David’s Technical Musings

I’m installing WordPress on a new server for my company and realized I didn’t have detailed instructions for how I set it up last time.   This article is intended to show the exact steps I take to set it up.

MySQL comes in two primary flavors (from the downloads page) - community server and enterprise server.   The one we are interested in is community server (also known as the Generally Available (GA) release).   The community server page lists links for a variety of platforms as well as for the source.

MySQL is distributed in three forms for Windows:

• Windows Essentials
• Windows MSI Installer
• Without installer (unzip in C:\)

For my purposes I have always chosen the Windows MSI Installer download package.   As of this writing, MySQL version 5.1.32 is available for download.   I tend to download the latest publically available production version as I assume that has all the latest bug fixes and security fixes as well as support for the latest features required by the software I need to run.

What to Install

The installer offers three choices for installing:

• Typical
• Complete
• Custom

My habit is to select Custom to make sure I know what is being installed.   It turns out that Typical is almost always the correct choice.   The only thing not installed by selecting that option is the developer components.   Everything else should be installed.   Here are the components that are installed when selecting the Typical option:

• MySQL Server
• Client Programs - Includes a command-line interface.
• MySQL Instance Manager - Allows you to manage several MySQL server instances.
• Documentation

Configuration Wizard

The Instance Configuration Wizard will run after MySQL has installed (it’s an option at the end of the Setup Wizard).   The Instance Configuration Wizard offers two configuration types - Detailed Configuration and Standard Configuration.   Standard configuration is only recommend if you already have a MySQL server installed, so select Detailed Configuration.

Type of Server

The next page asks what type of server is being installed, which determines how much memory the MySQL process will use.   If all you’re doing is testing it out or developing against it, select Developer Machine.   If you’re going to deploy it with other server applications, select Server Machine.   If you are going to dedicate a machine to MySQL, specify Dedicated MySQL Server Machine.

For my uses, I typically select Server Machine.

How the Database will be used

The next page asks how the database will be used.   Your choice will determine the storage engine to use and the capabilities that will be available.   Multifunctional Database is the most flexible, so if you don’t have a specific reason to use transactional or non-transactional databases specifically, just choose Multifunctional Database.

Database File Location

The next page asks for the location of the InnoDB database files to be managed by MySQL.   It would be best to specify a disk that has plenty of space and that won’t interfere with the operation of the system.   Putting this on a different disk than where the system is installed is a good idea.   The UI for this has improved since I first installed MySQL.   At that time it defaulted to putting the database files in a folder in the installation directory below Program Files.

Concurrent Connections

The next page asks you to specify a profile describing how many concurrent connections should be allowed to the server.   How you set this will be determined by how many visitors you expect to your web site.   For limited purpose sites where you know the number of users, you should set this to as close to that number as you can plus one for administration purposes.   For a general purpose web site, something on the order of at least 50 would be advisable.   On the database serving this web site I currently have it set to 100.

Networking and Strict Mode Options

The next page presents two options.

Enabling TCP/IP Networking should be enabled if you ever want to host your MySQL database on a different machine than your clients.   Unless you have a good reason, leave the port number set to the default value of 3306.   If you are using MySQL for development purposes on a single machine, there is no reason to add an exception to the firewall.

Enable Strict Mode should always be enabled.

Default Character Set

The next page presents options for setting the default character set for databases.   Choose Best Support for Multilingualism unless you know you are going to be using a specific character set.

Windows Options

The next page allows you to specify how the MySQL database server should run.   In most cases you’ll the best choice is to check Install As Windows Service.   You can also specify a different service name if you are installing multiple instances.

If you want to be able to use the MySQL command line tools, you should also check Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH.

Security Options

The next page allows you to specify security information for accessing the MySQL server instance.   Specify a password for the root account.   In most cases you will want to use a web-based management tool such as phpMyAdmin or cPanel for managing the MySQL serve instance, so you won’t want to check Enable root access from remote machines.   Also, in most cases, you won’t want to check Create An Anonymous Account.

Ready to Execute

You’ve now entered all the information required to install the MySQL server instance.   You’ll see the following page requesting that you press the Execute button.

The next article in the series will cover installing FastCGI on IIS6, followed by installing PHP on Windows and IIS.

