From: Mail@JoesLife.org   
      
   On Sat, 8 Jul 2023 15:08:48 -0000 (UTC), Lew Pitcher wrote:   
      
   > Has anyone here had experience with email mail-list manager software,   
   > and would you be willing to give me some advice?   
      
   Hi Lew,   
      
   Are you comfortable writing a little code?   
      
   Let me tell you about my journey down the *programming* path to a   
   solution of this problem.   
      
   There are two shortcomings with canned solutions:  1.  They come with a   
   burden of obscurity and complexity.  2.  They often don't do what you   
   need.   
      
   I had a job in a finance office at a large church, and I needed to send   
   emails regularly to the staff credit card holders.  The emails could be   
   identical except for the name and email address of the recipients, but   
   each needed a unique attachment.   
      
   I discovered that with a small amount of bash and python I could make a   
   collection of tools that did what I needed.   
      
   I combined a one-shot, email-sending python script (called dupe) that   
   took six arguments:   
      
      # $1    To   
      # $2    Cc or "-"   
      # $3    file containing Subject   
      # $4    file containg the message Body   
      # $5    file--optional first attachment   
      # $6    file--optional second attachment   
      
   with a sourced bash function (called dribble) which used a list (email)   
   of the above arguments, one line for each email to be sent.   
      
   I could send all the emails in the list with a single command line   
   invocation:   
      
      cat email | dribble eval dupe   
      
   Yes, it really worked.  Yes, you can send emails using python.  No, it   
   wasn't easy.  But it was worth the trouble, and once I got it working I   
   had a good method that worked well and saved me time.   
      
   What was really neat about this solution was how *little* code was   
   required!   
      
   Anyway, that's my story.  It may be completely of no interest to you, but   
   I wanted to put it out there as it was topical.   
      
   -Joe   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)