessenger now requires PHP 5.1.6 or higher. Please Note: future versions will require PHP 5.3 or higher.
  • The subscriber import tool now adheres to Control Panel > Preferences > ListMessenger Blacklist.
  • There is a new “Message Line Ending” option in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • Added “E-Mail Address Format” option in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • SMTP Authentication is not attempted if it’s disabled in Control Panel > Preferences > E-Mail Configuration.
  • Text and HTML templates now show up on confirmation page during message composition.
  • Pagination now appears in the public message archive (archive.php) to break up long pages.
  • Fixed possible issue where messages sent to private groups were exposed in archive.php if private group was deleted.
  • All tabbed interfaces throughout ListMessenger now use jQuery UI tabs.
  • Significant improvements to the LM_Mailer class and use of PHPMailer class.
  • Fixed the broken German language file thanks to Jorg.
  • Fixed [unsubscribeurl] variable output when sending messages.
  • Fixed problem on Windows server with autocompleter not working, and other various Windows Server and IIS issues.
  • Fixed problems with updating custom field data, when the custom field data was allowed to be empty or null (i.e. a checkbox).
  • Fixed multi-byte character entry issues with end-user tools.
  • Fixed multi-byte characters in autocompleter, by replacing the autocompleter with jQuery UI.
  • HTML e-mail messages are now wrapped to prevent broken HTML, which will prevent exclamation marks from appearing in HTML messages on some servers.
  • IE8 now downloads exported files correctly as CSV files vs. Zip.
  • Fixed the install and update SQL to use ENGINE vs. TYPE=MyISAM.
  • TinyMCE now correctly enters the path to images and files folders.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE to version 3.3.9.3.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE SpellChecker plugin to version 2.0.4.
  • Upgraded TinyMCE MCImageManager plugin to version 3.1.1.4.
  • Upgraded InnovaStudio to version 3.6.0.
  • Upgraded ADOdb to version 5.11.
  • Upgraded PHPMailer to version 5.1.
  • Upgraded jQuery to version 1.4.4.
  • Upgraded jQuery UI to version 1.8.9.
  • Upgraded Flot jQuery plugin.

The final release of ListMessenger 2.2.1 will follow on Sunday, March 20th after some final bug testing and resolution, as well as the build of ListMessenger Light.

As always if you have a comments or suggestions, please feel free to use the Suggestions and Feedback forum.

New ListMessenger Bug Tracking System Available

We have just integrated a new bug tracking system directly into the ListMessenger forum. We will be using this system to track all confirmed bugs in both ListMessenger Light and Pro, as well as provide solutions to many of these issues in between releases.

The bug tracking system can be accessed by clicking the Bug Tracker link at the top of the forum, then heading into the appropriate project.

We have been using an issue tracker internally for a long time, but this system was never available to the public. We hope that by providing this new method of tracking issues, ListMessenger users will benefit by having quick and easy access to solutions for known issues in the application.

ListMessenger Forum Upgraded

The ListMessenger support forums have just been upgraded to the latest version of the forum software we use. All of the functionality of the forum appears to be working without a problem; however, the design has definitely changed and we were unable to port our usual forum look and feel to the new version of our forum software.

Over the next short while we will be updating the look and feel of our forums to match the new website we hope to release before the year is out. We fully recognize that the forums currently feel very “stock” right now, but please be patient until we are finished bringing a more “ListMessenger” feel to the forum.

Until then, enjoy the new forum features.