From the Archives

I am pleased to announce the availability of the first and only public release candidate of ListMessenger Pro 2.2.0, which is now available for download to users who have previously purchased a licence of ListMessenger Pro. You can download ListMessenger Pro 2.2.0 RC1 by logging into the ListMessenger Members Area, and clicking the “My Downloads” link on the right.

It should be noted that this is a release candidate, meaning that I do not consider it stable for production environments just yet, although your help with testing it is greatly appreciated.

I am happy to remind you that all upgrades for ListMessenger Pro are free.

ListMessenger 2.2 introduces several new features, and enhances overall long term stability by preparing for the future of PHP (PHP6) and continuing to support legacy PHP (PHP4).

The key highlights for ListMessenger 2.2 include:

• New Rich Text Editor
  We have had long standing issues with various rich text editors through ListMessenger’s history, and we are delighted to announce we have moved to TinyMCE 3.1.0.1 and the MCImageManager plug-in. This rich text editor is incredibly flexible, and supports all major web-browsers including Safari.
• Send to Subscriber
  The old Send To Address testing message function in the Message Centre has always presented some confusion, so we have re-purposed it into “Send to Subscriber”. It is now a find-as-you-type drop down box that allows you to send the specified message to that single subscriber, custom fields and all.
• Custom Field Search
  An often requested feature was the ability to search for specific data from within custom fields, so here it is! So if you want to see a list of subscribers whose favourite colour is blue, go right ahead and search for it.
• Basic Subscriber Statistics
  We have brought into the interface some basic statistics on your subscribers. You can now see month-by-month, and day-by-day how many people have subscribed and unsubscribed for your ListMessenger groups.
• Forward To A Friend
  You asked for it, and you got it. You can now add a [forwardurl] variable to your messages, which will give your subscribers a formatted link that allows them to forward the message they received to one of their friends, with the option of allowing the friend to subscribe to the group as well.
• Multi-part Forms
  In some circumstances you may want to collect additional information from your subscribers, but you don’t want to take up extra screen real estate to do it. With ListMessenger 2.2, you can have your subscribers fill out this additional information on “page 2” of the form.
• Interface Improvements
  Lets face it ListMessenger has never been an ugly duckling, but we can always find ways to make it look even better. This release has some nice touches, you’ll see.

Full Changelog

2.2.0 Pro (Build 20080713) RC1

• Added option to enable/disable the group_id in the unsubscribe link.
• Added Forward To Friend support and introduced [forwardurl] variable.
• Added ability to make private groups that users cannot subscribe to.
• Added basic graph for new subscribers and unsubscribe statistics.
• Added examples of advanced SMTP connections in E-Mail Configuration.
• Added the ability to search custom fields data for subscribers.
• Added jQuery 1.2.6 javascript framework.
• Added ability to resize text message textarea (compose and edit).
• Added catch to catch invalid CAPTCHA codes in listmessenger.php.
• Added ability to finish/correct a subscribe form in listmessenger.php.
• Added TinyMCE 3.1.0.1
  • Added MCImageManager 3.0.9.1 plug-in.
  • Added TinyMCE PHP SpellChecker 2.0.2 plugin.
• Added option to not reimport subscribers who previously unsubscribed.
• Added [unsubscribe] variable to e-mail variable list.
• Added the ability to make the first and last name required fields.
• Added multiple template support to the end-user tools.
• Repurposed “Send to Subscriber” feature in the Message Centre.
• Added ability to use RSS 0.91, 1.0, 2.0, OPML or ATOM archive feeds.
• Added ability to use any of the e-mail variables in admin notices.
• InnovaStudio 3.0 is now a separate download from listmessenger.com.
• HTMLArea is now a separate download from listmessenger.com.
• Setup now checks to make sure that MySQL is installed.
• ListMessenger can now run with PHP’s short_tags disabled (Go PHP6).
• Replaced all usage of ereg() functions (Go PHP6).
• All dates in ListMessenger now use your default PHP Date Format.
• Changed tooltip libraries from DomTT to jQuery Cluetip plugin.
• Replaced all help tooltips with the ListMessenger Help window.
• Manage Fields shows only the required details for selected control.
• Upgraded PHPMailer to 2.0.2.
• Upgraded ADOdb to 4.98.
• SQL_MODE is reset to nothing on every page execution.
• Moved rich text editors to javascript/wysiwyg.
• Fixed bug when upgrading minor versions and SQL_MODE is strict.
• Fixed problem with unsubscribing when confirmation was disabled.
• Fixed bug that prevented registration and updates on new server.
• Fixed issue that prevented subscriber field searches within a group.

As with every release of ListMessenger, I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of ListMessenger Pro 2.1 and ListMessenger Light 2.1. This new release adds several new features to the product and resolves all known bugs, making this our most stable release to date.

ListMessenger Pro users can download the upgrade from the “My Downloads” section of the ListMessenger Members Area and ListMessenger Light users can download the upgrade from the Downloads section on the main page of the site.

The upgrade process from previous 2.x releases to 2.1 is easy to do, please review the instructions in the docs directory of the distribution file. If you are upgrading from previous versions of ListMessenger, do not worry, you are not left out; the setup application can upgrade right from ListMessenger 0.5.0 to 2.1.0.

