Announcements

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.

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.

I am quite pleased to announce and welcome Karla Simpson to the ListMessenger forums as the new Office Manager and primary point of contact for sales questions and licence key issues.

Karla has been working with me for quite some time in the background responding to purchases, and managing our books, so we both felt she was the ideal person to represent ListMessenger on a larger scale.

ListMessenger Pro 2.0 hits the streets on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005. Yes, I said ListMessenger Pro 2.0 and yes, I said Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 and I delighted to be making this announcement.

After over a year an a half in development and a full version number increase I am pleased to announce ListMessenger Pro 2.0 which will be available on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005. ListMessenger 1.1 never did do this release justice and I’ve known that for months now, but wanted to make it a surprise for all ListMessenger users.

I realize that I have said this release will be released in the past; however, I can assure you that you will have it this Tuesday. The reason being… that it’s already done. Yes, I have the distribution file on my desktop now and it’s just about ready to go. We have some small house cleaning to take care of before we can release it which is why it won’t be available until Tuesday.

Here are a few of the many new major features:

• Complete rewrite of ListMessenger 1.0 codebase.
• Custom e-mail fields support.
• E-Mail attachements and managment support.
• Subscriber importing and exporting system.
• Enhanced backup and restore system.
• Unlimited group levels.
• Select and send to multiple groups at once.
• Subscribe and unsubscribe notificiations.
• HTMLArea 3.0 rich text editor for Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape and Internet Explorer.
• Enhanced message archives.
• Moveable public and private folders.
• Upgrade from all previous releases of ListMessenger.
• Fantastic User Guide (Manual) by Erik Geurts.
• Error logging.
• No more pop-up window during sending.
• New icon set.
• Much more.

More details will follow in the next 24 hours as we upgrade our website and Members Area to reflect the new release. One other thing I wanted to mention was ListMesseger Light 2.0 will be on it’s way shortly as well. After I get ListMessenger Pro released, it’s just a matter of making some code adjustments for the Light version. Without giving a release date for ListMessenger Light 2.0, I would say it should be out shortly as well.

Thinking about purchasing ListMessenger Pro now but are thinking of waiting? Either way is fine; however, there is always Free Lifetime Upgrades with ListMessenger so have no fears!

Enjoy and good night.

ToDo

• Upgrade Program to upgrade / migrate ListMessenger 0.5 – 1.0 (working on)
• Documentation (working on: Erik is doing great at this.)

(completed list is at the bottom of the message)

Announcement

Well after another long stretch of development, I’m pleased to announce that another beta release of ListMessenger Pro 1.1 (Beta 2) is available for download in the Members Area of the ListMessenger website. This beta release is available to anyone who has previously purchased ListMessenger Pro 1.0.

This beta completes the new ListMessenger administration interface and adds a lot of new features to ListMessenger in general. Because of all the new features, this beta release was required to ensure the product is as stable and sound as possible prior to the final release. What this beta does not include is the upgraded end-user tools which allow people to subscribe from your website, and it also does not include an upgrade path from previous versions of ListMessenger. The end-user tools and upgrade system are currently in development and will be included with the final release of ListMessenger.

I would also like to remind you once again, that this is in fact a beta release and I implore you not to use this as your production system. Please do not overwrite your ListMessenger 1.0 installation with this beta release.

I would also like to remind you that all ListMessenger Pro upgrades are available at no cost and upgrade support is also provided via the forum for the final release. On that note, installation support is generally not provided for installing a beta release; however, you are encouraged to express opinions, comments or problems in the forum as well. The forum is available 24 hours a day at: http://forum.listmessenger.com

Finally, I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank all ListMessenger users who are eagerly, but patiently awaiting the final release of this version. It has been one heck of a journey to get this far and this release has been in development for over an entire year.

Also a special thank-you goes out to a forum user and now moderator Erik Geurts, whose dedication and assistance within the ListMessenger community does not go unnoticed and is greatly appreciated. Thanks Erik.

Completed

• Done… Upgrade End-User Tools
• Done… Add Notifications To End-User Tools
• Done… Put out ListMessenger Pro 1.1 Beta 2
• Done… Auto-Unsubscribe Link
• Done… Text-Message Spell Checking Integration
• Done… Control Panel Item – Import & Export
• Done… Control Panel Item – Backup & Restore
• Done… Online Files Window when Composing
• Done… Control Panel Item – Templates
• Done… Control Panel Item – File Management
• Done… Subscriber Stats
• Done… HTMLArea ImageManager Plug-In
• Done… Timezone Offsetting Ability
• Done… Just updating comments, and installer.
• Done… Migrate the Preferences page into the Control Panel.
• Done… Finish add / edit / delete subscribers.
• Done… Fix pop-up calendar bug for Safari support.
• Done… Fix resume bug in sending system.
• Done… Queue listing page.
• Done… Fix move subscribers bug when deleting a group.
• Done… Fix deleting subscribers bug (didn’t delete custom data).
• Done… Upgraded ADODB classes to 4.60

I am pleased to announce the development plans for ListMessenger Pro 1.1 to the public. After careful consideration and input from customers here are the features that will be added for the 1.1 release:

• Administrator customizable fields which will affect all groups. This will change in the future to include a group-specific field list; however, the 1.1 release will have the ability to manage custom fields for all groups only.
• Option to allow notification of administrator or administrators of new subscriptions. This again, will affect all groups and will not be group specific.
• The ability to manage file attachments and send attachments to groups.
• The functionality to offset your servers default time zone.
• The functionality to modify the default character set of your messages.
• The option to allow end-users to select their desired display language in the end-user tools.
• The ability to move the “public” folder out of the ListMessenger application directory and place it wherever you wish.
• The upgrade of the following internal applications: PHPMailer CVS, HTMLArea 3.0rc2, PCLZip 2.1

The ability to sort by subscription date (added)!

Other possible changes that will be dependant on development time include:

• Removal of all MySQL specific code and the inclusion of the ADOdb database abstraction library.
• The requirement of PHP’s magic_quotes_gpc removed by adding a function that checks for such occurrences.

Along with these additions, there will be interface improvements and all known bugs from current releases will be fixed.

The intended release date of ListMessenger Pro 1.1 will be Monday, June 28th, 2004. Please note that this release date is an intended release date and if the modifications are completed before this date it will be released; however, at the same time if the modifications are not complete, it will not be released.

• ListMessenger Light 1.1 will have some new features as well. Including all features listed above accept:
• File attachment and management support
• Administrator customizable fields

There is no intended release date for ListMessenger Light 1.1, although it should be released around the same time as ListMessenger Pro 1.1, but not before.

We will also be making modifications to our Members Area over the next several months, to include even more usable features besides the current key management and purchasing system. We will be introducing such features as an integrated trouble support ticket system for Pro users, an integrated knowledge base, integration with the forum so that ListMessenger Pro users can be uniquely identified in the forum. We will also be adding Visa, Master Card and possibly more payment methods to the system so that we can extend purchasing services to regions where PayPal currently does not provide account service. PayPal will still be available; this will be an added payment option.

Finally, we plan on really putting some serious effort into further development of our very successful reseller program. Resellers will be encouraged to play a larger role and further integration solutions with their private services is something that we look forward to supporting.

Thank-you for taking the time to read this release announcement, we look forward to powering your mailing list management needs for many sites to come.