Project

lipwig

0.0
No commit activity in last 3 years
No release in over 3 years
Write group emails in Markdown, send via Postmark or SMTP.
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 Dependencies

Development

~> 3.0

Runtime

~> 3.3
 Project Readme

Lipwig

Lipwig is a small tool for sending bulk emails in a slightly more friendly vibe than BCC'ing everyone.

Why?

I have a habit of inviting friends to various events and shows, but I don't like putting everyone's email address in the To field (it's not nice to disclose so many peoples' email addresses). I also don't like putting everyone in the BCC field (it's nice to keep couples' email addresses together, and make the email feel at least a little more personal).

So, I'd been writing Ruby scripts to send neatly formatted emails, but Lipwig wraps up that logic and makes it a bit more re-usable.

Installation

$ gem install lipwig

Also, you'll need either the postmark gem or the mail gem, depending on whether you want to send via Postmark's API or by SMTP.

$ gem install postmark
# or
$ gem install mail

Lipwig is known to work with Postmark >= 1.9 and Mail >= 2.6.4.

Usage

Similar to Jekyll, Lipwig expects email files to be a mixture of YAML and Markdown. Here's an example:

from: "Pat Allan <pat@obfuscated.email.com>"
subject: "Party time"
recipients:
 - "rey@obfuscated.email.com",
 - - "finn@obfuscated.email.com"
   - "poe@obfuscated.email.com"
 - "Kylo Ren <ben@obfuscated.email.com>"
 cc: "General Organa <organa@obfuscated.email.com"
---
Hi everyone,

It's time for a **party**. How about next week? Shall I cook pancakes?

As you can see, the recipients value expects an array, and it can contain arrays to send a single email to more than one person. Everything that follows after the --- is Markdown, and will be rendered as HTML in the resulting email.

Please note that the CC list accepts either a single value or an array of strings, and will apply to every email.

Sending Configuration

If you're using Postmark's API, then all you need to set is the LIPWIG_POSTMARK_API_KEY environment variable.

For SMTP, there's a handful of required environment variables:

  • LIPWIG_SMTP_ADDRESS
  • LIPWIG_SMTP_PORT
  • LIPWIG_SMTP_USERNAME
  • LIPWIG_SMTP_PASSWORD
  • LIPWIG_SMTP_DOMAIN

If you're using SMTP and sending many emails, it's recommended you use the persistent connection approach if your provider supports it, by setting LIPWIG_SMTP_CONNECTION=true.

Options

You can use LIPWIG_FROM for your default From setting - though anything specified in your email file will override this. LIPWIG_RECIPIENTS, on the otherhand, will override your email file's recipients - useful for a quick test before you fill up everyone's inboxes.

Commands

You can review the HTML of the email in your browser (currently built with macOS in mind):

$ lipwig preview my-email.markdown

You can clear out the generated preview files:

$ lipwig clear

And you can send the emails:

$ lipwig send my-email.markdown

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/pat/lipwig. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

Licence

Copyright (c) 2016, Lipwig is developed and maintained by Pat Allan, and is released under the open MIT Licence.