Resources

• Install MySQL on IIS7 Server 2008 by Dave Lawlor
• Install WordPress on WEMP (Windows, nginx, MySQL and PHP) by Hendry Lee
• Screen cast – How to Install MySQL, PHP using FastCGI, and WordPress on IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 (x86) at NetOMeter

The IIS processes on my web server (w3wp.exe) have been experiencing high CPU usage lately, but only for one of my app pools - the one for my main WordPress sites.  I use two ISAPI DLLs - PHP5 and Ionics Isapi Rewriter - but I am also currently using an older version of WordPress.  I did a little bit of research starting with the following Google query:

w3wp.exe high cpu

This turned up a few good hits, one of which allowed me to track down which app pools were using the most CPU.  Here’s the command I use:

cscript /nologo %SystemRoot%\System32\IisApp.vbs

I’m in the process of moving to the latest version of WordPress, so hopefully that will prove to be the solution, but if you encounter high CPU usage by w3wp.exe processes, try this command out to track down the culprit.

Since DVDSpot closed down (see article DVDSpot is Closing) I’ve been looking for a replacement that would allow me to record my collection and allow me and my friends and relatives to view it.  Steven Hildreth may have just the ticket with DvdCrate.  He opened it up to a public beta in December and just recently released it officially.

Steven, who goes by the moniker of CmdrTallen, has been extremely responsive to feedback and has assembled a very nice site, written entirely in ASP.NET^W.  It doesn’t have all the features of DVDSpot yet, but it’s on its way.

Features I Like:

• Rich database schema for specifying just about everything you can think of about DVDs, HD DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, UMDs, etc.
• Provides many options for displaying information.
• Searchable by UPC, title, actor, etc.
• Author is very responsive - and respectful.

Work Left To Do:

• Performance.
• Can’t search within a single collection yet.
• Some fairly minor bug fixing and user interface features.

The site has a forum as well which makes it very handy for giving feedback and getting help.  If you’re looking for a way to maintain your collection on the Internet, I recommend you try it out at http://www.dvdcrate.com/.

I’m in the process of making my DVDs available from my home theater PC via Windows Media Center on Windows Vista.  I’m testing out AnyDVD from SlySoft (their support policy is changing as of the 1st of the year).  What I want to be able to do is rip my DVDs, HD DVDs, and Blu-Ray Discs to the computer and to be able to view them from the HTPC, XBOX 360s, and PlayStation 3s.  One step in this direction is to be able to see all the DVDs from within Media Center.

Microsoft has actually implemented this on Windows Vista (not Windows XP) but for some reason has not chosen to expose it in the interface.  The only way to see your DVD library is by editing the registry.  Here’s a summary of the instructions:

1. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings
2. Right-click ShowGallery and then click Modify.
3. Replace the contents (most likely Play) with Gallery.

Once I did this, DVD Library appeared in TV & Movies instead of Play DVD.  With Virtual CloneDrive from SlySoft, your ISO files can appear as a DVD, HD DVD, or Blu-Ray drive which will then show up in Media Center.

You can find the full instructions for this on Microsoft’s web site.

Note (Feb. 12, 2008)

Andre has implemented a version of styling that I feel is superior to this one.  I’ll provide an update at some point, but check out the MailPress2 style for details.

One of the limitations of MailPress themes is that you can’t use CSS.  You can still use styles, but you have to specify them inline using the style=”" attribute.  One of the things that CSS does for you is it gives you the ability to apply the same style across your templates without having to duplicate it every place you use it.  To deal with this limitation, I thought, can’t I just define variables that contain the styles that can be referenced by all the templates just like a CSS style can?

The answer is yes - in functions.php.

I’ll show you how to do this by converting the MailPress theme.  First let’s look at a simple template - daily.php.  It looks like this:

<?php $this->get_header() ?>
  <table style='margin:0;padding:0;border:none;width:100%;'>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <tr>
      <td style='margin:0;padding:0pt 0pt 20px 45px;border:none;width:450px;float:left;color:#333333;text-align:left;font-family:Verdana,Sans-Serif;'>
        <div style='margin:0pt 0pt 40px;padding:0;border:none;text-align:justify;'>
          <h2 style='margin:30px 0pt 0pt;padding:0;border:none;color:#333;font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;font-family:Verdana,Sans-Serif;'>
            <a style='text-decoration:none;color:#333;' href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
          </h2>
          <small style='margin:0;padding:0;border:none;line-height:2em;color:#777;font-size:0.7em;font-family:Arial,Sans-Serif;'>
<?php the_time('F j, Y') ?>
          </small>
          <div style='margin:0;padding:0;border:none;'>
            <p style='margin:0;padding:0;border:none;line-height:1.4em;font-size:0.85em;'>
<?php the_content(); ?>
            </p>
          </div>
        </div>
      </td>
    </tr>
<?php endwhile; ?>
  </table>
<?php $this->get_footer() ?>

