Dada Mail Profiles Overview

Dada Mail Profiles allow subscribers to a Dada Mail list access to their own profile accounts within Dada Mail, where they can view their current subscriptions, update their subscription information (user-editable Subscriber Profile Fields) and also have additional permissions to subscriber-only features of Dada Mail mailing lists - as an example; archives that are only available to subscribers of a mailing list.


Logging into your Dada Mail Profile

A subscriber can log into their profile, by clicking the, [Register/Log In] link that's currently on the top right of the Dada Mail screen:


The, [Register/Log In] Link

The Profile Login screen looks like this:


The Profile Login Screen

There are three separate forms, to log into a profile, register a new profile and to reset a lost password for a profile. Pretty standard stuff.

Once logged in, your subscriber will find themselves in the Profile Home screen:


The Profile Home Screen

From here, your subscribers can edit their own Subscriber Profile Fields, view the lists they're subscribed to and also change their profile password. There's also links to each list's archives and a link to unsubscribe from the list.

Once logged in, a Dada Mail user can navigate throughout and view their logged in status at the upper right hand side of the screen.

All the subscription forms in Dada Mail will be auto-filled out with the Dada Mail user's email address and the Subscriber Profile Fields will be hidden (so as not to have the user have to re-type the same information twice)


The Default Dada Mail screen with a logged in user

And that's the new Dada Mail Profiles features, from a user's point of view.


List Administration and New Options with Dada Mail Profiles

Since users can now log into Dada Mail, you can now do some fancy things from within your list, concerning list subscribers.

For example, there are now options to only allow subscribers to view a list's archive:


Manage Archives - Archive Options

There's also a new option to skip the closed-loop opt-in system, if a subscriber already has a registered profile:


Manage List - Mailing List Options

This is hopefully, just scratching the surface of what can be done with the new Dada Mail Profile functionality.


Other Features to Look Out For

Subscriber Profile Fields

Subscriber Profile Fields can now have, Labels, so you don't have to use the name of your subscriber field as the label for things like the subscription form.

Subscriber Profile Fields can now also be easily re-ordered:


Manage Subscribers - Subsriber Fields


Installing Dada Mail 4.0 with Subscriber Profile Fields

Note! This release is currently an alpha-quality release and is not recommended for production servers!

We also do not suggest upgrading any previous Dada Mail to this release, as many of the SQL tables have changed and upgrade tools have not been created yet.

To install, follow the same installation instructions for Dada Mail 3.x at:

http://dadamailproject.com/installation/

You will need the SQL backend for Dada Mail to take advantage of the new Dada Mail Profiles feature.

Profile Specific options are located in the Config.pm file, as well as in the example .dada_config file that comes with this release (dada/extras/examples/example_dada_config.txt)

As always, we suggest making the changes in the .dada_config file. The variables look like in the example .dada_config file:

        # Dada Mail Profile Options
 
        $PROFILE_ENABLED                         = 1; 
        $PROFILE_EMAIL                           = ''; 
        $PROFILE_ENABLE_CAPTCHA                  = 1;
        $PROFILE_ENABLE_MAGIC_SUBSCRIPTION_FORMS = 1;
 
        $PROFILE_COOKIE_PARAMS = {
                -name   => 'dada_profile',  
            -path    => '/',
            -expires => '+7d',  
        };
 
        $PROFILE_GRAVATAR_OPTIONS = {
                enable_gravators     => 1, 
                default_gravatar_url => undef, 
        };
 
        #/ Dada Mail Profile Options

And are explained in the documentation for the Config.pm file.

Make sure to set the, $PROFILE_EMAIL variable, or profile registration may not work correctly!


Feedback Needed

We'd love to hear from you about these new features. Please post your feedback to our boards:

http://dadamailproject.com/support/boards

our developer mailing list:

http://dadamailproject.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/dadadev/

Or, send us an email:

http://dadamailproject.com/contact/