Kevin's dashboard

Hi Shapkinartem,

I see some exceptions in the logs from a user trying to create an attachment in the past few minutes.

Guessing this is you, and looking at the HTTP USER AGENT string, I think you may be using Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.6 -- am I correct?

We don't test with that browser ... although I would guess it is a modern, compliant browser ... it could be a basic browser compatibility issue.

Have you tried using an up to date version of Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome? We do actively test with those browsers, so they should not be broken -- if they are, we'd like to fix that problem immediately.

Is this helpful? -- thanks,
Kevin

PS. If you are using a fringe browser you may be a techie so I'll give you the details of the problem in case you are interested...

We use 'SWFUpload' to ease uploading files, which uses Adobe Flash. Your Adobe Flash player has a separate session (with its own cookie), which it passes along to our webserver when uploading a file.

Since our webserver is expecting your browser Session ID ... Flash looks like another user, trying to attach a document, to your letter ... so there's a security exception and it breaks. This is a documented problem with SWF Upload ... see this thread for (lots of) details:

http://swfupload.org/forum/generaldis...

Hi Ashley,

I believe we have solved the problem!

Sorry for the issue you encountered. I hope Snailmailr works properly for you, if you retry.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your suggestion. That is an interesting idea. We're not planning on building this functionality right now, but we will consider the idea. If we do implement it, we will definitely update this thread to let you know.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi folks,

We are working on the SASE functionality. We definitely see its utility to our users. I can't really say when it will be done though, other than to remind you that building quality computer applications takes time, and to please be patient.

We will definitely update this thread when the feature is released.

Thanks for your interest,
Kevin

Hi rmcnichols,

That's not good!

Can you give me some more information on what you are seeing?

I'm imagining where you are -- you are writing you letter (in the editor), and then you click 'Verify and Pay' and ... you get a blank page? What exactly do you see?

Do you ever get to the place where you can click the yellow 'Pay Now' button? (That is, do you even see the preview of the letter?)

If you want to correspond more directly, feel free to contact us or call us via the contact page: http://snailmailr.com/about/contact

Alternatively, you can access the Snailmailr customer support chat room where we can chat more quickly:
http://snailmailr.campfirenow.com/6714d

Thanks!
Kevin

Hi CentralPark.com!

I believe we've fixed the problem. The good old 'production.log' file helped us out. ;)

You might try again and see if it will work this time.

Thanks so much for letting us know there was a problem, CentralPark.com!

Kevin

There was a bug which occasionally stopped users from uploading images. At the time, they needed to clear their cookies in order to successfully upload an image.

This issue has been solved. Users should no longer have these problems.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi,

Snailmailr has been updated with the fix for this problem.

Users should no longer have to do the workaround described here.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi folks,

We've released an update today which adds in the functionality you have requested. It's now possible to upload files to serve as the content of the letter: you can compose the letter in Microsoft Word (or your favorite editor), then upload the file to Snailmailr to be mailed.

The option to upload an attachment appears underneath the editor in 'Step 2: Write your Letter' :



Additional details:

Many file formats are supported - here is a complete list:
* MS Word (DOC), all versions, including DOCX.
* PDF files
* RTF (Rich Text Format) files
* TXT (Simple text files)
* WPD (Wordperfect) ... kind of legacy, but it was simple for us to do.
* PPT (Powerpoint presentation) files, including PPTX.
* HTML (Web document) files
* ODT (Open document format, OpenOffice's native format)

You can upload files up to 5 MB in size.

The letters have a maximum length of 20 pages for now. However, we have plans to support catalog envelopes which would allow us to mail letters up to hundreds of pages in length. Please speak up if you desire this ...

You can mix content created in the HTML editor and attachments. However, if you click the 'Hide editor' link at the bottom of the editor, you can hide the HTML editor and send an 'attachment only' letter. (That is, the content you have created in MS Word (or whatever editor) will be the only thing in the letter.).

Thanks guys! I hope Snailmailr proves useful to you and the new functionality satisfies what you had envisioned. If you give it a try, please give us feedback! We only want satisfied customers.

Kevin & the Snailmailr team

Hi Brett,

Sorry for the long delay in responding to your question.

Today we have released new functionality that allows you to simply upload a PDF or Word document (just two of the supported formats) to serve as the content of your letter.

It should now be trivial to double-space your letter (and to get the formatting as attractive as you like, as users now have essentially, absolute control over the look of their letter) by simply writing in Microsoft Word (or your favorite text editor), and then uploading the file.

The option to upload an attachment appears underneath the editor while you are composing your letter.



Thanks Brett -- I think this should solve the issue you mentioned. Sorry again for the delay. I hope Snailmailr proves useful to you.

Kevin

Hi Jim,

I apologize for the long delay in answering your question. I saw that you had written in here, but, we were working very hard on the new release, which addresses some of your concerns, so I thought I would just wait until the release was done to get back to you. (This way I can point to come concrete advancement for you to check out ... and hence make better use of your time.)

-----

Anyways -- the new release is finally done! It's now possible to, instead of composing all letter content in the online editor, to upload a variety of file types to serve as the content of the letter. (PDF files, Word .DOC files, Text (.TXT) files, Powerpoint (.PPT) files ... are a few of the formats supported. We can support almost any format if there is a need for it, please just ask.)

The 'Upload Attachment' feature is really quite nice and I think it will make Snailmailr an order of magnitude more useful for Veterans who need to send paper mail in order to work with the US Military's bureaucracy.

Please check it out and let me know if you agree. You can see the new 'Upload Attachment' button as soon as you click the 'Step 2: Compose your Letter' button ...



So -- I wanted to wait to reply until I could mention that.

-----

Re: being able to sign the letters with a script font, I definitely have some ideas for how we can accomplish that. Would you like to contact us directly via the form on the Contact page? Then once we have exchanged email addresses, we can correspond privately and I could send you some mock-ups of the ideas that I have ... I would love to hear your feedback.

Also, if you are interested in linking to Snailmailr, the next release will contain a variety of widgets to make it possible to 'pre-fill' the destination and return addresses, and the content of the letter ... And we have a few other tricks up our sleeve that will be of special interest to those linking to us. Please contact via the Contact form and we can probably get you some of these in advance.

So yes ... I do think that Snailmailr is a good fit for visitors to your website designed to help Veterans access their benefits, and we'd be very happy to help them with their correspondence. Your website has a worthy goal.

Please let us know whatever we can do to help you.

Thanks Jim,
Kevin

Hi Guest.cg,

We currently have no way to mail letters to more than one address at a time. This is definitely on our roadmap. But we don't have it yet.

The one feature that helps to accomplish what you want ... is the 'Resend' button on the receipt page ... once you have purchased a letter, on the 'receipt' page, there is a 'Resend' button. If you click this button, the contents of your letter, along with your return address, will be copied to a new letter, which you can then address and send.

Sorry that we don't have a more evolved functionality for doing this yet.

Thanks,
Kevin