RE: [PHP] Sending "pretty" email

Although I will probably getting tarred and feathered for this, I send out at least a million (multiple emails for lists around the 200 thousand customer mark) emails a week, mostly html. When I wrote the software interface (in PHP) to do so, I mentioned to my bosses that many people would not be able to read these HTML emails (ie. AOL, Eudora, Lotus 5.0, and my beloved pine). This deterred them naught, cuz they wanted to send banners in the email. Since email with banners generated more revenue than without (however little money that may be), I was overruled. Hence, I read up on multi-part email. This can be done, and I used Richard Heyes' html-mime email class to do it. The class was based on the SMTP class that can be found on Manuel Lemos' PHPClasses site (http://phpclasses.upperdesign.com), along with the SMTP class. I now have the ability to send straight HTML, straight TEXT, or combo emails that are interpreted correctly by all email clients (including AOL clients). And, since I don't use the mail() function, it typically runs about 150% faster (mail() puts the messages in the mail queue, but the SMTP class writes directly to port 25 of the mail server). All this and it runs on a linux system that grabs the email addresses out of a M$ SQL 7 database. The database allows the customers the ability to opt-out of certain emails. So don't refrain from doing it because some people say it shouldn't be done for one reason or another. Simply fix those reasons so they don't know any different. -----Original Message----- From: Todd Cary [mailto:todd@aristesoftware.com] Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2001 8:46 AM To: Richard Scott Crawford Cc: php-general@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP] Sending "pretty" email Richard - For me you are pointing out one of the dilemmas I face on a daily basis that I call the "fin dilemma". I coined this expression from the era when Detroit put fins on the cars. These did not make the car perfrom better; they only appealed to need to get a car with fins because the neighbor had one. Yet I earn my living by writing software for clients and when I suggest that they use the KISS principle, they tell me that I am not up with the times. There is a very interesting book that I came across at a friend's home addressing effective Web design. Though I cannot remember the authors name, he has done many of the "big name" magazine covers as well as some big name Web sites and he believes in simplicity. Quite a deilemma!!! Todd -- Todd Cary Ariste Software todd@aristesoftware.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help@lists.php.net To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net