Your own newsletter — no mailing service

Visitors sign up on your website, you write in simple text, your server sends the mails. The list stays with you.

What is the newsletter module?

The newsletter module lets you write to everyone who wants to hear from you: news from your shop, your association, your project. People sign up on your website, and you send mailings from your website — no mailing service, no monthly fee, the address list stays on your own server.

How people sign up

  • A sign-up field anywhere on your website, like the one on this page.
  • A tick box in the contact form: "Yes, send me the newsletter." Never pre-ticked, never required.
  • Double opt-in, as the law in the EU requires: everyone gets a mail with a confirmation link first and is only on the list after the click. Addresses that are never confirmed are deleted after 30 days.

How you send a mailing

  1. Log in on your website with your email address — you get a login link, no password.
  2. Write subject and text in Markdown: headings, bold, links, lists.
  3. Look at the preview and send yourself a test mail.
  4. Tick the box and send. The mails go out one by one in the background; the page shows the progress. If the server restarts, sending continues where it stopped.

Several people can be allowed to send, e.g. you and your partner.

Fair to your readers

  • Every mail has an unsubscribe link, and mail programs show their own "unsubscribe" button. One click and the address is deleted.
  • No tracking: no counting of opened mails, no rewritten links.
  • Mails are sent from your own domain with a proper signature (DKIM), so they reach the inbox.

1. Switch it on

In the site configuration (app.sml): who may send mailings, where your privacy policy is, and the name of your list.

Newsletter {
    admins:  "me@my-bakery.com, partner@my-bakery.com"
    privacy: "/privacy"
    name:    "Bakery News"
}

2. A sign-up field on any page

Title and text are yours; without them a short standard text is shown.

NewsletterForm {
    title: "Fresh news"
    text:  "New breads and opening hours, about once a month."
}

3. Or a tick box in the contact form

One extra line in the contact form fields. The box only appears when the newsletter is switched on.

Contact {
    Field { name: "email" type: "email" label: "Email" required: true }
    Field { name: "text"  type: "textarea" label: "Message" }
    Field { name: "news"  type: "newsletter"
            label: "Yes, send me the Bakery News." }
}

4. Write your mailing

Open /newsletter/admin on your website, log in with one of the admins addresses and write in Markdown:

# New: spelt bread

From **Tuesday** on we bake a spelt bread
with sunflower seeds.

- Tue–Sat from 7:00
- [Order in advance](https://my-bakery.com/order)

Want a newsletter on your website?

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