How to Send Customized E-Mail

So you wish to send out customized e-mail to many people?  Please reconsider
doing that, if it is unwanted spam.  Still want to do it?  Here's one way of
doing it:

Save your message text in a file named "TemplateLetter.txt".  It should look
something like this (I didn't word wrap the paragraphs, leaving each as one
long line, because the length would change depending on the inserted text
length):

Hi there NAME, how are you today?

I'm sending this message to EMAIL to inform you about a good deal for your company, COMPANY.

Hope you like it.

- Alex


Then save this following text as a script file, call it "MailToTemplate":

#!/bin/sh

# Make a mail merge letter by combining data from a given people file and a
# template letter text file.
# $Revision: 1.2 $
# Some code from Scot Hacker's PeoplePorter http://www.bebits.com/app/1747

PeopleFile=$1
echo "Mail merging using people file: $PeopleFile"

Name=$(catattr META:name "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)
EMail=$(catattr META:email "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)
Company=$(catattr META:company "$PeopleFile" | sed s/\ \:\ /%/g | cut -f3 -d\%)	

sed "s/NAME/$Name/g" <TemplateLetter.txt >/tmp/stage1
sed "s/EMAIL/$EMail/g" </tmp/stage1 >/tmp/stage2
sed "s/COMPANY/$Company/g" </tmp/stage2 >/tmp/stage3
mail -v -s "Test Message to $Name" "$EMail" </tmp/stage3


After you have saved it, make it executable with the "chmod a+x MailToTemplate"
command.  Then run it with a people file as an argument:

Fri Jun 13 12:13:11 67 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Test\ Person
Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Test Person
EOT
sent successfully!


And the result will be an e-mail like this:

Subject: Test Message to Mr. Test A. Person
To: test@be.com
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0400 EDT
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hi there Mr. Test A. Person, how are you today=3F

I'm sending this message to test@be.com to inform you about a good deal for your company, Masters of Scripting, Inc..

Hope you like it.

- Alex


If you want to use the BeOS attribute indices system to select people, you can
run the results of a query though the mail customizing script like this example
(watch out - very long line) which sends the e-mail to all people (presumably
the people files are on the /boot disk volume, which is why the -v is needed)
with "test" in their groups listing:

Fri Jun 13 12:24:14 78 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>query -v /boot META:group=*test* | sed "s/^/MailToTemplate /g" >/tmp/BatchMailCommands ; source /tmp/BatchMailCommands
Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Test Person
EOT
sent successfully!
Mail merging using people file: /boot/home/people/Another Test
EOT
sent successfully!


Just so you know how it works, here is the batch commands file which was
automatically generated and used in the previous step:

Fri Jun 13 12:24:20 79 /Programming/bemaildaemon/documentation/Mass Mailing>cat /tmp/BatchMailCommands
MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Test\ Person
MailToTemplate /boot/home/people/Another\ Test


Finally, if you want to do fancier messages, like HTML mixed ones, you have to
also specify the headers.  Since the usual "mail" program doesn't let you do
that, you have to prepare the entire message and use the attribute system to
tag it for mailing.  Look at an existing message in your out box to see the
attributes needed.

Prepare the message elsewhere (use some other e-mail package which lets you
insert HTML and pictures) then mail it to yourself, open the resulting file in
BeIDE (it takes care of the CRLF end of line conversion problems automatically,
you want this template file to have CRLF line ends, the earlier example doesn't
use them) and edit it to make it into a new message like this one:


To: "NAME" <EMAIL>
From: "Imaginary Test Account" <test@be.com>
Subject: Hi there NAME
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related;
	type="multipart/alternative";
	boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
	boundary="----=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080"


