Django Mailchimp v1.3
This is an integrated app for Django dealing with the Mailchimp mailing list system.
Warning
This package used to be called simply django-mailchimp
. But since the
mailchimp API changed in non-backwards-compatible ways between v1.2 and v1.3,
we renamed it to django-mailchimp-v1.3
.
Stuff may break in funny ways with this release, so make sure to thoroughly
test your code if you want to update from django-mailchimp
.
Quick start guide:
Installation:
-
Install
django-mailchimp-v1.3
:pip install django-mailchimp-v1.3
-
Add a
MAILCHIMP_API_KEY
to your settings.py with your mailchimp API key as the value (obviously) -
Add
mailchimp
to your project's list of INSTALLED_APPS
4. To start using the API, you should start by using utils.get_connection(). This will use the API_KEY you just defined in settings.py
Subscribing a user to a list:
-
To get the list:
list = mailchimp.utils.get_connection().get_list_by_id(<list key id>)
-
Now add a member to the mailing list:
list.subscribe('example@example.com', {'EMAIL':'example@example.com'})
Those pesky merge vars:
General info:
Mailchimp is a quite generic service. As such, it needs to store information on people who subscribe to a list, and that information is specific to this very list!
So to help you build dynamic forms (presumabely), mailchimp added the merge_vars. They are, basically, a dictionnary showing infromation and meta-information defined for each piece of information. Here's what the default set of merge vars look like (ona brand new list with default options):
[ { 'field_type': 'email', 'name': 'Email Address', 'show': True, 'default': None, 'req': True, 'public': True, 'tag': 'EMAIL', 'helptext': None, 'order': '1', 'size': '25' },{ 'field_type': 'text', 'name': 'First Name', 'show': True, 'default': '', 'req': False, 'public': True, 'tag': 'FNAME', 'helptext': '', 'order': '2', 'size': '25' },{ 'field_type': 'text', 'name': 'Last Name', 'show': True, 'default': '', 'req': False, 'public': True, 'tag': 'LNAME', 'helptext': '', 'order': '3', 'size': '25' } ]
As you can see, it's a list of 3 dictionnaries, each containing several fields that you should use to build your user interface with (since you're using this app, that means your Django form).
Obtaining them:
You can recreate this list using the following API call:
list = mailchimp.utils.get_connection().get_list_by_id(<The list's key ID>) print list.merges
Using them:
When you make a post to mailchimp, you need to pass merge_vars. For example, in a new list created with the default settings on the mailchimp website, the following call adds a member to a list (with a little more info than our bare minimum example up there):
list = mailchimp.utils.get_connection().get_list_by_id(<The list's key ID>) list.subscribe('example@example.com', {'EMAIL': 'example@example.com', 'FNAME': 'Monthy', 'LNAME': 'Pythons'})
Note the use of the 'tag' field as the key for fields (why they didn't call it 'key' or 'id' is beyond comprehension).
Create a view:
We'll now try to move up the stack and create the necessary elements to make a useable mailchimp interface
Fire up your favorite editor and open your views.py. Put in the following snippet of code:
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect from mailchimp import utils MAILCHIMP_LIST_ID = 'spamspamspamspameggsspamspam' # DRY :) REDIRECT_URL_NAME = '/mailing_list_success/' def add_email_to_mailing_list(request): if request.POST['email']: email_address = request.POST['email'] list = utils.get_connection().get_list_by_id(MAILCHIMP_LIST_ID) list.subscribe(email_address, {'EMAIL': email_address}) return HttpResponseRedirect('/mailing_list_success/') else: return HttpResponseRedirect('/mailing_list_failure/')
Of course, if you feel redirecting the user is not the right approach (handling a form might be a good idea), feel free to adapt this simple example to your needs :p