Digest header / masthead.txt changes

[Fholson-users]

Mailman digests get (potentially) two blocks of text at
the top:
The contents of a file called masthead.txt
currently about 13 lines which I summarize as:
 Send ... submissions to ...
 To subscribe or unsubscribe ...
 You can reach the person managing the list at ....
 When replying, please edit your Subject line ...

In addition list admins can add a digest_header
(which defaults to nothing) that follows the masthead.

Two other requests suggest allowing the the masthead
be moved to the bottom of the list because a
significant number of people in my estimation find this
repetitive block of text rather verbose and a nuisance.

See feature requests:
1220821 Option to move "cruft" ("boilerplate") to
bottom of digest
1059834 daily digest new setting: mail body change

Note that the masthead.txt does not seem to change for
announcement lists for which the "submissions" and
"when replying" portions are inappropriate.

REQUEST: Allow "masthead" text to be changeable by
listowners

I would like to see the text supplied currently by
masthead
be changeable by list owners. It seems like this could
be done similar to footers - with default contents
(preferably smarter) to the digest_header form which
already exists.

Fred H Olson who manages lists as http://justcomm.org

[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1267807&group_id=103&atid=350103]

[Joseph Fall (powderflask)]

I ran into this one - and it was particularly vexing since I do not have access to my list's masthead.txt through my host.

It seems to me, if the goal is to maintain the same basic default behaviour, this could be fixed most easily by:

1) setting the default digest_header to be the contents of masthead.txt

2) supplying an empty masthead.txt file

This allows most site admins to edit the digest_header via the web interface, while still allowing a masthead to be defined, if needed.

But I'm probably missing something crucial here....

[Mark Sapiro (msapiro)]

I will add the digest masthead (masthead.txt template) to the files that can be edited via the "Edit the public HTML pages and text files" link on the list admin web pages.