In every address-file, variable-names are defined in the first
line. Every variable should begin with the "$"-char and the
following string should be written in upper case, because it is
case-sensitive. The defined variable-names are separated by a
TAB-char, in the following signed as [T]. The first variable
is always the recipient's address and it has always to be defined as
$ADR, the rest of the variables can be defined free. Only rule: All
variable-names must be different and must not be part of each other.
For example $NAME and $NA are not valid in the same address-file. If
$NA is replaced by "Bill" it could happen that
"BillME" appears in the Mail instead of "Bill"!
In the following lines there are the data-sets, elements also
separated by [T]. For every line, there will be generated a
Mail, later. The variable-name at the n-th position in the first line
will be replaced by the n-th value in the current line. Sounds maybe
somewhat complex, but it's easy, as you can see looking at an example:
You want to invite some people personally by a roundmail to your
birthday-party.
You are creating the following file:
$ADR[T]$NAME
friend1@birthday.net[T]Andy
friend2@xyz.com[T]Martin
blabla@abc.org[T]Christine
It's important to chose an editor-program with the ability of
saving the [T]-char correctly.
It's not said that you want to send the mail to everybody
mentioned in the address-file. Recipients you want not to be sent the
mail, can be excluded by the control-words $OFF and $ON. Any of the
words has to be alone in a line and has to start in the first column.
If you e.g. want to exclude Martin from your invitation, you'll have to change the file to the following, if you don't want to delete him from the list:
$ADR[T]$NAME
friend1@birthday.net[T]Andy
$OFF
friend2@xyz.com[T]Martin
$ON
blabla@abc.org[T]Christine
Of course, excluded blocks can have more than one address only.
Since V1.1, mapS has a mighty additional function.
Everybody knows the problem that one wants to send mails to different
topics to the same person. In ancient times you needed to have
different address-files with the same address in any of it. When
addresses of receivers changed, you had to check and change any
address-file. In the new version of mapS you can keep aoll
your addresses in one file. Therefor you have to make another Variable
with the fixed name $DISTRIBUTION in your address-file. For different
mail-lists with different topics, an alphabetical char is given to
each. The choice for any data set is made by writing the alphabetical
chars as values into the place of $DISTRIBUTION, if some should get a
mail of that topic. the choice of receivers is done during run-time of
mapS by entering the abbreviation-char of the wanted
receiver-group under "receiver" in the main dialog.
Also an example:
$ADR[T]$NAME[T]$DISTRIBUTION
friend1@birthday.net[T]Andy[T]f
colleague@xyz.com[T]Martin[T]fc
blabla@abc.org[T]Christine[T]c
The groups of receivers are specified as:
f: friend
c: colleague
To send a mail only to colleagues, you enter "c" into
the "receiver" field of mapS. For sending a mail to
friends and also colleagues, you enter "cf". In this case
the mail is sent to all of the three.
For sending a personalized mail to people in a list it's enough to
write a text containing the variable-names as replacements at the
position you wish to use them, i.e.:
Dear $NAME!
I'd like to invite you to my birthday-party on Sun. 12/24, 7.30 pm
at my flat.
Regards,
Gerald
recipient address: $ADR
If you know the mailer CAT for the German Mausnet, you might know
the mix-mailer module Mungojerrie.
The idea for mapS was inspired by Mungojerrie. So I kept
the *.ADR and *.TXT file-formats compatible to it that everybody can
use his old Data without changes!