Tech Tip (LISTSERV) – Issue 1 – 2005

Q: How can a site manager control the lists that are shown in Subscriber's Corner when a user selects "Show all lists"?

Answer by Françoise Becker
VP of Software Engineering, L-Soft

In LISTSERV 14.3, there is a new Web template, VISIBLE-LISTS, which allows the site manager to define the lists that will be shown in Subscriber's Corner.

By default, the Subscriber's Corner will display the non-confidential lists. These are the same lists that are shown on the Server Archives page (domain/archives/index.html), with the "Confidential=" keyword set to "No" or "Service".

If site administrators want to have complete control over the lists shown in the Subscriber's Corner, they can change the default behavior by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Server Management Interface.
2. In the "Site Customizations" section, click on the link for "Site-Wide Dynamic Web Templates".
3. In the "Create a new template" section, in the text entry labeled "New template name: ", enter "VISIBLE-LISTS" and then press the "Create" button.
4. In the "Description:", enter a description that will help you remember what the template represents, such as "Visible lists" or "Subscriber's Corner's 'All Lists'".
5. In the text area representing the text of the template, enter the names of all the lists to be shown when a user selects "Show All Lists" in Subscriber's Corner. Enter one listname per line.
6. Press the "Update" button.

Note that in addition to the lists in VISIBLE-LISTS, the Subscriber's Corner will always also show any lists to which the logged in user is subscribed.

Keep in mind that if you create a VISIBLE-LISTS template, then it is up to you to maintain it. New lists will not be added to it automatically.

It is also possible to remove the "Show All Lists" option from the Subscriber's Corner altogether. To do this, site managers can follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Server Management Interface
2. In the "Site Customizations" section, click on the link for "Site-Wide Dynamic Web Templates".
3. From the pull-down menu labeled "Select a category:", select "Report Web Pages". (If your Web browser has scripting disabled, you will need to hit "Refresh" at this point).
4. Select the template called "REPORT MAIN" and press the "Edit Form" button.
5. Find the line that says "+SE ALL_LISTS_AVAILABLE 1". Change the "1" to a "0" or simply comment that line by adding a "*" after the "+" to make "+*SE ALL_LISTS_AVAILABLE 1".
6. Press the "Update" button.

The comments at the beginning of the REPORT MAIN template also provide instructions for further customizations such as how to make the "Show All Lists" option available only to site managers or logged-in users.