Alo EasyMail Newsletter: plugin per Wordpress per inviare newsletter
Pubblicato martedì 29 settembre 2009 in WordpressCome dice il nome, è un plugin che serve per inviare semplicemente e-mail e newsletter tramite il pannello amministrativo di Wordpress. Con la versione 1.5 questo plugin consente di raccogliere iscritti alla propria newsletter (tramite widget) e di inviare newsletter a tali iscritti, ai soli utenti registrati al blog, a indirizzi email inseriti manualmente.
Caratteristiche
Il plugin include un widget (1) per consentire l’iscrizione alla newsletter: gli utenti registrati possono iscriversi/cancellarsi usando il widget o nella pagina del profilo (1); gli utenti non registrati possono registrarsi usando il widget.
Fornisce una pagina amministrativa per gestire gli iscritti (cerca, attiva, elimina).
L’amministratore (o l’editor, se impostata l’opzione (1)) può inserire nel testo alcuni tag circa il post o l’utente: titolo post, riassunto post, contenuto post, link al sito, nome utente (1), username.
Si possono salvare il contenuto della newsletter e l’elenco degli indirizzi email per l’invio successivo.
(1) added by GREG LAMBERT. Many thanks!
Screenshot
» Schermata dell’amministrazione / Il widget / La pagina gestione sottoscrittori
Download
» Scarica Alo EasyMail (dal sito Wordpress.org)
Contribuisci
Se questo plugin ti piace, lo utilizzi e vorresti contribuire allo sviluppo di nuove funzionalità, puoi fare una donazione tramite PayPal.
As its name says, it lets you to send e-mails and newsletters using Wordpress’s backend. With the version 1.5 you can collect subscribers using a widget and so you can send newsletter to these subscribers, to only registered users, to other e-mail addresses.
Features
The plugin include a widget (1) to allow subscription: your registered users can subscribe/unsubscribe using a widget or profile page (1); not-registered users can subscribe using the widget.
You have an admin page to manage subscribers (search, activate, delete).
The blog admin (or editors too, if you setup option (1)) can send newsletters inserting some post/user tags in the content: post title, post excerpt, post content, site link, user first name (1), user name.
You can save an e-mail template and the e-mail addresses for next sending.
(1) added by GREG LAMBERT. Many thanks!
Screenshot
» View of EasyMail administration / The widget / The subscribers management page
Download
» Download Alo EasyMail (from Wordpress.org)
Support me
If you like my plugin, you’re using it and you’d like to support new features, please make a donation via PayPal.
Image attachment worked in WP 2.7 but it’s not working in WP2.8.4
Any idea why?
Thank you for this nice plugin.
I’ll test it and try to fix it, if possible.
Thank you fot the report and for the feedback.
EDIT: I release a new version (0.9.1) that – I hope – fixes this problem.
Hi, alo. I just want to know whether i can compose with chinese. Thank u very much
Hi Daniel, I suppose it’s possible: you have to insert chinese characters in main content’s editor and send. I’ve just tried pasting some chinese words and It seems to work – even if I haven”t understood what I’ve sent…
Hi, great plugin…
However, can you change the alo-easymail_action.php file (line 112ish) so that is uses wp-mail() instead of mail()?
Many users have problems with the php mail system and are using the ‘WP Mail SMTP’ plugin to overcome these issues (see plugin page for details). The WP Mail SMTP plugin changes the wp-mail() function to use SMTP properly which is great unless other plugins use mail() and not wp-mail() whereupon those plugins fail.
I have changed my file but hope you will too so that any future updates dont break my site!
Many thanks
Gyro
Hi Gyro, thank you for the suggestion. Surely I’ll include it in next release.
Hi…
i’m having the same problem with the images like “habacuque” did.
i tried to send emails to several contacts and the images that i inclued in the emails are not shown, just some of them. But in most of cases only the title of the image is shown in the email. I find it a little weird since a picture or two can been seen and the rest is not (all pictures are .jpg)
But congratulations since it’s the only plugin i’ve found that allows me to input non-subscribers emails (the rest of the plugins have lots of errors).
