[Mailman-Users] Configuring a list from a description file

[Barry A. Warsaw]

A bunch of people have asked for the ability to configure a list based
on a human readable configuration file, a la Majordomo.  I had a flash
of inspiration on a way to accomplish this fairly easily.  Applying
the old 80/20 rule here, I think this will give us most of what we
want fairly easily.

I've written a new script called bin/config_list which can either dump
a list's config attributes, or modify them based on an input file.
When dumping, config_list writes the attribute names, values, and
descriptions to a file (or stdout) as Python code.  You can then edit
this file to your heart's content, and use config_list's input mode to
change the attributes of any mailing list.  You don't need to change
them all; just comment out the attributes you don't want to affect.
Simple, direct, neat!

I've just checked the file into CVS, but I'll also attach it to this
message.  It's only been minimally test, and there are a few rough
edged (e.g. some descriptions are HTML, and they look a little ugly
formatted as Python comments).  Feedback is welcome.  See the
docstring for subtleties.

Will someone with more recent Majordomo experience please write a
script that converts from its config file format to a format suitable
for config_list?  Fame awaits you. :)

Time for sleep.
Enjoy,
-Barry

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