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Newsletter

Use a Newsletter to keep your interested visitors informed. They will enter their email address and get a newsletter each time you send one.

You can add a Newsletter form from Widgets. The advantage in this case is that you can insert the form in any page.

Basics

The Newsletter Page is similar to the Request page type, it provides a subscription service on your web site. After user submits the form, they receive a Subscribe/Unsubscribe confirmation email and are prompted to confirm their Subscription/Unsubscription. When the Subscription/Unsubscription is confirmed, the user is automatically included/excluded from your subscribers list. In contrast to the Request page, the Newsletter page stores subscribers personal data on the web server in a database.

In Newsletters administrator panel you can manage subscribers, create and send newsletters.

You can preview your Subscribe page only when uploaded on a PHP enabled server. To test this functionality offline you can Install your own test server on your PC.

One extra page always included with each Newsletter page is the Submit page. This page is displayed when form is successfully submitted. To personalize this page you can use field name macros. Example: %Name%, %Email%. To check certain form field name, double-click on the field in the form and check Name property in the Field Property window. For subscriber ID, use %subscriber_id%. If you want to set different message for subscribe and unsubscribe in the Submit page, enclose the subscribe message with <SUBMIT_SUBSCRIBE> and </SUBMIT_SUBSCRIBE>, and the unsubscribe message with <SUBMIT_UNSUBSCRIBE> and </SUBMIT_UNSUBSCRIBE>.

Database

This page can use MySQL OR flat files database (depending on the MySQL switch in MySQL Settings). Data will be stored in a MySQL database or on the web server in flat files in ezg_data/ folder.

Newsletter Settings

The following properties are available in the Newsletter Settings panel, accessed from the Toolbar. Make sure to configure these settings.

Notification

• Send Notification to(text box) - Administrators email address. This address is used for communication with subscribers. You can set multiple email addresses, using (;) as delimiter.
• From (editbox) - "From" email address. Use different email address than in "Send to" so as to avoid email being marked as spam.
• Admin Notification (button) - Set the subject and message for the notification email sent to admin. Default %FORM_DATA% macro will be replaced with the list of all form field values. If you want to include only some of them, remove %FORM_DATA% and use form field macros (Example: %Name% , %Email%, %Place%, etc).

Subscriber Notification E-mails

When the subscribe form is submitted, confirmation email is sent to subscriber. When he confirms, notification email is sent to admin with the information filled by user.

• Subscribe Confirmation (button) - Set the subject and message for the confirmation email that is sent to the user when Subscribe form is submitted. To personalize the message use field name macros. Example: %Name%, %Email%. For subscriber ID, use %subscriber_id%.
• Unsubscribe Confirmation (text box) - Set the subject and message for the confirmation email that is sent to the user when Unsubscribe form is submitted. To personalize the message use field name macros. Example: %Name%, %Email%. For subscriber ID, use %subscriber_id%.

Note: For both subscribe and unsubscribe messages you can use the %CONFIRMLINK(confirm)% macro to set the text that will be used as confirmation link. If you want also to provide a direct link to the confirmation page (in case the user might have his confirmation link disabled for some reasons), use %CONFIRMLINK%.

Example: In case the above link is disabled, copy and paste the following url in your browser: %CONFIRMLINK%.

• Send confirmation emails in text format (check box) - Check to send confirmation emails in text format. Default format is HTML.
• Subscriber's email address in 'From' (check box) - User's email address is used as "From" address when the form is submitted (not supported on all servers).

Advanced

• Labels (button and editable listbox) - Messages used in newsletter. You can translate the default messages in your preferred language. Use Default settings button to restore the default settings.

Accessible Macros Fields

Each page has a 'Macros Fields' panel, accessed via Toolbar. This panel contains objects that you can insert on page. The following objects are available:

• Fields - Allow custom fields on your subscribe page - TEXT, EMAIL, LIST, MEMO, CHECKBOX, RADIO BUTTON, IMAGE FIELD, FILE FIELD, BUTTON FIELD, DATE PICKER, DATE FIELD, TIME FIELD, PWD (password) and HIDDEN. When you insert custom field you have to set Name and Value. When ready, simply drag-and-drop the field into the form. For more information check Macros/Fields. After you insert the field, double-click on it to access its Properties.

Hidden fields are not visible or accessible to the site visitors, but can be used to pass certain data, for example, the page from where the form was sent, or to help you to categorize the information when you receive it.

