At 07:22 PM 8/25/2011 -0400, John Manly wrote:
Hello.  I have a few questions about BANNERS that I can't seem to find the answer to in the documentation:
 
1) What is the difference and intended usage of the BOTTOM_BANNER vs. the DEFAULT_BOTTOM_BANNER templates?  I would have thought that DEFAULT_BOTTOM_BANNER was a site-wide default, with BOTTOM_BANNER being list specific, but when I look in a given list's MAILTPL file, I see both.  In what sort of circumstances should one use one over the other?

DEFAULT_BOTTOM_BANNER is ignored if found in the list-level template, so why it's in the template file is anybody's guess.  Possibly someone copied it in thinking it was needed.

2) How does the <list>.MAILTPL file get populated when a new list is created?  Where are the true site-wide defaults kept from which these are copied?  (SITE.MAILTPL?  default.MAILTPL?  How these work in terms of which overrides which?)

There is no listname.MAILTPL file until you create it, either by a PUT operation via email or by editing one of the templates available in the web interface.  Server-wide defaults are kept in DEFAULT.MAILTPL and are used unless they are overridden by the list-level template.

3) What triggers the creation of the <list>.MAILTPL file at all?  Is one always created unconditionally at list creation time, or only if some kind of template modifications have taken place?  (On my system I have some lists that have a MAILTPL file and some that don't, and some of the ones that do are ones I know have not had their templates specifically modified.)

I think I just answered that above :)

4) Does the "#" character have any special significance in a MAILTPL file?  As a comment delimeter, for example?

No.  You start a comment line with ".*" as documented.

  I have a MAILTPL file that looks like this:
 
>>> BOTTOM_BANNER Default bottom banner
.CS ISO-8859-1
To unsubscribe from the list: &LISTNAME-signoff-request@&MYHOST
 
.hh on
########################################################################
 
##To unsubscribe from the &LISTNAME list, click the following link:
##.BB &LITEFE = 0
## &*TICKET_URL(&LISTNAME_ENCODED,SIGNOFF);
##.ELSE
##&WA_URL;?SUBED1=&LISTNAME_ENCODED&A=1
##.EB
.hh off

Not surprisingly, it causes errors on messages about the ".hh" directive (which is invalid), but the "#" characters don't seem to show up either.  Maybe that's because of the directive error, but those prefix "##" look like someone thought it was a commend delimiter, so I just want to double-check before I fix it.

Testing on my test list indicates that if you remove the .hh block, it will work.  (Which was what I figured but I thought I'd test it to make sure.)  What you ought to be getting in the mail with it set up like the above is something like

>>> Error in line 4 of LISTNAME.MAILTPL: unknown formatting command <<< -> .hh on <-

instead of the banner.

Nathan

To unsubscribe from the LSTSRV-L list, click the following link:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=LSTSRV-L&A=1