5. License, credits, requirements, bugs, history, etc.

NewsLetter is freeware. Use it at your own risk. Also, currently it is a beta version, so use it carefully and make some tests before adoptate it as your favorite-tool-of-the-year.

The alma mater of NewsLetter is "sendEmail.pl", a very clever perl script designed by
Brandon Zehm. You can take a look to this and other works from at http://caspian.dotconf.net/.

I use a patched version of this script, called "sendEmailA.pl", modified by
Nicola Bandini, which adds support for authentication in smtp servers.

As this patched version required a perl module for base-64 encoding the user and password for authentication, I use a command-line tool called "encdec" 1.1, written ten years ago by
Jörgen Hägg, now recompiled and bundled within NewsLetter.

NewsLetter uses "contacts" 1.0 to grab email addresses from the Address Book. I chose this command-line utility so I didn't need launch the Address Book to retrieve the data. It's speedy and very robust. Credits go to Shane Celis at http://gnufoo.org/.

Version 1.0 also includes the WebKit framework, so you don't need switch to a web browser to read this documentation and preview your messages.


- Requirements

NewsLetter requires a valid email address to send the messages, and a Mac OS X installation, which should include by default all needed tools: OS X itself, Perl and some others.

NewsLetter has been tested only under Panther 10.3.2, but it should work in earlier versions.


- Bugs

Do you wanna report a bug? "This doesn't work please help" is not a report. First, read the entire documentation and the FAQ; make sure your system meets the requirements to run NewsLetter. If this doesn't help, send me a detailed report describing your problem: operative system, some sample files if needed, etc.


- History

NewsLetter 1.0, January 12, 2004
- Added the capability to preview messages in NewsLetter (no more switching to a browser).
- Added the capability to grab email addresses from FileMaker, Address Book and Entourage.
- Added the capability to export email addresses at any time.

NewsLetter 1.0b2, January 6, 2004
- Fixed ocassional issues with the help system and the preview function in systems without a user-defined default browser.
- Added the option to check for invalid image urls in HTML messages.
- Added the option to check for invalid and duplicate email addresses in recipients.
- NewsLetter supports now multiple attachments.
- Better handling of possible user errors using smart tags.
- Rework of documentation. Added a quick guide to create HTML messages.

NewsLetter 1.0b1, January 1, 2004
- First public release.