For last i would be nice to have a way to save the contacts or create a list of contacts inside the plugin so we don’t have to write the emails over and over…it’s just an idea
Hi Luis, if I understood right your problem is different from habacuque’s. Try using other image formats (gif, png) to check if the problem is in your jpgs.
As for saving list of contacts I’m thinking about it and I’ll add it in the next release.
Many thanks for your comments.
Hi again. I tried to change the format of my images to gif and png and it still doesn’t show them. i tried to send emails using Firefox and IE and it’s the same. I noticied that when i insert any kind of pictures and when they are open in the email that i’ve send, they are shown only for 1 second and then disapear and the only thing that appears (has said before) is the image file name. could it be the theme? but it never showed me any errors and your plugin works perfectly except the images.
sorry for being so annoying but your plugin is a “most-have”, it’s perfect
well see ya and hope you can help me
Hi Luis. Did you try viewing sent emails with different email clients? (eg. outlook, evolution, online account such as gmail, hotmail…). Maybe it could be just a visualisation setup of your client. By next week I’ll do tests. Thank you, I really appreciate.
EDIT: new version (0.9.2) released: added wp_mail() function and the option to save emails’s list. Let me know your feedback!
hi Alo
i don’t know what you did but…it’s working now. i used several images and they all worked (in hotmail, outlook and gmail).
Also thanks for the save emails list….it’s the best. and it’s working
keep up the good work.
it’s the best wordpress email plugin EVER!!!!!
Great Plugin – sends emails without a problem. However, how do I stop wordpress from reformatting the html email sent to the user? It adds a ridiculous amount of tags. Even when I put all html on one line, WP automatically reformats it so there are extra breaks in the email.
I also tried disabling autop plugins, but they didn’t help.
It was the plugin inserting the breaks into the html rather than wordpress. I removed the insertion and it is working better.
Maybe there are some breaks fot the POST-EXCERPT tag… I’ll fix in next release. Thank you for the suggestion
Alo,
Thanks for such a great plug-in.
My host only lets me send 500 emails per hour, so I added a line in aol-easymail_action.php right after:
// SEND EMAIL TO EACH RECIPIENT
foreach ($recipients as $recipient) {
>>> I Added this >>> sleep(8);
so the script will only send one email every 8 seconds (450 per hour).
I have to leave the window open until the script is done, (I think?) but at least I won’t get in trouble with my host.
Maybe in later versions you could make this configurable?
Thanks again for such a great plugin.
Cheers!
Hi Bart, there is already a sleep function in alo-easymail_action.php, maybe you should setup it. See at line 128:
if ( ($r % 50) == 0) {so you can modify how many seconds (default: 10) and every many emails (default: 50).sleep(10); // every n° sent wait a little
}
It’s a good idea to make this sleep configurable, thank you.
Hi, I was wondering if you’re interested in publish on your blog Polish translation of Alo EasyMail. I can do it for you to help you get more fans ^^
If you’re interested, jest give me a sign on my e-mail twoj[at]email.com
Ciao Alo,
Ho scoperto il tu plugin ed e fantastico.
For the rest of the reader i will foloow in english.
One question :
First time i used it, the plugin send the email with template of our site like a post. But now it is not the case, it’s like a Plain Text mail. Why I don’t know.
Second : All mails send are receipt 8 times. Do you have an idea why ? Is the sleep delay that is too short or too long ?
PS : Se vuoi posso fare la traduzione del plugin in francese (FRENCH).
Yssen & PlanetWiFi, thanks a lot for your helpfulness to translate the plugin! I’ll remind myself in future, sure.
PlanetWiFi, about your first issue, be careful when switching editor (visual – html). About second one, the sleep delay should work properly: check your registered users and added recipients and try to make more tests. Let me know.
