Those of you who have been following
our blog already know that we are currently working on a
CiviMail focused release. Some of the exciting items to be included are:
- significant speed-up in mail generation (at least a 3-5x speedup, potentially more)
- web-based subscribe, confirm and unsubscribe options
- on-screen WYSIWYG composition of email messages
We'd like this release to really take CiviMail to the next level - so we'd like to hear from folks who are currently using the component and have additional feedback about things we can do to make it better. We can't promise to get all your ideas into the release of course - but we suspect there's some really easy changes that will polish things up. As usual, patches and VERY SPECIFIC suggestions are most warmly received. :-)
Check out the full list of open and resolved issues for 1.9 here before sending in your ideas (we may have been clever enough to have anticipated some things):
Resolved Issues
Open Issues
The release schedule for v1.9 is currently being determined. We expect to have an alpha release before the end of the month. Unfortunately this means that our release schedule for 2.0 will slip a few weeks.
A special thanks to Shane Hill and
UAS for the much needed push to make CiviMail robust and easier to use for smaller orgs.
Comments
I know this is really for people who are already using CiviMail, but you all should really focus on making CiviMail a far more easily configurable module than it currently is. That would really bring more usage to CiviCRM, as I know several people who downloaded it for the main purpose of using the mass mail feature - only to be disappointed that its nearly impossible to configure without an experienced web developer on staff.
I would agree with your comments that CiviMail is hard to install and configure. v1.9 with the UAS service (note that this is a PAID service) makes it significantly easier to use and install and does not need any of the extra software installation (amavisd, postfix) that standalone CiviMail needs. If you wish to run CiviMail in standalone mode, the install is still a bit complex for the average user.
It would be nice to be able to run a mailing multiple times only getting users that have been added to a smart list since the mailing was run last.
Here is a use case:
One creates a smart list for those that register for a particular event. One wants to send them a specific email reminding them about hotel registration deadlines. It would be nice to be able to run this mailing every day until the deadline and only send mail to those newly registered, without sending to those who have already received it. While I think this can be done by resending the mailing manually, an automatic solution would be nice.
/carmi