Build a newletter

I'm thinking something like MailChimp but I already have over 100 registered users so will that still work?

@lstables You could look at the Mandrill service which is basically Mailchimp. There is a Mandrill driver built into Laravel.

http://mandrill.com/

Yes I'm using Mandrill already to send out individual emails but how would I send out a group email to the 100 + email address at once.

You should be able to specify more than one recipient and Mandrill should take care of the rest.

http://help.mandrill.com/entries/21751312-Can-I-send-to-more-than-one-recipient-at-a-time-

So in this method,

Mail::send('emails/order', $data, function( $message ) use ($data)
        {
            $message->to('')
                ->from('test@email.com')
                ->subject('Newsletter');
        });

How would I say to get all email address and pass to the to() call ?

This should work:

$recipients = [
    'foo@example.com',
    'bar@example.com'
];

Mail::send('emails/order', $data, function( $message ) use ($myData, $recipients)
{
    $message->to($recipients)
        ->from('test@email.com')
        ->subject('Newsletter');
});

Reference: Illuminate\Mail\Message#74

You got a obvious error though using $data two times?

Ok get that, but I want to jut call from my controller something like User::all(); pass that the mail function like you stated but how can that be done?

That could be done with something like:

User::all()->lists('email');

Which would return something like:

array(
     0 => 'foo@example.com',
     1 => 'bar@example.com'
)

ok appreciate your help, but with that in mind how about passing that to:

$data = [
            'content' => Input::get('content'),
            'recipients' => array(

            )
        ];

Would this

$user = User::all()->lists('email');


        $data = [
            'content' => Input::get('content'),
            'recipients' => $user
        ];

Work? Then passing $message->to($data['recipients']) like so?

Wouldn't this have all the recipients in the 'to' field?

ie: if you were sending the mail to me, I would be able to see everyone else who you sent the email to. That may be an issue with privacy.

Or doesn't that matter?

Yes, that does matter actually, shit that's another spanner in the works then....

I'm not sure where i should pass it to? What is your structure?

class SomeController extends Controller {

    public function sendEmails($message)
    {
        $recipients = User::all()->lists('email');

        Mail::send('email/newsletter', ['message'
 => $message], function($message) use ($recipients) {
             $message
             ->to($recipients)
             ->from('someEmail@example.com')
             ->subject('Newsletter');
        });

        return Redirect::back()->withMessage('Emails Sent');
    }

}

This could be a simple approach? Else you have to throw me some code to look at..

Basically I have a textarea that allows the admin to add some text etc then they will click send and that needs to pass that throw to the view as $data then send this to everyone in the Users table.

@lstables @ZetecVan Yeah, that might be the case, i'm not sure? Don't you have to put recipient and multiple CC recipients to be able to se who else it has been send to?

Else you're forced to do a simple foreach loop - Sending to one at the time?

sending one at a time wouldn't be all that bad how would that work then? I could use queue with mandrill also to make the process better.

Okay @lstables @ZetecVan - after a swift Google search, it seems that it sends them out one at the time unless you specify it to don't do it - so it should work? I would do a quick test to see if that's the case?

Oh so how you stated, it will send out one at a time then and disclose other users emails ?

@lstables in relation to you question to passing the admin written content to the view, i've updated my response:

https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/build-a-newletter?page=1#reply-15016

And yes, it seems like it should disclose. I would do a quick test though..

Ok @tkjaergaard & @ZetecVan thanks both for your help going to test this out now.

Ok that works, but does show all emails in the to field in my email client. So obviously I don't want this, what do I need to in order to stop that? A loop? If so how?

Damn, okay.. That's a bugger :(

Okay the next simple approach i can think of is to do a simple foreach loop..

This could result in some "hanging" so you might want to introduce a queue here like AWS, Redis or Beanstalkd ...

I know what a bugger! based on the code you posted previoudly how would I use mail queue and loop?

@Istables Found this quote from the following article:

http://knackforge.com/blog/sivaji/how-we-managed-send-75k-emails-hour

Note: Bulk sending requires unchecking option "Expose The List Of Recipients When Sending To Multiple Addresses" under "Sending options" in Mandrill account. Otherwise all addresses in TO field will be exposed to all recipients.

What about the structure of the code?

The structure?

You should be able to do the first approach that I've suggested when you disable the option in Mandrill?

Oh right let me do that now.

@tkjaergaard Yey, works a treat! thanks for your help man!

@lstables No problem :) Glad it worked!