Questions @mailer best practice

Rails
1

hi

i’m currently sending emails via smtp, but i wanna change a few things:

  1. external smtp > local mta

it seems there is a lag when using external smtp, so i was wondering
whats the best way to separate the whole email sending from the
application, like putting it into a queue?

  1. how can i call a deliver() method only once but still have a
    personalized email? eg a personalized newsletter:
    Newsletter.sendoutmonhtlynewsletter(User.all).deliver

how can i reference a username & useremail and still send it once out eg
via bcc multiemail (in respect of bcc limits))?
( i assume this would b a bit more efficent, or at least out more load
on
the emailserver then on the application)

  1. whats the best way to send out emails so that they can be replied to?
    like github and other service?

if sone could share their experience, pro & cons that would help a lot

thx

tom

2

On Jun 27, 2012, at 7:20 AM, tom wrote:

hi

i’m currently sending emails via smtp, but i wanna change a few things:

  1. external smtp > local mta

it seems there is a lag when using external smtp, so i was wondering whats
the best way to separate the whole email sending from the application, like
putting it into a queue?

There’s an excellent Railscast about this, covers this precise pain
point, and shows you (I think) two different ways to solve it. Have a
search there.

  1. how can i call a deliver() method only once but still have a personalized
    email? eg a personalized newsletter:
    Newsletter.sendoutmonhtlynewsletter(User.all).deliver

how can i reference a username & useremail and still send it once out eg via
bcc multiemail (in respect of bcc limits))?
( i assume this would b a bit more efficent, or at least out more load on the
emailserver then on the application)

If you’re sending to a whole list of people, take a serious look at
SendGrid and other (paid, but SOOOOO worth it) hosted sending services.
This is an unbelievably twisted barrel of eels that you are looking in
to, I can tell you from bitter experience. As far as your code goes, I
don’t think you ever want to send out a bunch of Bcc messages at a time,
not unless you want to virtually guarantee non-delivery owing to SPAM
traps and the like.

  1. whats the best way to send out emails so that they can be replied to? like
    github and other service?

Uh, that’s just a matter of setting the :from address to a real address.
Unless that was a typo, and you meant /can’t/ be replied to. Again, it’s
just a matter of setting the :from address to a real address, although
you would then configure an auto-responder at the mail server level to
instantly reply ‘don’t do that again’. And if you mean reply to an
e-mail but have it be accepted by the Rails app as input, I was just
looking at this problem yesterday. Again, SendGrid has a well-oiled
solution in this space, but you can roll your own, and again, Ryan B.
has a screencast about it. (He HAS done everything, at least once, on
his Railscast site.)

Walter