chas wrote Zope's dtml-sendmail tag is excellent - it makes sending e-mail a breeze. It reminds me of a similar tag that Cold Fusion added and which I've noticed many sites use for sending out customized newsletters (the "Allaire ColdFusion Application Server" header being the giveaway).
Now, doing the same in Zope, I can loop over the user profiles in our database to extract name, e-mail, and even customize the content of the newsletter as follows :
<dtml-in ZSQL_Select_User_Profiles>
<!--#sendmail mailhost="ZMailHost"--> To: <dtml-var firstname> <<dtml-var email>> From: robot <robot@ourdomain.com> Subject: <dtml-var random_inanity>
Dear <dtml-var firstname>,
blah blah content (also dependent on his/her likes/preferences)
<!--#/sendmail-->
</dtml-in>
Nothing groundbreaking so far. But the question then is : how is this going to work if the user database numbers 200,000+ ? It will take almost half a day to complete and this can't be done in one form-submission or page load !
Why not use ZClient to make the request to do the mailout? It can just happily sit there for half a day (or whatever) chugging along, without screwing up if your browser goes away. Anthony -- Anthony Baxter <anthony@interlink.com.au> It's never too late to have a happy childhood.