Other templates (such as weekly.php and monthly.php) are very similar. Making a change is rather tedious as a result.  What if we simple define those style strings as variables in functions.php?  The result would look like this:

<?php $this->get_header() ?>
  <table style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_outer_table; ?>'>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <tr>
      <td style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_title_td; ?>'>
        <div style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_title_div; ?>'>
          <h2 style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_title_h; ?>'>
            <a style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_title_a; ?>' href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
          </h2>
          <small style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_small_date; ?>'>
<?php the_time('F j, Y') ?>
          </small>
          <div style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_content_div; ?>'>
            <p style='<?php echo $mptheme_style_content_p; ?>'>
<?php the_content(); ?>
            </p>
          </div>
        </div>
      </td>
    </tr>
<?php endwhile; ?>
  </table>
<?php $this->get_footer() ?>

Here are the contents of function.php:

<?php
$mptheme_style_font_family = 'font-family: Verdana, Sans-Serif;';

$mptheme_style_outer_table = 'margin: 0; padding: 0; border: none; width: 100%;';

$mptheme_style_small_date =
    $mptheme_style_font_family
    . 'margin: 0;'
    . 'padding: 0;'
    . 'border: none;'
    . 'line-height: 2em;'
    . 'color: #777;'
    . 'font-size: 0.7em;';

// Message title styles.
$mptheme_style_title_td =
    $mptheme_style_font_family
    . 'margin: 0;'
    . 'padding: 0 0 20px 45px;'
    . 'border: none;'
    . 'width: 450px;'
    . 'float: left;'
    . 'color: #333333;'
    . 'text-align: left;';
$mptheme_style_title_div =
    'margin: 0 0 40px;'
    . 'padding: 0;'
    . 'border: none;'
    . 'text-align: justify;';
$mptheme_style_title_h =
    $mptheme_style_font_family
    . 'margin: 30px 0 0 0;'
    . 'padding: 0;'
    . 'border: none;'
    . 'color: #333;'
    . 'font-size: 1.4em;'
    . 'font-weight: bold;';
$mptheme_style_title_a = 'text-decoration: none; color: #333;';
// Content styles.
$mptheme_style_content_div = 'margin: 0; padding: 0; border: none;';
$mptheme_style_content_p =
    'margin: 0;'
    . 'padding: 0;'
    . 'border: none;'
    . 'line-height: 1.4em;'
    . 'font-size: 0.85em;';
?>

I believe this technique is important for maintaining themes.  As I was developing a theme based on the MailPress theme I got tired of making the same modifications over and over again.  Using this mechanism, I can make a change in one place (functions.php) and it will be applied consistently across all templates.

One caveat I found is that you can’t use definitions from functions.php in your header.php or footer.php files, which is a real shame.

A converted version of the themes I’ve converted can be found on my downloads page with some additional minor modifications.

Resources

•   MailPressThemeWithStyles.zip (59.9 KiB, 568 hits)

If you’ve done any work at all on WordPress themes, MailPress themes will be very comfortable.  MailPress adds a few extra things, but most - if not all - of the WordPress API is available from within a MailPress theme.  Andre has some rules for developing themes which you may want to read in addition to the information here.  Go to his mailpress site and then click on Design (too bad I can’t link directly there) to view it.  Here are some key rules:

• No spaces in theme folder names.
• CSS and javascript are not supported (bummer!).

MailPress themes reside under the plugins\mailpress\mp-content\themes directory - look familiar?  Themes consist of four different sets of files.

Required Files

• style.css
  As in a WordPress theme, this file contains information about the theme, including its name, a description, tag information, etc.  Nothing else in this file is used since you can’t use CSS in MailPress themes.
• index.php
  Doesn’t do anything at all and must be empty.  Not sure why it exists.
• screenshot.jpg
  Displayed on the MailPress theme admin page.  If you design your own theme, please don’t just steal a screenshot from another theme.  Create one that looks your new theme.

General-Purpose Files (Optional)

None of these files are required, but they improve maintainability and consistency by reducing redundancy (say that 10 times fast).

• function.php
  Contains common definitions that can be used by all templates.
• header.php
  Contains code for common header content.  Template files can include this by specifying the following statement:
  <?php $this->get_header(); ?>
• footer.php
  Contains code for common footer content.  Template files can include this by specifying the following statement:
  <?php $this->get_footer(); ?>
• sidebar.php
  Contains code for common sidebar content.  Template files can include this by specifying the following statement:
  <?php $this->get_sidebar(); ?>
  Note that the standard functions for widgets used in WordPress cannot be used here since CSS can’t be used.

MailPress Templates (Optional)

These template files correspond to different types of subscriptions to your site.

• new_subscriber.php
  Sent to a new subscriber after they have registered.  The email will contain a link the user can click to confirm their subscription.
• confirmed.php
  Sent to a new subscriber after they have confirmed their subscription.
• single.php
  Sent to subscribers each time a post is published.
• daily.php
  Sent to subscribers containing a recap of the previous day’s posts.  The maximum number of posts included in the email is specified on the General Settings page.
• weekly.php
  Sent to subscribers containing a recap of the previous week’s posts.  The maximum number of posts included in the email is specified on the General Settings page.
• monthly.php
  Sent to subscribers containing a recap of the previous month’s posts.  The maximum number of posts included in the email is specified on the General Settings page.
• comments.php
  Sent to subscribers each time a comment is approved/posted.
• daily-cat.php, weekly-cat.php, monthly-cat.php
  Sent to subscribers based on categories.  Information on this feature is needed from Andre.

MailPress Templates for wp_mail

These templates are replacements for templates built-in to WordPress.

• moderate.php
  Sent to the moderator of the site when a new comment is awaiting approval.  Also sent to a post author when a new comment, trackback, or pingback is posted.
• new_user.php
  Sent to the site admin when a new user registers.  Also sent to the new user with their username and password.

Resources

• The MailPress Forum

There are 5 themes included with the distribution:

• MailPress - A pretty nice theme with MailPress graphics and colors.
• classic - A theme based on the Classic WordPress theme.
• default - A theme based on the Default WordPress theme.
• nogent94 - A theme based on Andre’s web site.
• nohtml - A plaintext-only theme.
• plaintext - A theme that is used to generate the plain text portion of HTML emails. This theme doesn’t show up in the list of themes.

You can change the theme of email sent from your site by going to the MailPress Design page in one of the following ways:

• Design » MailPress
• MailPress » Design

You’ll notice that this page looks remarkably like the WordPress Design » Themes page - a very big plus in my book.  Selecting a theme shows an example of the confirmation template from the theme (the message sent to a subscriber confirming their subscription) in the same way selecting a WordPress theme shows your site using the selected theme.  One difference I found is that the Activate and close links are on opposite sides of the header bar, but that’s just nit-picking.

Evaluation

I found that some of these themes didn’t look very good when viewed in Microsoft Office Outlook.  The theme named default looks especially bad.  I’d like to see some extra testing done with all the themes to make sure that they work well with a larger variety of mail clients.

Of these themes, the MailPress theme looks the best - to me anyway.  The one thing about using it, though, is that it makes it look like the email is coming from a MailPress site instead of your site.  I’d like to see a generic HTML theme that doesn’t have any logos.  The nohtml theme is just too plain for my tastes.

Each of these themes offer fairly equivalent features - they all display the same basic information in their emails.  I did notice, however, that the moderation template was missing two links that are present in the standard WordPress moderation email - an Approve link and a link to view the moderation panel.

I’m sure we can expect themes to be added to this selection over time.  In fact, I’m working on a couple myself that I hope to release shortly, one that would fit in well with this site.

Resources

• The MailPress Forum

After I activated MailPress, I had to refresh my browser to allow the MailPress user interface elements to show up, but this was probably because I also use the Lighter Menus plugin (a staple for any WordPress site I manage).  MailPress spreads its user interface elements around to several places within the WordPress admin panel, which gives you the sense that MailPress is actually an integral part of WordPress.  As I was coming up to speed on it, though, I found it a little disconcerting as I was still learning how to use and configure it.  Fortunately MailPress allows you to bring all the MailPress UI elements together under one top-level menu.  This is what I’m using now, but I may switch back after using it for a while.

The first thing you will want to do is to go to the MailPress Settings page which you can find under the Settings menu.  This page has three sub-pages.

