Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

    I needed a bulk emailer and decided to write my own.
    I wanted it to be short and simple and to the point,
    and this is what I came up with. It's pretty basic but the main
    engine is in place and tested.

    And in the spirit of Open Source, I am giving it away to use as you like.
    All I ask is that if you do improve on it that you will keep my name
    in the function credits and post your version here for others to do
    the same.

    http://ablejobs.us/bulk_emailer.zip
    Rapid Development, Training, Support
    http://data2web.network
    903-740-2549

    #2
    Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

    Michael,

    Very nice code. How does it get the email setup properties?
    Regards
    Keith Hubert
    Alpha Guild Member
    London.
    KHDB Management Systems
    Skype = keith.hubert


    For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

      Originally posted by Keith Hubert View Post
      Michael,

      Very nice code. How does it get the email setup properties?
      In this line:
      IF (email_smtp_open(ps, "smtp.gmail.com",465,"[email protected]","PASSWORD","SSL")) THEN

      server-port-username-password-encryption
      Rapid Development, Training, Support
      http://data2web.network
      903-740-2549

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

        I received these helpful tips from JerryBrightbill that you should consider. As I mentioned above this program is basic and was intended to be a foundation for which you can build onto to suit your needs.

        Mike

        Having built a high volume bulk emailer a few years ago that would sent 1200 identical emails in a few minutes, I learned there are a few surprises that may trip up your process.

        Most email providers have limits to throttle bulk email as a spam deterrent. Many of these are hidden or undocumented. The penalties are also often not fully documented. Most limit the number of emails in a given period, and the number of addresses that can be placed in to:, cc:, and bcc: per email. Here are some links with some published numbers

        http://support.e-zekiel.com/template...06&fetch=26546

        http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/t...ate-limit.html

        What is often not published is the number of connections per minute, and the number of emails per connection which are both often restricted. A few years ago, many providers had a limit of 3-5 connections per minute, although evidence suggests that has changed.

        With any "bulk" type email process it isn't hard to exceed the limits, especially if you open and close a connection for each email.

        The real penalty is how the provider responds if you hit the limit. If you look at the links above, Comcast effectively locks sending emails for 24 hours. Some years ago AOL had a similar policy except it froze the entire email account for 24 hours. You couldn't send or receive. In addition, violate the policy too often and some providers will cancel the account and label you as a spam provider. The providers constantly monitor and tweak the limits to prevent spam which makes pushing the limits even more chancy.

        My suggestion would be to carefully investigate the providers email policies concerning volume and add some throttling mechanism to the code that generates the emails in a manner that won't hit the limits.

        Either that or use some bulk email service that doesn't limit the emails or has very high limits
        Rapid Development, Training, Support
        http://data2web.network
        903-740-2549

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

          As soon as I have some time I will post an upgrade that will include a dbf for a queue and logic to take care of the send quotas.
          Last edited by mvaughn; 02-07-2013, 06:29 PM.
          Rapid Development, Training, Support
          http://data2web.network
          903-740-2549

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

            Glad to hear it.
            Earl Allin
            REAInc.net

            We can help you with mentoring and custom programming services in Alpha, .NET, React, PHP, ColdFusion, and more..

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

              When I go to the link I am getting a 404 message....? Did you remove it? I hope not because I could really use something like this.

              Thanks for all your hard work!

              Holly

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                Ooops, was cleaning out the webroot and accidently deleted it. It's back now :)
                By adjusting the sleep() value you can have it send so many per hour.
                sleep(36) will send 100 per hour.
                Last edited by mvaughn; 02-10-2013, 01:56 PM.
                Rapid Development, Training, Support
                http://data2web.network
                903-740-2549

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                  is it possible to use this with a dbf table? if yes how can i get list of email addresses from my .dbf table in to the record set.

                  Code:
                  '=======================SQL CONNECT=====================
                  IF conn.open("::NAME::XXXXXXX") THEN
                  	conn.PortableSQLEnabled = .t.
                  	conn.execute("SELECT DISTINCT add_email FROM appdata1")						'** add_email is my column name
                  	rs = conn.ResultSet													'** appdata1 is my table name
                  END IF
                  thanks

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                    Michael,

                    Very nice! You can optionally use a5_is_email_valid() as opposed to *any() to verify if the email address is valid. It checks for more than just a single (@). a5_email_valid() has been deprecated.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                      Nice tip Dave!
                      I was just looking for an "@" but I have seen some people submit "yahooo.com", "hotmail. com" etc etc.
                      Rapid Development, Training, Support
                      http://data2web.network
                      903-740-2549

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                        Richard, porting this to DBF is easy.
                        You are on the right track.

                        conn.execute("SELECT DISTINCT emailaddy FROM table")
                        rs = conn.ResultSet
                        while rs.nextrow
                        email = rs(0)
                        ...
                        Rapid Development, Training, Support
                        http://data2web.network
                        903-740-2549

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                          Hi Michael,

                          I have been trying to download this file but after downloading the zip file is "not valid".
                          Is it possible to get this file in another way?

                          tia

                          Pieter

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                            Originally posted by [email protected] View Post
                            Hi Michael,

                            I have been trying to download this file but after downloading the zip file is "not valid".
                            Is it possible to get this file in another way?

                            tia

                            Pieter
                            Me too..
                            Al Buchholz
                            Bookwood Systems, LTD
                            Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

                            Occam's Razor - KISS
                            Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
                            Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
                            When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
                            "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
                            Albert Einstein

                            http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: Bulk Emailer - Here it is!

                              Yep, the zip's corrupt.
                              Alpha Anywhere v12.4.6.5.2 Build 8867-5691 IIS v10.0 on Windows Server 2019 Std in Hyper-V

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X