[Mailman-Users] Complex code such as header and footer in themessages sent by mailman

[Mark Sapiro]

Bob McLeran wrote:

>Along with those items, I still haven't gotten a good, easy answer to my 
>question about the use of the ampersand in the footer. It gets munged 
>into an html sequence in plain text. There should be some way to 
>"escape" it without having to edit files that only the system 
>administrator can reach.

Well, technically, you have to edit files that only the system
administrator can reach directly because that's where the headers and
footers are kept.

Is I said in a previous post, there are security implications in
allowing HTML tags in text which is displayed back on web pages
(google XSS for more info) so all text is "cleansed" by escaping "<",
">" and "&" entered on the list admin pages. Thus you can only add
text containing these characters with tools that require a higher
level of access i.e bin/config_list and bin/withlist.

This does not provide you with a "good, easy" web-based way to do what
you want because there isn't one, and asking again isn't going to
change that.

>
>On 12/23/2004 11:10 PM, Jonathan wrote without changing the From: header in the OP from Ulisse:
>
>><big snip>
>>For instance:
>>1) Can you add an html header to the emails? I still don't get it. I read the links you provided, and their sub-links.


Not through the web interface, but even if you did put HTML into these
fields, the actual header and footer information is added to list
posts in text/plain parts (either prepended or appended to text/plain
messages or added as separate text/plain parts). Thus any HTML
wouldn't be rendered by the users MUA in any case. About all you can
do is put in a text URI which some MUAs will show as a clickable link.

>>
>>2) Is there a way so people subscribing don't go back into that archaic interface - when it asks them to accept or decline the list it's flat out confusing - text overwhelm - my user base is consumers and not programmers. Why should a) they have too choose or deny when they are clicking on a link to confirm? It should just confirm them without another button text and w/o text overwhelm. and b) it takes them back to a list of all my lists, which I hate, or at least would like to have the option of avoiding, if I am not intending to mix all my subscribers. I don't want them to have the option of joining other groups unless I intend to give it to them.
>>
>>3) I don't understand if you can attach PDFs where it says, i.e. to new subscribers, etc. When I attach one, it just inserts garble into the text box once the PDF file is uploaded. I can't tell if this is an error, or what, and if I can include additional text.


This was answered in the cross-post to mailman-developers, but for
completeness, you can't upload non-text files (PDF, M$-Word, etc) and
have things work. when you "specify a file to upload" with a member
list or what ever, it must be plain text. See
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.044.htp
for more info about the format of mass-subscribe lists.

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan