ListMessenger Light 1.0 Released

Written by Matt SimpsonFebruary 23, 2004

I am pleased to say that after a much delayed release date, ListMessenger Light 1.0.0 (free version) has been released to the public. This version supports updated code and is the first of what will be a long line of Lighter versions of ListMessenger.

The features missing in Light from ListMessenger Pro are:

  • There is no integrated subscriber history / details.
  • There is no importing & exporting abilities.
  • There is no text-based spell checking support.
  • You cannot modify the speed in which messages send.
  • Script warns administrator once subscriber list is greater than 200 users.
  • There are no backup & restore tools.
  • No access to priority forum support.
  • No access to trouble ticket support.
  • No access to members area.

ListMessenger Light is the perfect solution for:

  • Small personal / commercial / non-profit websites who do not expect a lot of traffic and / or subscribers.
  • Web-masters / Web-designers who would like to evaluate the product and ensure that it will run on their server prior to purchasing the Pro version.
  • Users who need a fast, light solution for a temporary project or product.

If it does end up that you do need to upgrade to the Pro version because you have more than 200 subscribers, or you like the product or for any reason, it’s as easy as purchasing it, and uploading all the new files to your ListMessenger directory. Nothing else needs to be done as both versions use the same database content and structure. This can be done by anyone in a matter for minutes.

If you have any questions / comments, please feel free to post in the forum.

ListMessenger Pro For Mambo

Written by Matt SimpsonFebruary 5, 2004

I am proud to announced that ListMessenger Pro is expanding it’s horizons. A new type of integrated ListMessenger will be available for purchase later this month with complete integration with Mambo CMS [http://www.mamboserver.com]. Phil Taylor, a full time developer for Mambo Server and myself will be working together to bring you ListMessenger Pro for Mambo.

Mambo Open Source is a commercial quality, GPL’d Content Management System (CMS) which makes building and managing a website simple. Mambo is a very highly respected application with a huge market share in the CMS industry. Enterprise applications such as Plesk have chosen Mambo as their integrated CMS tool and we couldn’t be happier to have a new completely integrated version of ListMessenger to share with this exciting and vast community of users.

More details will be available soon on the ListMessenger Pro for Mambo website http://mambo.listmessenger.com.

Christmas Announcement E-mail Problem

Written by Matt SimpsonDecember 21, 2003

Yes, so today I sent out the first Announcement to everyone that subscribed to the ListMessenger mailing list through the Members Area; however, I didn’t realize my version of ListMessenger was the original release of 1.0 that doesn’t work properly and has problems with the headers. 

So needless to say, I’m apologizing for this and I have upgraded my own stupid version as of now. It won’t happen again.

New ListMessenger Website & Upgrades

Written by Matt SimpsonDecember 15, 2003

A New Face for ListMessenger – A New Forum for Users

After over a year and a half calling http://scripts.digitalorphans.org/listmessenger home, the new ListMessenger website has finally been launched at http://www.listmessenger.com and will continue to expand over the next few months. Content to be added includes manuals and documentation, search functionality, reseller and community information as well as the much anticipated ListMessenger Light 1.0. I feel that the new website is the professional face to a professional product and with enhancements will do us well for the exciting year ahead.

I also took this opportunity to upgrade the forum from InvisionBoard 1.1.2 to InvisionBoard 1.3 and give it a similar look and feel as listmessenger.com.

In either case, there are bound to be a few hiccups somewhere that we haven’t caught during debugging and testing, so if you find something that you feel doesn’t work properly or has errors please send a bug report to: bugreport@listmessenger.com and please include the exact URL, your operating system, web-browser and version as well as any special applications you may have had running at the time the error occurred.

ListMessenger Pro 1.0 Released!

Written by Matt SimpsonOctober 7, 2003

First Commercial Version of ListMessenger Now Available With Many New Features, Enhancements and Fixes.

I am very pleased to announce that after a full year and a half of development and many contributions by both end users and many outside sources, ListMessenger Pro 1.0 is available for purchase. The cost of the professional version is $49.95CAD (~$37.54USD) and can be purchased by registering in the ListMessenger Members Area.

ListMessenger, with the help of such open source projects as PHPMailer, PCLZip and PHPSniff, exceeds expectations as a well designed, easy to use and extremely robust mailing list management solution for any web site. ListMessenger is feature packed but because of its intuitive design remains simple enough so any administrator can quickly manage his or her own mailing list and send out important newsletters or information.

Some of ListMessenger Pro’s many new features include:
– Rich Text Editor Integration (IE Only)
– Microsoft Excel & CSV Importing with confirmation ability.
– Public Message Archive System
– Automated Unsubscribe Link
– End-User History Viewer
– Database Table Prefixes
– Optional Persistent Database Connections

ListMessenger includes many more features, not listed above as well.

Also, the much anticipated ListMessenger Light 1.0 (the freeware version) will be released sometime in the next few weeks. Detailed information will be available on our website shortly.

ListMessenger Pro 1.0 Release Delay

Written by Matt SimpsonSeptember 29, 2003

Much to my dismay, I am posting this thread to inform users that ListMessenger Pro 1.0’s release date has been pushed back one week, to Monday, October 6th, 2003.

