phpList version 3.0.x - Code Enhancements

HTML eMail Part 1

It was interesting to see how the developers have incorporated the ability to wrap the system generated messages in an HTML template. Which without some sort of guidelines setting this up was not entirely obvious, and with the one remaining brain cell currently overloading I'd already tweaked the code along the lines of the v2 hack before realising how the developers had updated the new system.

You have to go into "Manage Campaign templates" and click on "Add Default System Template" which then shows you that the Template has been assigned an id (Remember it). At this point click on "edit template" and you are presented with the default template as prepared by phpList. Edit this to suit your requirements, then save it.

Armed with the id of your new system template proceed to the Configuration Settings and scroll down until you find "transactional settings". Here you will see "The HTML wrapper template for system messages" which should be displaying the id of the new system template, if not then edit and save. You may then play around with the subscriber confirmation messages, again to suit your requirements.

Now that is where I have a problem, what I want as a system administrator vis-a-vi the eMail formatting is entirely different to the image I wish to portray to subscribers, just as I believe the subscriber pages should be a reflection of my website and not a brutal dark uninviting vision that says "Stay Away".

Whilst Hacking the code to suit me I discovered that the developers had switched off the ability to send a confirmation message to subscribers that had updated their preferences. You guessed it, I switched it back on again. Strangely though they had left the input screen where you can input said message in the Configuration Settings, very strange but I'm glad they did.

Shown below are all the code modifications required to allow the Administrator Generated eMails to be sent to a new subscriber in HTML format rather than plain text or using the inbuilt System Template.

The origin of the modifications can be found by piecing together forum submissions from a number of individuals including evilpuppetmaster!, sardos and ameoba. For your convienience and just in case I forget I have brought them all together on one page.

However much of the code used on v2 is no longer relevant and therefore this hack must only be applied to V3.

Subscriber System eMails Affected

• Please Confirm Your Details.
• Welcome to our Newsletter
• Your Preferences have been Updated
• You have been Unsubscribed
• Change eMail Details - Message to Old address
• Change eMail Details - Message to New address
• Message to Non-Confirmed Subscribers.