General

• All Mails sent from
  The email address and display name of the email account from which emails will be sent.
• Allow subscriptions to
  You can choose to only allow certain types of subscriptions.  The plugin calls emails containing posts newsletters, and newsletters can be sent in the following situations: 
  • Whenever a post is sent.
  • On a daily basis containing posts from the previous day.
  • On a weekly basis containing posts from the previous week.
  • On a monthly basis containing posts from the previous month.

  You can also choose to allow subscriptions to comments.  Enabling comment subscriptions also adds a checkbox after comments on posts to allow users to subscribe to comments on that post. Note that in order for comment subscriptions to work your WordPress theme must include the following statement in the comment form:
  <?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?>

• User manage subscriptions from
  Specifies how users will be able to manage their subscriptions. 
  • Default
    Will display an HTML page with the WordPress theme header and footer.
  • Page template
    Indicates you are using a specified page that uses pt_mailPress.php from the plugins\mailpress\xtras folder as a page template.  To do this, you must copy that file to your theme directory.  You will probably also want to modify it for your theme.  This option requires that you specify the ID of the page using the page template.
  • Category template
    Indicates you are using a specified page that uses category-xx.php from the plugins\mailpress\xtras folder as a page template.  To do this, you must copy that file to your theme directory as, e.g., category-99999.php.  You will probably also want to modify it for your theme.  This option requires that you specify the ID of the category that will use the template.  Note, though, that you don’t need to create a new category.  Note: At this point this feature is somewhat of a mystery to me.  It’s not clear to me how this works or how it would be used.
• Newsletters show at most
  Indicates the maximum number of posts included in a newsletter email. Leaving it blank uses the value from the Blog pages show at most setting on the WordPress Reading settings page, which defaults to 10.  You can change this value to anything from 1 to 30.
• Admin
  • MailPress version of wp_email
    When checked, causes all email coming from WordPress to go through MailPress.  When cleared, new user mail and mail for comment moderation will not go through MailPress.  In most cases, you will want to check this checkbox.
  • MailPress admin menus in one place
    By default MailPress adds menus to the Dashboard, Write, Manager, Design, Settings, and Users menus.  Checking this option will create a top-level MailPress menu and put all those menus below it.
• Logging
  Specifies options for logging MailPress’s email activity.  A log for each day is stored in the plugins\mailpress\tmp folder. 
  • Logging level
    Specifies the type of logging to perform.  This setting applies to all mail sent through MailPress, so if you don’t check the MailPress version of wp_mail checkbox new user and comment moderation emails won’t be logged.  The following values can be selected: 
    • No logging - No logging will be done.
    • Mailing log - All email causes logging.
    • Various return codes (E_ERROR, E_WARNING, E_PARSE, E_NOTICE, E_CORE_ERROR, E_CORE_WARNING, E_COMPILE_ERROR, E_COMPILE_WARNING, E_USER_ERROR, E_USER_WARNING, E_USER_NOTICE, E_STRICT, E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR, E_ALL) - Only log if the specified status occurs when attempting to send email.  Some of these seem pretty obvious (e.g. E_ERROR) but others seem like they are for debugging purposes (e.g. E_NOTICE). E_ALL seems like it might be the same thing as the Mailing log option.  Some clarification from Andre on how the average user should set this would be helpful.
  • Number of Log files
    Specifies the number of daily log files to keep.  A value from 1 to 10 can be specified.
  • Date of last purge
    Indicates the date MailPress last purged log files.  This value cannot be changed.

SMTP

This is perhaps the most important section to fill in as it describes the connection to your email server.

• SMTP Server
  The name of the server through which email will be sent.  Typically you can use the same server you use for email from your ISP, e.g. smtp.comcast.net.  You may also be able to use the server of a service on which you have an account, e.g. smtp.gmail.com.
• Username
  The username for the account that has permission to send email through the SMTP server.  One caveat I found is that you cannot use backslashes here.  I use a Microsoft Exchange Server for my email and when I attempted to specify the username as domain\username, it doubled up the backslashes.  Then, whenever I saved settings again, it doubled up the backslashes again.
• Password
  The password associated with the username for the account that has permission to send email through the SMTP server.
• Use SSL or TLS ?
  If your server requires you to use secure communications, select the appropriate option.  Note that Transport Layer Security (TLS) was formerly known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), but these must be separate options in the underlying API.  I’m not sure how they’re different, though.  In any event, if your email host doesn’t mention anything about this, leave it set to No.
• Port
  Email is sent via TCP/IP using ports, and the standard SMTP port is 25. For most installations this should be set to Default SMTP Port.  If you specified SSL or TLS (or you specified smtp.gmail.com for the SMTP server, apparently - I didn’t try it), then select Use for SSL/TLS/GMAIL.  If your email server uses a different port, set this to Custom Port and specify the port in the box to the right.
• SMTP-AUTH
  Most installations will set this to No.  However, if your email server requires authentication - a way to verify that you are who you say you are - specify the appropriate option: CRAM-MD5, LOGIN, PLAIN, or POP before SMTP.

