mirror of
https://github.com/BBaoVanC/bbaovanc.com.git
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98 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
98 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Newsletter for my blog posts
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date: 2022-04-30T01:00:14-05:00
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lastmod: 2022-04-30T01:00:14-05:00
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toc: true
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comments: true
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authors:
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- bbaovanc
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categories:
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- meta
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- newsletter
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tags:
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- bobanews
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- listmonk
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- mailing-list
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- newsletter
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# this will be shown for the article in list pages and in the page metadata
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# it can be either an image or video (this might change in the future, however)
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resources:
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- name: feature
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src: listmonk-bobatheme-template.webp
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title: My custom newsletter template based on my website's custom theme.
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- name: listmonk-splash
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src: listmonk-splash.webp
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title: >-
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Dashboard on listmonk ---
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[source](https://listmonk.app/static/images/splash.png)
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---
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I created a newsletter for blog posts on my website so you can sign up for email
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notifications when I post new ones, so I have more than just an RSS feed.
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<!--more-->
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**See the ["Signing Up" section]({{< ref "#signing-up" >}}) for instructions on
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how to sign up for the newsletter.**
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## Choosing the right mailing list manager
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For my newsletter manager, I chose [listmonk](https://listmonk.app/). As I was
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searching for self-hosted newsletter managers, it caught my eye because of how
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modern and beautiful its interface looks. In fact, it was the only self-hosted
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newsletter/mailing list manager I looked at that doesn't have an overall old and
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ugly interface. Additionally, it has a live demo, so I was able to test it out
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and see if it would be able to meet my (relatively low) requirements.
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{{< figure src="listmonk-splash" >}}
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I also tried out [GNU Mailman 3](https://www.list.org/) about a year ago.
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However, I could not get it to integrate cleanly with my email
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server[^mailman-mailcow]. listmonk can operate over SMTP, just like any other
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program that sends mail. That makes the setup much less complicated, and I was
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also able to set up the [official Docker
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image](https://listmonk.app/docs/installation/#docker) using Docker Compose
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setup just like the other programs I use.
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If you're interested, the Docker Compose configuration files I ended up writing
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are available at [configs/listmonk on my Gitea
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instance](https://git.bbaovanc.com/configs/listmonk).
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## Newsletter formatting
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I ended up writing my own template for listmonk from scratch, based on the CSS
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used in [bobatheme](https://github.com/BBaoVanC/bobatheme), the theme that my
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website uses. Here's a screenshot of how it currently looks:
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{{< figure src="feature" >}}
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## Signing up
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You can sign up to get emails about new posts on the [newsletter signup form
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here](https://lists.bbaovanc.com/subscription/form). Make sure the box next to
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the list labeled `bbaovanc.com Blog Posts` is checked. You'll need to provide an
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email address, and optionally a nickname (or your real name if you want).
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Right now there's only one list with public signup enabled, but that may change
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if you're reading this in the future. In that case, you can sign up for as many
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or as few lists as you want.
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[^mailman-mailcow]: Mailman requires access to the mail server over
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[LMTP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Mail_Transfer_Protocol). However,
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giving it access to my mail server over LMTP is not very easy because of the
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setup that [Mailcow](https://mailcow.email) (my email server) uses. There *is*
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an existing project called
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[dockerized-mailcow-mailman](https://github.com/g4rf/dockerized-mailcow-mailman),
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but it uses the Apache web server to serve the frontend. I'm not familiar with
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Apache, and also I don't really want to complicate my Mailcow setup switching
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to an almost completely different setup just for one little program.
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