1. Introduction

I was looking for a free tool to send single HTML e-mails to multiple recipients, something like MailReactor but with HTML support.

I decided to use Blat, which perfectly fits my needs but unfortunately is a commandline tool. After some time I grew tired of editing batch files, so I decided to make a GUI for Blat.




2. Download

As Blat is free this package also includes the original Blat, so you only have to download once.

Unicode (NT/2000/XP/Vista)

ANSI (95/98/ME)

Source


3. Installation

You guessed it: extract to a folder of your choice.

If you really want to "install" it you can right-click on a *.sbc file generated by any "Save" or "Save to" operation, choose "Open with" and define SimpleBlatGUI as standard.


4. Usage

I still have to find a decent chm compiler before I can add a help file, but for now the GUI should be self-explanatory enough. If you know what "from", "to" and "server" means you're pretty much ready to use it.

Basically it's a three-step-process:

1) Fill in the necessary form fields

2) Press "Create" to create the command line (you can still edit)

3) Press "Send" to send the command to Blat

The GUI provides easy access to the most important features of Blat, but deliberately not all. If you are a sophisticated user you might want to check out the Blat Syntax. Any function supported by Blat can be used by adding the right argument (tab "Options" -> "arguments").


5. Stealth

Blat itself is able to store profiles (e-mail address, server, port) in the registry for frequent use, but that's not mandatory.

The GUI does not use the registry or user folder. I recently discovered that an included UDF makes use of the user's temporary directory. Maybe I will adapt that Function later, for now you could avoid writing to %temp% by not using the IP look-up function (tab "Options" -> "host" -> button "Info").


6. Portability

I wouldn't dare posting here if not


7. Internet Activity

Provided you filled out all the necessary form fields correctly, Blat.exe will connect to the internet as soon as you hit "Send".

SimpleBlatGUI.exe usually does not connect to the Internet. If you use the server info or host info function though, it will do so to get that data.


8. Security

To find out more about Blat's GSS encryption try their Yahoo Discussion List.

You are able to save your different configurations to multiple *.sbc files. SimpleBlatGUI uses RC4 encryption for passwords.


9. License

For Blat's license read here.

SimpleBlatGUI is completely free to use, you can modify and redistribute it, print the source and wrap your cat in it, but by doing so you accept that I cannot be hold responsible for any harm done.

The only limitation in each license is that both Blat and SimpleBlatGUI cannot be used to send spam.
Keep that in mind before you start crapping into other peoples mailboxes


10. Bugs

SimpleBlatGUI was thoroughly tested... by myself. And only on XP. I don't expect any major bugs, but I depend on you folks to find that out, especially regarding non-XP-systems.


11. To Do

+ Add form field for delay
+ Batch file export
+ Language support


12. How you could help

1) Try SimpleBlatGUI and tell me if anything doesn't work as expected.

2) Make a wish. If there is a feature you are missing, tell me. If it's useful, possible and not too hard I will implement it. I will not change the original Blat.exe, though.

3) It's too early for language support, but once it's implemented, I will definitely need your help with translations.


Thank you in advance for your feedback!

_________________
My name is Mike. His name is Bob.

hmmm this takes some looking into, I think I like the sounds of this program

Greetings,

Great looking GUI. Since Hank7 allows redistribution I posted a link to this post on the yahoo group blat.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/blat/

Hank7 how could you do all this work and not let us regulars of the YGB know about it? If there are any more Blat related projects please stop by and let us know.

Thanks,
Namtog

Thank you, Namtog!

As stated above, SimpleBlatGUI is still pretty much untested by anyone else but me. I hoped to hear from beta testers before "going public".

The opinion of people who use Blat on a regular basis is very important to me, so I really appreciate the link on YGB.

I will visit you there as soon as 0.0.0.3 is ready and keep you informed on updates.

Greetings, Hank7

_________________
My name is Mike. His name is Bob.

NIce job BTW-
I did install on two machines-one with XP and the other VISTA- no isues with this. When I enter in the basic information, and then slect create---it constantly tells me it is missing arguments.
Here is the xp side details:

-f "blat@kn.com" -to "jcooper@mycompanyname.com" -subject "Reports" -server "mail.mydomainname.com"

error upon create:
Some Arguments are missing.

I went thru and added in a bunch of other details- such as authentication a file and HTML, etc. but cant seems to get this to go with out rec the mesg.

Now- I did enter in -create into the OPYIONS tab Arguments line and it allowed me to create but in the dos window it stopped processing and said it didnt understand the argument and then gives the items I can select from when using create. Ideas?

Hi jdcoop,

thanks for the Vista confirmation.

Blat expects one of these scenarios:

1) Blat <filename> -to <recipient> [optional switches]
2) Blat -install <server addr> <sender's addr> [<try>[<port>[<profile>]]] [-q]
3) Blat -profile [-delete | "<default>"] [profile1] [profileN] [-q]
4) Blat -h



This is an e-mail without text. If you do not wish to send any just leave body.txt without content, but check "body file" (the file itself will only be read, not sent as an attachment, so it doesn't matter if it is *.txt, *.htm or just any fake 0kb file):



I am going to make sending text-less e-mails more intuitive in future versions.



"-create" is not a valid Blat argument. The arguments input was added to keep the GUI flexible and allow any switch (e.g. for altered versions of Blat), so it won't be checked by SimpleBlatGUI, but Blat itself will still tell you what's possible and what's not.

BTW, error messages are handled by Blat, SimpleBlatGUI does not validate your input but only offers warnings.

_________________
My name is Mike. His name is Bob.

As you may know, the OP only has dead links.

Here's the new and improved GUI for Blat:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2489
Please vote for it to make it public!

_________________
My apps' developments:

• AutoRun LWMenu
• LWBlat GUI

For general info, Blat has both 32 and 64 bits versions for download at Sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/blat