There are a number of factors that lead to this delay. The major one being that I could not find a suitable e-commerce solution for purchasing software and managing licence keys, so I had to write my own. This solution is what will be required for users to purchase and generate the keys needed to run ListMessenger Pro. I figure that one week extra week will ensure that the released product is of the quality that I, myself, would expect to purchase.

I will post further status details in this thread as I have them:
– Completed: support management system
– Completed: store application design and database
– Completed: store signup process
– Completed: store signin process
– Completed: store shopping cart process
– Completed: store order management process
– Working: store key assignment process
– Working: ListMessenger key integration process
– Working: ListMessenger key tracking process
– Working: ListMessenger update scripts
– Working: ListMessenger setup scripts
– ToDo: final testing and QA
– ToDo: new ListMessenger website

ListMessenger Pro 1.0 Release Date

Written by Matt SimpsonAugust 25, 2003

I am pleased to announce that after nearly one and a half years in development, ListMessenger Pro 1.0 will be available for purchase ($49.95CAD || ~$35.73USD) on Monday, September 29th, 2003. This will be the first commercial version of the application available and will contain many feature enhancements and bug fixes over current private and public development versions.

Prior to September 29th there will be a final development phase release, given to selected ListMessenger users who have made contributions to the project during it’s first development cycle. These users will be contacted by myself when I am ready to release, so please do not e-mail me asking to be included in the pre-release testing phase.

Here is a sneak peak of some of ListMessenger newest features, please feel free to discuss any of these on this forum; however, be advised that ListMessenger is currently in a feature freeze and nothing else will be added until after ListMessenger Pro 1.0 is released.

ListMessenger Program:
– Text-Message spell-checking (requires PHP to be compiled –with-pspell)
– HTML-Message Rich Text Editor with image uploading
– Simple user subscribe/unsubscribe history browser
– Administrators “Add Members” contains optional “opt-in” request
– Quick “Save” feature when composing a message
– Queue pruning support for selected message types
– Quickly copy a message from message options window
– View composed message directly from message options window
– Import addresses into ListMessenger (Microsoft Excel / CSV)
– Upgraded PHPMailer class
– Preview HTML Templates
– Advanced licence management
– Searchable/Dumpable subscribe/unsubscribe list
– Opt-out message added to bottom of _all_ text messages
– Opt-out variable added to HTML Template

End-User Tools:
– End-User tools migrated to it’s own “public” directory
– End-User tools preferences are now in the Control Panel
– Optional “opt-in” message from End-User tools integrated
– Public archive of previous messages
– Banned e-mail address and banned domains list
– End-User Tools now use customizable language files

There may be more features that I just haven’t mentioned as well.

Please be advised that while I will do everything I can to have ListMessenger Light 1.0 ready by September 29th, it is currently 3rd on my priority list. 1) Being getting ListMessenger Pro completed 2) Being complete the new ListMessenger website / store 3) Being to complete ListMessenger Light. Please do not worry, I will try to not let this be a habit as I plan on always releasing the Pro & Light versions at the same time and there _will_ always be a Light version for users to use at no cost.

Importing / Exporting Features

Written by Matt SimpsonJune 10, 2003

Despite my better judgement, ListMessenger Pro 1.0 will include the ability to import and export both names and e-mail addresses in CSV and Microsoft Excel formats. This feature will be located in the Control Panel under Import/Exporting.

Important: ListMessenger Light (free version) will not contain this feature at all, nor will I provide support, scripts or instructions as to how to import or export names or e-mail addresses from or to the database.

Important: This is not a selling point to try to get people to purchase the Pro version for $49.95CAD. The reason that I am including this feature is because if an admin decides that they wish to switch from another mailing list manager to ListMessenger, as of right now, they have no way of doing this. This alone would be a huge set back for the program and a huge deturant for new ListMessenger users.

This was an extremely hard decision for me to make, as I fear now more than ever that this feature will make ListMessenger at least some what more appealing to SPAMers; however, I do have and will continue to develop effective features into ListMessenger that attempt this from happening. Abuse of this feature will not be tolerated, there will be no warnings and any one who is caught abusing this will have a big surprise when they try to log into their ListMessenger installation and their key is no longer valid.

Optional Subscription Confirmation

Written by Matt SimpsonJune 10, 2003

Despite my better judgment, ListMessenger Pro 1.0 will have the option of subscription confirmation on sign-up to accompany the subscription confirmation option upon un-subscribing. The option will be located in the End-User Prefereces within the control panel.

Important: ListMessenger Light (free version) will not contain this feature at all, nor will I provide support, scripts or instructions as to how to remove the subscription confirmation.

Important: This is not a selling point to try to get people to purchase the Pro version for $49.95CAD. The reason that I am including it as an option in the Pro version is because in many cases people have valid reasons for not wanting the confirmation and they have paid money to use the program and receive support. Some valid reasons in my opinion that I have heard are:
1) I use ListMessenger inside of another sign-up script and include it as an opt-in checkbox.
2) I use ListMessenger combined with my on-line store and include it as an opt-in checkbox.
3) I use ListMessenger on my companies Intranet and employees shouldn’t have to confirm.
4) etc etc.

So either way, I thought that I would make this announcement so I don’t have to answer any more posts, suggestions or feature requests regarding this issue.

Also note, that abuse of this feature will not be tolerated, there will be no warnings and any one who is caught abusing this will have a big surprise when they try to log into their ListMessenger installation and their key is no longer valid.