best/easiest commandline email program for mass-email

[Alex Janssen]

Hal Burgiss wrote:
>
> As mentioned, the mailx packaged (I think) contains the 'mail' command:
>
> cat $email_list |while read email;do
> 	cat $boiler_plate | mail -s "$mysubject" $email
> done
>
> Also, there is a command line version of mutt, which can handle attachments.
> So I use mutt for attachments, otherwise just 'mail'.
>
> You can also echo text directly to "sendmail", but you have to build your
> headers from scratch. Not as difficult as it sounds:
>
> ( echo "From: $from"
>   echo "To: $to"
>   echo "Subject: $subject"
>   echo "Reply-To: $replyto"
>   ! [ "$cc" == "" ] && echo "Cc: $cc"
>   ! [ "$bcc" == "" ] && echo "Bcc: $bcc"
>   echo "$x_lines"
>   if $HTML; then
>    echo  "MIME-Version: 1.0"
>    echo "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"ISO-8859-1\""
>   fi
>   # Add required blank line to separate header/body.
>   echo
>   # Body goes now ...
>   cat $tempfile
> ) | $sendmail $ffrom
>
>
>   
Well, that's real good idea.  Sort of what I was thinking of doing.  
I've written plenty scripts, so no problem there.  Which is 
better/easier, sendmail, mailx or mailutils?

I am sending a news letter.

I could use OpenOffice.org Writer like noop suggested, but I can't 
figure out how to get a database field into a mailto hyperlink.  If they 
want to opt out of the list, I'd like it to email me back the address I 
sent to.  I did get it to email to the list, though.

I like the shell script method.  Seems to give me more control over the 
content and I can build the aforementioned hyperlink.

I can't figure out how to get mailutils mail to use my ISP's smtp mail 
server, yet.
I type "mail me at mydomain.com", enter the subject and message body 
followed by "." on a blank line.  The message goes somewhere, but where 
I don't know.

I see I need to do more homework, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.

Alex

-- 
Ourwoods.org
 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein (275)