Qvarnis Mass Mail Component

This simple Joomla Extension lets you send email from the Frontend to all your registered users.

Please uninstall the previous release before installing new releases.

2009-06-03:
Version 1.04 released.
Fixes the cancel buttom problem and the width of editor set to 600.

2009-04-03:
Version 1.03 released.
Enabled HTML !

2009-03-11:
Version 1.02 released.
People was complaining about the error that appeared when they pressed the Components->Qvarnis so i decided to correct that even though the component worked perfectly well from the 'Menu' menu.

Have fun!

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byjalil on November 17, 2009
easy to use, intuitive and does the job nicely and quietly.

i thank the author much for his time spent on this, the component is certainly very useful.

as for silly remarks about this component being a spam tool, well, hey, how about this logic, lets not make cars, it can be used as a robbery tool :)

you can always control the access via standard joomla access methods. think man !
I agree to mike123acc.
Sending ONE newsmail to someone who has not agreed to receiving mails BEFORE (!) is definitely forbidden in the European Union. If the author calls it "service", he seems to be uninformed (or outside the EU) - it is SPAM, no matter what you call it.
In Germany especially you will get into big trouble if you do so! You MUST NOT put someone on any mailing list, if he/she has not agreed to be put into the list.
Use a newsletter-software that provides double opt-in; everything else will cost you a lot of money.
byewm on August 30, 2009
Good Job Qvarnis.
With NOIX ACL 2.0.6 I am able to allow registered users to send emails to a specific group.
I have big concerns about this component. Yes it appears to work, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad.

Sending newsletters to registered members who have not chosen to opt-in specifically for a newsletter is spamming. It is fundamentally going against the whole opt-in / opt-out process that is now the norm for creating proper and honest (non-spam) mailing lists.

Personally I do not believe this component should be in the Extensions directory for this reason. It could give a lot of Joomla sites, and maybe Joomla in general a bad name if registering for a Joomla site means the risk of receiving unwanted email.

If you use this, be very careful not to annoy your registered members. Make sure the registration form is modified to highlight that they will also be opting-in to a mailing list. Even better, help reduce the encouragement of spam and do not use this component. Take the more sensible route and use a proper user-friendly newsletter subscription module.
Owner's reply

Really ?

So lets take an example. We have a small fotball club with kids at the age of 12 and the parents are registered users on this site. The team leaders want a way to announce the upcoming events like matches, training, meeting and so forth.... Using this to mail all parents with 1 single mail is not spam, it's service. This extension is a way to come in contact with your registered users without waiting for them to come online every single day and hour, wich often is the case of working parents for example.

I think you might have had some bad experiences with spam, but dont take it out on my work please.

Sure this extension could be used in bad ways, but really, its up to you how you use it.

This is a great component. The only issue im having is that on my website, i need a component that will only email out using ONE email. the users on my site would just navigate to a page, write the subject and message and hit send and send it to everyone!

Is there a way to change it to that?
bydennisss on August 17, 2009
It's a good component, it's however a pity that you couldn't edit the component much. In my case, I would like that all the send mails come from the no-reply email address, but the component takes the email address of the user who sent it. Or can this be changed in the html code?
Not problems with installation -- but mail would not send. Spend alot of time with my mail settings. When I clicked "send" the message was cleared, but the editor remained - no message sent.
Finally I tried on some other sites, and discovered that if with the FCK editor (I didn't have the latest version installed) it did not work, but when I changed the editor JCE, the mass mail worked as advertised. Then the editor cleared away and a short "mail sent" message appeared afer clicking "send". Once the editor was changed, the mail setting did not seem to matter -- it worked fine for phpmail, sendmail and smtp mail. I did get an error message too, when the mail setting were incorrect.
byrlsmith3 on June 2, 2009
I had problems using this extension, though it is difficult to say what problems come from the extension and what may have come from the latest IE or from JCE. Some clear issues:

1) The message title is limited to 17 characters
2) Using TinyMCE or JCE I still could not copy and paste HTML embedded in other email messages, so I could not see how to send HTML without copying HTML text code
3) After encountering these problems I hit CANCEL, but it sent the messages anyway.

IMHO this is not ready for general usage at this time, which is dissappointing given the limitations of the base functionality.
Owner's reply

Thanks for your input.
The Subject title was limited to 25 characters, i've now extended it to 75.

I dont understand your copy/paste problems. The functionality used by the editor is limited by the editor you are using, this has nothing todo with this component.

The cancel button problem is now fixed.

Take care!

Just tested this component on Joomla 1.5.10. I created a frontend menu for it, the menu access was set to Public. Then I noticed that a public visitor can also send Mass mails via this component to EVERY registered user!

At least, the author should add some check method to avoid accidently using of this component by a visitor or registered user. It should be limited ONLY to special group.

BTW, I hope the author can add language file, though there were few words on the interface, it still need to be translated.

This is a simple and good tool to send mass mails, but still need some improvements.

Thanks.
Owner's reply

Well i think you are wrong! Why should i put a restriction on the usage? If you test the component you will see that i programmed it so it can be used with public access, the from mail address will then be unknown@yoursite.com. In Joomla you have the authorize system so why not use that instead of me restricting usage on the component. I totally disagree with your reasoning to 100%.

Take care.

This is a nice, simple, easy front end to submit email to a sites registered users. I had to hack it though to get it to send out HTML Emails. I'm not sure why this wasn't implemented in the released version. Its a simple hack that consists of un-commenting and setting the IsHTML flag to 'TRUE' and changing the following lines:

$input = JRequest::get(POST, 4);
$subject=$input[ 'subject' ];
$message=$input[ 'message' ];
Owner's reply

Good point, did'nt really think about HTML cuase i hate HTML formated email spams so i always have HTML turned of in my mailer client ;). Well thanks for the hint, i've now implemented it.
/Qvarnis

Installation without any problem, really works from Components->Qvarnis (even though it just gives a short info about proper use).

Simple layout but works. Haven't tried to mass mail all of my users, only my test group, but whether that will work 100% is probably more one my webhost's side.

Thanks for this. You helped me to let one of my ppl. to send mass mails without letting him even near the backend ;)