------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hi NAME, this is a reminder that you shouldn't annoy people with [No Spam Icon] spam!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fine print: Even if it is customised and otherwise pretty.
------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>This is your Spam!</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR=3DWHITE>
<P>Hi NAME, this is a <STRONG>reminder</STRONG> that <FONT COLOR=3DBLUE SIZE=3D5>you</FONT>
<STRONG>shouldn't</STRONG> annoy <FONT COLOR=3DRED>people</FONT> with
<IMG alt=3D"[No Spam Icon]" WIDTH=3D32 HEIGHT=3D32
SRC=3D"cid:000801c331cb$88136380$42ae10ac@be.com"
BORDER=3D0> spam!
<HR>
<P><FONT size=3D1>Fine print: Even if it is customised and otherwise
pretty.</FONT>
</BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_001_000A_01C331AA.016FA080--

------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080
Content-Type: image/png;
	name="NoSpamIcon.png"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: <000801c331cb$88136380$42ae10ac@be.com>

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgCAYAAABzenr0AAABTElEQVR42r2XDQ6DMAhGuVPvtHP0
GN5ph2KpqY5QoF/xx4Rs2UzfAysKMXAQUSqgtREwJwMRoQhuLVon4YksCVAAnh2eiCdBMzgKRkQs
CZrBrxwEVILehFsS9BbcuxyDwGPwvi8GgTuzj+BaQPQJ/J6ddUcLrjtjvSpwLrZ9mL/bHmHm7bwe
pPbCIGDepzqLDm1RgswlmEv5f4oqhAIW8IyefQjv553VavAeoYALFiUP4fJ8HYiABhfx2/F9mrkU
VnC5D3wBla1cFMo8KP9yBaDdLs4pcgMem2+pAn2xomQ8eAGvu9UL4AqEZQ+gGqw74v6f2aOR3Q5A
rb4yNKJIAG4yQbbLArzQ21ffgk2OZ8Y3vyO4j2PP7km4KeBJPAk334prYrjIwt25oCanHPkUTb2W
zyQYmQcXpyPKTDmZGTE1nGqR+uZweseojhw/XAq+WQDwT5wAAAAASUVORK5CYII=

------=_NextPart_000_0009_01C331AA.016FA080--


Then in the mailing script, rather than calling "mail" to do the job, you have
to add attributes to the final file.  Some you can clone from another outgoing
mail (like the chain), others you need to set to specify the recipient.  Here's
the current full set:

  Type         Size                 Name
----------  ---------   -------------------------------
  MIME str         13                         BEOS:TYPE
      Text         46                   MAIL:recipients
      Text         43                           MAIL:to
      Text          1                           MAIL:cc
      Text         42                      MAIL:subject
      Text          1                        MAIL:reply
      Text         46                         MAIL:from
      Text          4                         MAIL:mime
      Text         18                      MAIL:account
0x54494d45          4                         MAIL:when
    Int-32          4                        MAIL:flags
    Int-32          4                        MAIL:chain
      Text          5                       MAIL:status

You need at the minimum:
BEOS:TYPE set to: text/x-email
MAIL:recipients lists the address you are sending to, for example: <test@be.com>
MAIL:from lists your return address: "Imaginary Test Account" <test@be.com>
MAIL:chain set to your outgoing mail chain number, happens to be 1 here.
MAIL:flags set to 5.

The commands to do that look like:
addattr -t string BEOS:TYPE text/x-email /tmp/stage3
addattr -t string MAIL:recipients "<$EMail>" /tmp/stage3
addattr -t string MAIL:from "\"Imaginary Test Account\" <test@be.com>" /tmp/stage3
addattr -t int MAIL:chain 1 /tmp/stage3
addattr -t int MAIL:flags 5 /tmp/stage3

Then move the message to the /boot/home/mail/out folder, using a unique name,
since there has to be one file for each person.  A suitable command might be:
mv /tmp/stage3 "/boot/home/mail/out/MessageTo$EMail"

Finally, tell the daemon to check for mail.  Right click on the mailbox icon in
the deskbar and pick "check for mail".  It will then send all the pending mail.