• Subscribe Button - Creates an image button "Subscribe", which sends a Subscribe confirmation email to the visitor requesting for subscription. The following initialization properties are available: Caption (text box) - lets you set the button caption.
• Unsubscribe Link - Creates "Unsubscribe" link, which user can use to unsubscribe.

Upload file: If you want to allow subscribers upload custom files along with their subscription, insert File field in your Subscribe form. When visitor subscribes and selects a file, the file will be uploaded on the server (in 'newsletters' folder) and after subscriber confirms his subscription this same file will be attached to the notification email sent to administrator.

• Nopagefooter - Creates NOPAGEFOOTER macros, which disables footer on Subscribe page.
• Administrator - Creates a link to the Newsletter Administrator panel.
• Captcha - Generates a Captcha (is the data being entered by a human test) in the subscribe form.
• Logged info - Generates logged info macro in your site - %LOGGED_INFO%. This macro is applicable for protected pages or pages with admin screen (as Online Editable Page, Calendar, etc) and will show username of the logged user along with link to user profile's page and logout link. Check Page Protection for more info on page protection.

Confirm email feature: You can insert second email address field in your subscribe form to be used as confirm email field. This way you may require subscribers to confirm their email address before submitting the form. To accomplish this, drag-and-drop second email address field from Fields panel and change its name - for example, if your normal email field has name "EmailAddress", the confirm email address field should have name "EmailAddress_confirm".

Administrator panel

Manage your subscribers and newsletters online and send newsletters to the subscribers. The Administrator panel is accessible through the Administrator button (placed on the Newsletter form) or via Administration panel. To insert administrator link in your subscribe page:

• Go to Editing Tools > Macros Fields panel.
• Drag-and-drop administrator field in your Subscribe page.

Subscribers

Provides a list of all subscribers. Use the Edit button to check the detailed information for each subscriber. If you need to delete multiple subscribers at once, check the susbcribers you want to delete and press Delete checked subscribers button at the bottom.

Use the Search box to search for specific subscriber by Name, Email or any other criteria.

Use the Up & Down arrows to sort subscribers by certain criteria.

Use the Import Subscribers button if you want to import subscriber from external CSV file.

Newsletters

Manage your newsletters, upload and create new, edit and delete old and send newsletters to subscribers.

Important: Every newsletter should provide subscribers with option to unsubscribe (otherwise you are a dirty SPAMer!). Include an unsubscribe macro at the bottom of the Newsletter - %%unsubscribe%%. You can replace the text with whatever you want, but be careful not to delete the %% symbols enclosing it. When your newsletter is sent the %%..%% expression will be replaced with unsubscription link.

If you want to personalize your newsletters, you can use the %%EmailAddress%% expression. When you send newsletter, this expression will be replaced with your subscribers email address.

To send newsletter:

Prepare and send newsletters to all or some of the subscribers in your list. Newsletters are sent in html format. If user's email client does not support html, they will receive plain text email with url to the newsletter included (to access it directly).

• Press the Send button for the newsletter you want to send. Send Newsleetter screen will open.
• Subject - Type subject for the newsletter email.
• Text message for users without HTML email support - Type here the message that will be sent along with newsletter direct link, in case the user email client does not support html.
• Full subscribers list & Selected subscribers - In case you need to send the newsletter to few subscribers only, select certain email addresses from Full subscribers list box and move them to the Selected subscribers list box. If you want to send the newsletter to all subscribers, just leave the Selected subscribers list box empty.
• Send to administrator only - Check this box, if you want to send certain newsletter to the administrator only (as a test, for example).
• Attach File - Use this field if you need to attach extra file to the newsletter.

If you want to send a newsletter to more that 100 subscribers at once, sending will be processed in steps by 100. Follow all steps to complete the process.

• Press the Send button at the bottom.

Mail Groups

Add/remove mail groups. Mail groups are used to group subscribers, so that later you can faster send newsletter to certain mail group (s). You can link subscribers to certain group(s) in Subscribers screen.

Logs and Downloads

Check and download log files and download subscribers as CSV file.

There are two log files: subscribers log that contains detailed information about every operation concerning subscription (Request for Subscription/Unsubscription, Subscription/Unsubscription confirmation, Edit/Delete subscriber from admin, Subscribers Import), and news log that contains detailed information about every newsletters related operations (Create, Upload, Edit, Delete and Sending newsletters).