In addition to SMTP, you can also use native PHP mail or sendmail by installing and activating one of the included plugins.

Test

This page allows you to test your connection as well as the appearance of mail using a theme.  This is perhaps the next most important page when developing a new MailPress theme.  One thing to note about this page - it’s both a settings page and a test page.  In order to test, you must check one of the checkboxes in the Advanced options section.

• To
  Specifies the email address and display name of the user to which test email will be sent.  This allows you to test sending email to different types of email clients (e.g. those that use Microsoft Office Outlook, those that use various types of web mail, etc.).
• Advanced options
  This is where you specify the MailPress theme and message template to use in the test plus what type of test to perform. 
  • Theme
    Select the MailPress theme to use when sending the test email. MailPress ships with 5 themes (MailPress, classic, default, nogent94, and nohtml), all of which reside in the plugins\mailpress\mp-content\themes folder.  As you add additional themes, they will show up here as well.
  • Template
    Specifies the message template to use when sending the test message.  Each template found in the theme directory will be listed.
  • Log it
    Forces logging when sending the message if logging was disabled on the General page.  If logging is enabled test messages will be logged (based on the criteria specified on the General page) even if this option is not enabled.
  • Send it
    This checkbox must be checked if you want to actually send email, e.g. you want to test your connection settings.
  • Archive it
    If this option is checked the email will be added to the email archive allowing you to see the email from the MailPress Manage page.
  • Include it in statistics
    MailPress includes an impressive array of statistics gathering and dashboard elements for tracking email sent through it.  This option allows you to specify whether the test email will get included in those statistics or not, allowing you to test the statistics UI.

Wishlist

The configuration of MailPress is really quite simple, which is impressive for a plugin this complex and full-featured.  There isn’t really a lot that can be improved here, but there are a few things.

1. Add a link on the plugins page next to the Deactivate and Edit links to the MailPress Settings page.  This would help users find the Settings page quickly.
2. Allow the logging location to be specified so that multiple sites that use the same WordPress files (e.g. WordPress-MU or MultiBlog-based sites) could have their log files stored in separate folders.

Resources

• The MailPress Forum

Like most plugins, the MailPress plugin can be installed simply by downloading the ZIP or RAR file, uncompressing it, copying the mailpress directory to your wp-content\plugins directory, then activating the plugin.  However, there is more involved to get it to work - you will need to configure it.

However, before configuring it, you will need to select the right version.  The version currently published on the WordPress Plugin Directory (1.9.2) is for WordPress 2.6.  Andre’s MailPress page has 1.9.3beta1 with some additional features (which I will be reviewing here) as well as 2.0 for WordPress 2.7.  The primary reason for the difference is the change to the admin panel in WordPress 2.7.  Andre is putting in a great deal of effort to make MailPress look like it belongs in WP 2.7.

Once you’ve installed the plugin, you will want to configure it.

Resources

• The MailPress Forum

I’ve been checking out the MailPress plugin for WordPress written by Andre Renaut, which is a plugin that helps you manage emails from your site, including allowing you to theme your emails.  In fact, themes in MailPress or organized similarly to how themes are organized on WordPress.  It’s a very nicely put-together plugin.  This plugin is not simple, however, and it does have its limitations.  However, once you get through the initial configuration and get it themed to your liking, it works really well.

Overall Grade: A+

Plugin Name:	MailPress
Plugin URI:	http://www.mailpress.org/
Download URI:	http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mailpress/
Version:	1.9.3beta1
Description:	A plugin to manage mails, subscribers, and much more … with style !
Author:	Andre Renaut
Author URI:	http://andrerenaut.ovh.org/wp/
Support Forum:	http://groups.google.com/group/mailpress

This series of articles will detail the features of the plugin.