OK guys

Cracked it. After searching the internet for hours trying to find a solution to creating a newsletter system I worked out a really easy way to do it with out the need of a package and I thought I should post the answer to my own post:

http://our.umbraco.org/forum/developers/extending-umbraco/25833-Newsletter-pug-ins,-disappointed-lack-of-packages

Ok the goal is to intergrate Umbraco with a mail list system so our website can collect email address, and then send HTML emails to people who have given us address through the website.

So to do this we are going to integrate mailchimp.com (mailing list service with umbraco)

I have worked out two ways to do this:

Approach 1: Use the mailchimp.com API

Approach 2: Generate HTML form from the mailchimp.com website and past it in to your site.

Approach 1: Use the mailchimp.com API

OK I am going to save you some time, and tell you what I have found out.

a) it is impossible to use .net api wrappers like PerceptiveMCAPI with umbraco. This is because all of the .net wrappers use a dll called CookComputing.XmlrpcV2.dll and umbraco uses the same dll but a different version so if you change this dll in your umbraco project it will fail. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME

b) The only way you can use the API is to use the API using your own code refrencing the version of CookComputing.XmlrpcV2.dl, need to know how to do it..? >>> http://gkomninos.com/60/web-developement/asp-net-mailchimp-intergration/

Then to send emails you log in to your chipmail account, even though you have to log in to another website to send your emails this approach is good becuase you get a fully featured mailing list system, and its free if you want to send less than 2000 emails per month, and lets face it, thats going to be enough for most people.

But before you open Visiual Studio and start writing code. Consider Approach 2. I found this out after I had already got approch 1 working. Just go to your mail chimp account > Generate HTML FORMS, get the code and paste it in your page, simple. No usercontrols, no code (well just HTML) simple.

Then again to send mail login to your mail chimp account, if you want to send your emails from your umbraco instlation then you would have to create a custom section in umbraco, but personally I don't need to, and that seems like a lot of work, when you could just log in to the chimp mail site.

I hope this solves move peoples questisons on newsletter systems in umbraco it worked for me, and its about time I contributed to the umbraco commnity :-)