Il sistema di gestione e-mail funziona ma ha molte lacune specie nella gestione delle liste. Però gli altri plugin wordpress o sono più scarsi o non sono aggiornati, questo fa di Alo uno delle poche alternaive possibili
thank you so much for this plugin. you are a genius. lessen the hassle.
hello again,
once again I’ve come to give you some new ideas for this plugin.
since the beginning of it’s release I’ve been using it for the sending of newsletters of a private health club and a judo club (has you can see i use it for professional ways) and it’s been working 200% =D once again congratulations for the good job.
but every time i use it I’ve been having troubles for controlling the huge number of emails I have in my plugin list. so I thought It would be of great help having an option of inputing in the plugin an email list option…kind of like it’s use in conventional email services (a list with the name of the person and email where we can add-remove name and email). its great to be able to save the emails in the template but could be even better for us to control the email list options.
a big thanks and i hope you can help
Hi,
I was looking for an email newsletter for my site and yours had 90% of what I wanted. I have made the following additions and changes:
1. Added widget to allow a registered user to optin/out.
2. Added the optin/out option to the user’s profile.
3. Added an option to the ALO Easymail settings to allow editors to send email.
4. Added a [USER-FIRST-NAME] tag for message insertion.
I think that these would make a great addition to your plugin and am happy to send you the code if you were to send me an email address or site where I can upload it.
Cheers,
Greg.
BTW I amd from Australia and only know English.
Hi Greg, many thanks for your job. I sent you a mail.
Albaicín a good plugin.
it is possible to use the entire post content with correct formatting in the newsletter?
best thanks
@ u
I really like this plugin, and I realize it’s not intended to be a newsletter plugin but easy emailing. However, I’m trying to send a bulk email to my site’s subscriber’s list, and this plugin is about 90% of what I’d like to do (like the above poster said). Right now I don’t mind copying and pasting the email addresses (comma separated of course) into the box and then send a mass email to the recipients. However, I can’t get your plug in to send an email at all. A few days ago I could, but now I keep getting this message:
“Inserted inputs are incompled or wrong. Please check and try again.”
I try clicking on generic email, and I’ve tried for specific posts. I’ve tried a lot of different ways of sending this email out (I’ve been trying just on my own email first to try isolating the problem).
What am I doing wrong? I seemed to have no problem whatsoever two days ago when I tried this. Now, it doesn’t seem to matter what I try differently I constantly get that error message.
Also, I’m not a web designer or expert on these things, so please have some patience with me! I follow instructions and look for sites like this to figure out problems I’m having with plugins, but can’t figure this one out so I’m asking.
I think you designed a great plugin, I just would like to be able to use it!
Thanks for help.
ps: I also want to send personal items. also a pity that only the admin can send mails. even better if the admin could choose to have items in writing to be sent automatically.
First of all, many thanks to Greg! I’m testing his work and it’ll help me to prepare an important update. So, I hope to release a new version, maybe in week or two.
@ kummod:
Using the entire post content is a good idea. I’ll try to include in next release, or soon as possible.
@ Steve:
From what you say maybe the problem could be in the input fields. Remember to insert the subject each time before sending (a reload could clean the field) because it’s mandatory. And then check all email addresses of your list. There is an error not only if not comma separated, but also if only one address is formally wrong (it lacks the @ or the full stop before domain and so on).
And many thanks to all the people who are contributing to the plugin with comments, tests, suggestions…
Thanks for responding to my comment, however, I’ve tried those ideas already and still can’t send e-mails; if I put a list in the box where you insert your own list of addresses. I’m only able to make it work if I send it to registered users…
I was using the Subscribe2 plugin and accumulated a list of email addresses so far, and when I enter the CSV list of that into the box, all of them have a comma following them. I also went through each address and deleted a few incorrect email addresses and still get the problem. And yes, the subject field is filled in.
Does it matter if the email addresses are separated onto a new line? I tried a few of my own email accounts this way and it worked, but with this longer list I can’t pinpoint what the problem could be.
Hi Steve. The addresses list must use comma as separator to work properly. I’ve made some quick tests with new line as separator and it seems to work, but it’s not designed for that and I can’t guarantee it works.
