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BigSender Administrator Guide
Managing Your BigSender Message Archive
When you check the "archive" checkbox before clicking the Composer's "test" or "send" button, BigSender will perform several functions automatically so that your outoing message will appear in your Message Archive.
After your message is sent, BigSender will
compose your message optionally referencing the template file (if you identified one in your Configurator settings).
make the "title" of your new Archive Message the same as the "subject" of your outgoing email broadcast message.
create a special file on the server in your Archive Directory that contains your message. The file's name is the current 10-digit timestamp appended with the ".html" file extension and it will look something like 1008595055.html.
How the BigSender Message Archive Index Works
Unlike other publishing software with which you may be familiar, BigSender does not create a separate index or directory file you are required to maintain or correct when you manually change the content of any files in your archive directory.
Instead, BigSender generates your Message Archive Index dynamically (or on-the-fly) as your users visit your website. This unique BigSender technology ensures the accuracy and integrity of your Archive Index up to the second your visitors see it.
BigSender-created Archive Messages are actually fully editable HTML documents that you can modify any time should you discover an error or if you want to delete a message from your archive.
To display only the Message Archive Index
When BigSender is invoked directly (as http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/bigsender.cgi) or via SSI within a document located in a directory you've set as your Message Archive directory, the BigSender subscriber form and the Message Archive Index is automatically displayed.
To display only the Message Archive Index (without the subscriber form), simply add a special "query string" to the URL when invoking BigSender as http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/bigsender.cgi?indexonly=yes
Links to any existing page on your site where you'd like to display only the Message Archive Index via SSI, ensure that link contains that special query string as http://www.yourdomain.com/news/webpage.html?indexonly=yes
To remove a file from your Message Archive directory
To eliminate the display of any document in your Archive Index, simply delete it using AdminPro or any FTP software. Alternatively, you may "rename" the document with any letter(s) of the alphabet and the application will no longer recognize it as a BigSender Archive Message and will exclude it from display in the Index.
Changing the Title or Teaser in a BigSender Archive Message
BigSender actually scans each archived document and grabs the title text from between the <TITLE> and </TITLE> tags and teaser text from between the <! - begin teaser -> <! - end teaser -> tags (generated by BigSender when the Archive Message is saved) in the process of dynamically creating the Archive Index. To change the title or teaser of any of your Archive Messages, open the file using AdminPro (or via FTP or Telnet software), modify the text between the title tags and/or the text between the teaser comment tags then save. Important: Do not introduce any line returns within the text of either the TITLE or the teaser, nor should you use < or > tags within the teaser text but, rather, you should use < and > strings and BigSender will automatically interpret them when generating the Message Archive index. Then re-upload your saved file if you used FTP or Telnet.
Changing the publication date of a BigSender Archive Message
The publication date of a BigSender Archive Message is extracted from the document's special numeric file name (actually a 10-digit timestamp) which is followed by an ".html" file extension.
To change the publication date that is reported in the BigSender Archive index, login as an administrator and click the [ change date ] link associated with any BigSender Archived message.
The resulting page contains a convenient form that lets you modify the publication date. Click the "change date" button and your web browser is returned to the main menu and includes a temporary administrator message confirming your change.
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