This is the second of a two-part document on using Sailmail’s relay-processor for sending group messages. Part one covered the basics, if you need a copy of that then send a (blank) email to: relayinfo@saildocs.com.
An advanced “insert” option is also available for group messages, which will insert personalized text into each message. To use this “insert” option, add one or more additional fields after each email address, separated with a semi-colon (;). Then, in your message, insert the code “<%1>” (without quotes) to substitute the first parameter, <%2> to substitute the second parameter, etc. A “default” value can be included, for example to insert the word “Family” if no name is supplied then use the code “<%1/Family>”.
When each message is created, the text from the fields which follow the email address is substituted for each “<%>” code. If there is no corresponding text-field following the email address, then the default value (following the “/”) is used, and if that is not provided then the code is deleted and nothing is inserted.
So our sample note (from part-1) would look like this:
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To: relay@saildocs.com
Subject: Update from the “Leaky Duck”
wxy9999@sailmail.com;Jim
somebody@hotmail.com;Joe
another@hotmail.com
Dear <%1/Friends>,
This is an update of our adventures aboard “Leaky Duck”.
Please send us mail at this address (but keep it short).
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The first copy would be sent to wxy9999@sailmail.com and would start with “Dear Jim”, the second copy would go to somebody@hotmail.com and start with “Dear Joe”, and the third copy would go to another@hotmail.com and start with “Dear Friends”.
More than one insert-code can be used. An example of how this might be used would be the case where you want to enourage only certain recipients to reply to your Sailmail address and invite others to reply to your hotmail address. Let’s suppose that our Sailmail address is wxy1234@sailmail.com, and our hotmail address is leakyduck@hotmail.com. Create the note as follows:
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To: relay@saildocs.com
Subject: Update from the “Leaky Duck”
wxy9999@sailmail.com;Jim
somebody@hotmail.com;Joe;wxy1234@sailmail.com
another@hotmail.com
Dear <%1/Friends>,
This is an update of our adventures aboard “Leaky Duck”.
Please send us mail at <%2/leakyduck@hotmail.com>.
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The individual copies are sent as above, except that the copy to somebody@hotmail (addressed to “Joe”) says “please send us mail at wxy1234@sailmail.com” while the others say “please send us mail at leakyduck@hotmail.com”.
A couple of things to note here: First, the “<%2/…” code might get split by Airmail’s word-wrapping. That’s OK as long as we didn’t hit the “Enter” key inside the code to insert a “hard” (fixed) end-of-line. Ordinary word-wrap gets unwrapped before processing and likely gets wrapped differently by the recipient’s computer depending on the size of their own email window. “Hard” end-of-line codes (inserted with the Enter key) are not permitted between the “<>” characters in an insert-code.
Remember that the relay-processor is automated and takes whatever you say literally. Create your message carefully and check it twice. Once you send it, it is gone. There is no getting it back. If you are not sure, send yourself a test note before turning it loose on your friends.
And again, for email security reasons this feature is only available to Sailmail members for messages which are sent via radio, from the web-mail page or using the Sailmail POP3/SMTP server. The Sailmail terms and conditions apply to the use of this relay-processor.
Enjoy,
Jim & Sue Corenman
Stan and Sally Honey
sysop@sailmail.com