Then try pasting the addresses from CSV to a simple text editor (such as notepad), delete anything you don’t need (such as tabs, paragraph, other symbols…) to obtain a list with only addresses and commas, and finally paste in the list field of the plugin.
Thanks for the prompt reply alo,
Unfortunately, I already copied and pasted my CSV to a text editor, and then copied and pasted from that. All of the addresses are separated by a comma, but go onto the next line. So I have even just tried hitting the backspace button to make a large sample test list to not have be separated by lines but just commas–including the incorrect email addresses removed. Still get the error message…
Thanks for the help, but I’ve tried making this work for days and can’t figure out what’s wrong with any of the 100 email addresses in my test list. When I try one address at a time, no problem, and I don’t think I want to sit down and manually try each address until I find ones that are incorrect. Based on your instructions, I can’t find anymore incorrect email addresses to remove…
I’d really like to salvage all the email addresses that users have submitted using the Subscribe2 plugin, since that list is substantially larger than the number of registered users on my site (that the plug allows me to send to with no problem!).
Thanks for the help,
Best of luck
On the widget, the text is not legible as my theme has a dark background. How can I change the text color on the widget?
Hi Hugh, you can modify the font color in ‘alo-easymail-widget.php’: line 128 (error) and 145 (success). In future I’ll add more options to customise.
UPDATE:
I told you about feedback messages but I forgot the widget text, sorry…
You have to modify the font color in other 2 lines of ‘alo-easymail-widget.php’: line 110 and 129.
Bot start with:
$html = "<form name= ...you have to insert a style attribute (eg.: style=’color:#fff’) at the end of the line, before html closing tag (>).
So the new 110 will be:
$html = "<form name='alo_easymail_widget_form' method='post' action='{$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']}' style='color:#fff'>\n";the new 129:
$html .= "<form name='alo_easymail_widget_form' method='post' action='{$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']}' style='color:#fff'>\n";Hi,
I am on WordPress ver 2.9.1 and have just installed Alo Easy Mail. I have 2 difficulties.
1. The Newletter Sunscription page does not appewar. I get a message “Sorry, but you cannot enter the requested page.” even though the page appears in the WordPress admin under pages.
2. None of the emails that Alo Easy mail generates seem to get posted, even though when I try sending a test newletter the popup indicates delivery OK (with a green tick). (My installation of WP seems to send out emails OK when people register using the built in WP register widget)
I would be grateful for any help, but I am a WP newbie!
rgds Jim
Hi Jim, about your issues:
1. the subscription page cannot be always viewed as a normal page, but can be viewed only by subscribers when activing/deleting subscription: so, if you try to see this page you cannot enter it (you can enter it only you do have an email address to activate/delete and personal key: see the links in the activation-email/newsletter).
2. I’ve tried again on my WP 2.9.1 and it seems to work. Try to subscribe a new email address, activate it and test again.
Ciao Alo, ho installato questa sera il tuo plugin perchè ho un sito in wordpress che non richiede iscrizione però vorrei cmq che gli utenti si possano registrare alla newsletter. Detto questo ho un problema, cioè funziona tutto, però i campi per iserire il nome, l’indirizzo mail e il relativo pulsante di iscrizione non vengono visualizzati nel widget, di conseguenza non è possibile effettuare la registrazione. Vengono invece visualizzate le due frasi che l’utente deve spuntare x scegliere se iscriversi o meno.
Uso wordpress versione 2.9.1.
Sai dirmi come posso fare?
Grazie
Stavo controllando il tuo codice e mi è parso di capire che il tuo widget dovrebbe essere largo 300…io però non ho tutta questa larghezza nella mia sidebar..forse è per questo che non vedo tutto. Ho inserito un formail in un frame della home page e volendo potrei fare la stessa cosa per il tuo modulo di iscrizione però quale tuo file.php devo richiamare x vederlo operativo nel frame?
