Zwiki can send and receive mail directly, but you might want to use MailMan, ezmlm or other mailing list software in order to get more performance, more features, because they are more mature and reliable, or because you have an existing mailing list that you want to keep using. Here are some possible configurations.
See also ZwikiAndMailman, WikiMail, WikiMailDiscussion.
Mailout to a list
- set up a mailing list and a wiki in parallel.
- make sure the wiki folder has a subscriber_list lines property, and add the mailing list's posting address as the sole subscriber
- set the wiki folder's mail_from property to the mailing list's posting address
- Customize your subscribeform so that the subscribe link points to the mailing list's info page, instead of zwiki's subscribe form
Here the mailing list is handling delivery of mailouts, and zwiki only has to send to one recipient. Replies will go back to the mailing list.
Mailin from a list
- subscribe the wiki's mailin address to the mailing list.
Here, mail sent to the list will also go to the wiki. To control the destination page, you put it in the subject in brackets.
Mailin and mailout handled by a list
- do both the above
- Set the "sender does not receive post" option for the wiki subscriber if possible
We want to avoid a mail loop. This should not be an issue with current zwiki.
Not all list mail goes to wiki
- as above, plus modify mailin.py to silently drop the message if it doesn't see a page name in brackets.
Here, mail sent to the list will be cc'd to the wiki only when the subject includes a page name. Web comments on the wiki will be cc'd to the list as before.
Zwiki delivers to page subscribers, list delivers to wiki subscribers
- instead of changing the subscribe link, modify the subscribe form so that direct page subscription is still possible, while the whole-wiki side links to the mailing list (or better, integrates with it).
Now, in addition to whole wiki subscribers/list members you have some folk who just want a small amount of traffic. Zwiki will mail out to them in the normal way. You may need to think about where replies to these direct mailouts should go.
Use Mailman topics
Mailman 2.1 allows subscription by topic, which delivers only messages which match certain criteria (eg a string in the subject). We could use this for emulating per-page subscription for list subscribers (and more).
Authentication and membership
When requiring member logins you may run into problems due to having two separate membership systems: zope's and mailman's. A solution to this is to integrate mailman fully with zope; see ZMailman? project. I have done it with ZMailboy?.