Mailman templates and where is it all anyway?

[JohnYM]

I've installed Mailman with cpanel and then been editing the html templates so the list pages look the same as the rest of the site.

The trouble is that the Mailman admin page for doing this only lists 3 files to change:
- general list info page
- subscribe results page
- user specific options page

and when you've done all these there are still odd pages in between that come up with the original formatting (eg. one that asks users for their password).

I've been digging around in the various Mailman info sources and come to the understanding that there's a hierarchy of directories that it looks in for templates (permutations of site, language and list).

Trouble is, I can't see the installation at all - I only seem to have access to it via the webserver setup that I gather points directories at scripts somewhere else.

Optimistically, I was wishing I knew if there are other template files and what their names are, so that I can try using the provided edit function to see if it will change them; my rationale is the urls being of the format

http://domain/mailman/edithtml/listname/templatename.html

Does anyone know if this approach works and if so what the other filenames are? Or failing that, where the installation actually is?

cheers

(if anyone cares, here's the list: http://gravitas-events.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/gravitas-list_gravitas-events.co.uk)

 

[JohnYM]

I still want to know about the templates, but I've been able to find out where the installation is; it's a common one in

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/

so the template hierarchy I found is presumably under here

# When looking for a template in a specific language, there are 4 places
# that are searched, in this order:
#
# 1. the list-specific language directory
# lists/<listname>/<language>
#
# 2. the domain-specific language directory
# templates/<list.host_name>/<language>
#
# 3. the site-wide language directory
# templates/site/<language>
#
# 4. the global default language directory
# templates/<language>

and I guess the edithtml function puts them in the top one.

Does it support any more filenames than
listinfo.html - General list information page
subscribe.html - Subscribe results page
options.html - User specific options page
subscribeack.txt - Welcome email text file

 

[brianc]

You can customize all the templates on a list by list basis or on a server level if you have access to mailman's backend.

The templates are kept here: /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/templates/en

If you want a specific template modified for a particular list then place the modified template in
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/lists/<listname>/en/templatename.txt

You will need to use a text editor such as pico to do this. There is no gui tool to edit most of the templates as you have found out. However if you have access to the mailman server's backend then you can do the above with great success using just a text editor.

Hope that helps.

 

[JohnYM]

You can customize all the templates on a list by list basis or on a server level if you have access to mailman's backend.

The templates are kept here: /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/templates/en

If you want a specific template modified for a particular list then place the modified template in
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/lists/<listname>/en/templatename.txt

Thanks, Brian; that confirms what I guessed... but I don't seem to have access to the mailman backend.

I was hoping that if I try feeding the other template names to the gui editor it might just pick them up anyway... worth a try at least (and I might win the lottery this week too!)

Trouble is, I only know the file names of the ones it's showing me. Would you mind posting a list (of the .../templates/en directory) so I can try them out?

Thanks

 

[brianc]

Sure:

adminunsubscribeack.txt
archlistend.html
bounce.txt
headfoot.html
nomoretoday.txt
probe.txt
unsubauth.txt
admlogin.html
archliststart.html
checkdbs.txt
help.txt
options.html
refuse.txt
unsub.txt
admindbdetails.html
approve.txt
archtocentry.html
convert.txt
invite.txt
postack.txt
roster.html
userpass.txt
admindbpreamble.html
archidxentry.html
archtoc.html
cronpass.txt
listinfo.html
postauth.txt
subauth.txt
verify.txt
admindbsummary.html
archidxfoot.html
archtocnombox.html
disabled.txt
masthead.txt
postheld.txt
subscribeack.txt
adminsubscribeack.txt
archidxhead.html
article.html
emptyarchive.html
newlist.txt
private.html
subscribe.html

Let me know if your workaround works. I would also recommend joining the mailman user list at http://www.list.org/lists.html. There are some mailman masters on that list and they are very helpful.

 

[JohnYM]

Thanks for that, Brian.

I've diligently tried each of them and guess what - only the four we already knew about work

I dare say I'll not be winning the lottery this week either

I'll be off to join the list.org mailing list and see if there are any bright ideas and in the meantime see if I can persuade my hosting company to give me upload access to the directory for my list.

I'll try & remember to update this with the outcome for posterity but if anyone reading this at a later date wants to know what happened, feel free to prod me!

 

[brianc]

Or you can sign up for my mailman hosting service and I will post your customized text to your list for you.

PM me if your interested.