Main Changes in ListMessenger 2.1

New Features

• CAPTCHA image protection for End-User Tools (requires GD Image Library with Freetype 2).
• New RSS syndication for mailing list archive (in archive.php).
• New post subscribe / unsubscribe message auto-reply option.
• End-Users can now update their subscriber information (in profile.php).
• Subscribers firstname and lastname have been added to administrator notifications.
• New [messageid] and [profileurl] variables added to message and template composition.
• New bulk removal tool for removing multiple e-mail addresses at once.
• New copy / move subscribers option added so you can manage subscribers more easily.
• Administrators can now remove selected messages from the Queue Manager individually.

Updates & Refinements

• ListMessenger interface refinements including new scaling width and height.
• Manage Groups section displays the number of subscribers in each individual group.
• Increased speed of list exports on large mailing lists.
• InnovaStudio 2.9.8 Upgrade

And many more… Please see the Listmessenger 2.1 Change Log for the full changelog.

Future Changes

The ListMessenger 2.x code base is now fairly mature and we need room to grow! So with that we will soon be starting development on ListMessenger 3.0. If you have any last pieces of feedback or suggestions for the 3.0 release, please post them in the Suggestions & Feedback section as I this will be reviewed while we develop our Roadmap to 3.0.

The other exciting piece of news is that listmessenger.com will soon be getting a facelift! Our current website and members area has served us quite well, but it’s starting to age. The new site design (currently in development) will bring us up to Web 2.0 standards and the new purchasing system will allow for more flexibility including add-on purchases and alternate payment methods.

We will be posting more details as soon as we can.

After another long development cycle, the first (and last) public release candidate (development version) of ListMessenger Pro 2.1 is now available from the ListMessenger Members Area (My Downloads section) for users who have previously purchased ListMessenger Pro.

Important Notice: Please do not use this release candidate version of ListMessenger to upgrade your production ListMessenger installation. Please use it for testing purposes only.

Main Changes in ListMessenger 2.1

New Features

• CAPTCHA image protection for End-User Tools (requires GD Image Library with Freetype 2).
• New RSS syndication for mailing list archive (in archive.php).
• New post subscribe / unsubscribe message auto-reply option.
• End-Users can now update their subscriber information (in profile.php).
• Subscribers firstname and lastname have been added to administrator notifications.
• New [messageid] and [profileurl] variables added to message and template composition.
• New bulk removal tool for removing multiple e-mail addresses at once.
• New copy / move subscribers option added so you can manage subscribers more easily.
• Administrators can now remove selected messages from the Queue Manager individually.

Updates & Refinements

• ListMessenger interface refinements including new scaling width and height.
• Manage Groups section displays the number of subscribers in each individual group.
• Increased speed of list exports on large mailing lists.

And many more… Please see the Listmessenger 2.1 Change Log for the full changelog.

Release Announcement

At this point, I am quite comfortable to say and pleased to announce that the final release of ListMessenger 2.1 (Light and Pro) will be available for download on Sunday, March 25th, 2007.

ListMessenger Light 2.0 has finally been released today and is now available for download from the ListMessenger downloads page. This new version has many benefits over it’s predecessor and is based on the ListMessenger Pro 2.0 code-base minus the advanced features of course. To get the full feature set and comparison between Pro and Light 2.0 please visit our the Features page on our website: http://www.listmessenger.com/index.php/features

• There is a 200 subscriber soft-limit.
• There is no advanced sending engine to control speed, pause, resume, etc.
• There is no import / export tools.
• There is no file attachment management.
• There is no text or HTML e-mail template support.
• InnovaStudio WYSIWYG editor is not available.
• Priority support is not given.

Now that ListMessenger Light 2.0 has been released, development of ListMessenger 3.0 will begin. In fact, a development out line has already been started and will be made available as soon as it is complete.

Today marks the end of long development cycle and out of that development cycle we are delighted to present you with ListMessenger Pro 2.0, our next generation electronic mailing list management system. This new version of ListMessenger encompasses an inordinate number of feature requests provided by our customer base and will provide a stable and solid foundation for future releases of both our Light and Professional versions of our product.

Full details of the changes within ListMessenger Pro can be found in the changelog.txt file available on our website; however, the following is a list of major enhancements to the program:

• 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.
• Duplicate e-mail address removal.
• Subscribe and unsubscribe notifications.
• New language files and language choice options.
• 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. *available shortly
• Optional error logging.
• No more pop-up window to send messages.
• New custom ListMessenger icon set.
• Much more.

Over the next week, we will be spending a lot of time upgrading the ListMessenger website to reflect the changes of ListMessenger, so we apologize that some of the information and demo is currently out of date.

For those of you interested in ListMessenger Light 2.0 news, we plan on releasing ListMessenger Light 2.0 in the coming weeks. This new release of ListMessenger Light will have many of the benefits of ListMessenger Pro with the usual limitations on the number of subscribers you’re able to handle, without the Backup & Restore and Import & Export tools, etc. More information on this will be available shortly.

You have also probably already noticed that we have updated our ListMessenger Forums with forums specific to ListMessenger 1.0 and ListMessenger 2.0. We will continue to support ListMessenger 1.0 users in the coming months with the understanding that our goal is migration from 1.0 to 2.0.

Thank-you for reading our ListMessenger announcements and we look forward to hearing your suggestions and feedback about our new release.