More help needed regarding setting up Cgi scripts

[smiley1]

Wow!!!!!!!!! Major brain dump. I have purchased listmail pro to set up a e- mailing list of customers for an audio bookstore.

I have successfully completed the initial installation (i hope  :shock: ) and have now got to the set up cgi part of the install.

I don't even know if I need to do this or not, and because there is no clear indication in nice simple language (bearing in mind that this is the first time I have ever even seen this type of software so I am still cloudy on the overall concept of how it all comes together( a nice pictoral explanation with a few examples would be very useful to us newbies)) I'm struggling to get my head round what I should be doing. :?

I've read the posts on this a couple of times and am even more confused now than when originally reading the online help?

So here goes some questions

1, If I am using a form on my website to capture names to a specific list (initial optin), do I even need to do the setting up Cgi scripts thing?

2, If the answer to 1 is yes, why (keep it simple please) do I have to set up "email aliases" to forward email to CGI scripts?

3, What is bounce.cgi and what does it do?

4, blank email subscribe. I assume from your explaination:

signup@example.com might point to signup-list1.cgi which is configured to subscribe users to list 1

That if a customer clicks on the link they can then send the blank email which then adds them to a list of my choice. Is that it? what goes on the list? Is it just the e-mail address that gets captured or does it somehow in some devious manner capture the senders name as well?

Thats all for this post, I may have some more depending on your answers

Thanks for your help in advance

Dave

[DW]

Hi Dave,

1, If I am using a form on my website to capture names to a specific list (initial optin), do I even need to do the setting up Cgi scripts thing?

Web host-supporting of the email forwarder -> CGI required bounce.cgi is recommended for bounces, but a standard mailbox can also be used.  The signup scripts are optional - most publishers accept subscribers via form as you have already configured.

2, If the answer to 1 is yes, why (keep it simple please) do I have to set up "email aliases" to forward email to CGI scripts?

Email aliases/forwarders are required for both bounce.cgi and signup-listX.cgi scripts.  

3, What is bounce.cgi and what does it do?

bounce.cgi, when configured, accepts and processes email sent to the ListMail "Bounce to Address".  This enables "on-the-fly" bounce processing unlike the mailbox method, which happens once per day at dailymail time.

4, blank email subscribe. what goes on the list? Is it just the e-mail address that gets captured or does it somehow in some devious manner capture the senders name as well?

The signup script will detect the email address and, if provided by the email client, the first and last name of the subscriber.  An addition to the signup CGIs can be made to parse the subject and insert the data into a ListMail custom field for later use with "User Selection" or your own statistics.

Please let me know if you have any more questions!

Regards