Grazie
Ciao Alby, credo di aver capito il punto. Il widget si comporta in due modi diversi se sei un utente registrato (compreso tu come admin) o un visitatore non registrato.
Nel primo caso ti mostra quello che hai visto tu: i due combo per scegliere se ricevere la newsletter. Nel secondo caso mostra i due campi (nome e email) per iscriversi.
Forse semplicemente tu sei sempre loggato come admin e quindi vedi solo e sempre la versione per utenti registrati: prova a fare il logout e dovresti vedere la versione per non-registrati.
Ciao Alo, si in effetti io entro sempre come admin anche perchè stò ancora ultimando il sito e ci lavoro sempre come “loggato”. Ora mi hai messo un piccolo dubbio..ovvero il mio sito non richiede nessuna iscrizione, cioè non obbliga gli utenti ad eseguire nessuna login. Vorrei semplicemente che qualsiasi utente si possa però iscrivere alla newsletter per ricevere gli aggiornamenti senza doversi necessariamente registrare al sito. Quindi in teoria mi servirebbe che i campi di registrazione alla newsletter fossero separati dalla registrazione al sito rimanendo sempre visibili x chiunque.
Mi sembrava che il tuo plugin permettesse l’iscrizione anche ai non loggati però forse mi sono confuso. Se mi togli questo dubbio mi faresti un favore.
A presto
Si, avevi capito bene: qualsiasi visitatore può iscriversi alla newsletter inserendo email e nome nel widget, senza registrarsi come utente.
Invece un utente registrato e loggato nel widget non vedrà il form di registrazione ma la combo (si/no) come vedi tu se stai loggato come admin.
Grazie Alo..tutto perfettissimo e funzionante. Ho fatto tutte le prove del caso. Infatti non essendoci la login al sito gli utenti vedranno sempre i campi x iscriversi alla newsletter.
Sai cosa sarebbe bello? Poter inserire il tuo widget in un box (o frame) nel corpo della home page come ho già fatto per un formail. Questo per dare + corpo alla home page e ridurre in lunghezza la sidebar con i widget.
A volte troppi widget danno troppo quel senso “bloggoso”, mentre il sito che stò facendo è molto funzionale con maggior importanza alla parte centrale della home page.
Tu dici che sarebbe possibile inserire la funzionalità del tuo widget piuttosto che sulla sidebar nell’homepage?
Scusami x le mille domande ma il tuo plugin è il migliore di tutti e vorrei usarlo nel mio sito
Grazie ancora.
Hi Alo,
I installed v1.5 in WP 2.9.1 and put the widget on the sidebar. To test the installation I subscribed and when I received the activation email I clicked on the link and received an error 404 loading the “Newsletter Subscription” page. I tried this with two different sites one worked and created the “Newsletter Subscription” page but the other didn’t.
Are there any permissions that I need to be concerned with?
Nice plugin…
Hi John, try to re-activate the plugin, it should create the newsletter subscription page on activation. Let me know.
I’ve tried to deactivate/reactivate and still not getting the newsletter subscription page.
On activation does the plugin create an easymail table in database? If not, try to delete plugin files and reinstall it. If yes, maybe it’s only a problem with the option value of subscription page. In ‘wp_options’ table of your database look for the option called ‘ALO_em_subsc_page’. Its value should be the subscription page ID: they should match each other. Anyway, delete this option and re-activate plugin. If the plugin doesn’t find an existing page it will create a new one, with a new correct ID.
That worked sir
Thank you very much for your time and again, you’ve created a very nice plugin here.
ciao,
John
I’ll take that back, I now have my newsletter subscription page but when I clicked on the link to activate the registration I got a 404 page now found again.
Here is the site if you’d like to try and register, you will receive an activation email and when I clicked on it I get the 404.
http://www.mentabolism.com
I see the easymail_subscribers table added to the db and now the newsletter subscription page is in my page list. I can click on it and view it and I get the message “Sorry, but you cannot enter the requested page” but when I try to click back on an activation link after subscribing this is when I’m getting the 404. I checked the options table for ‘ALO_em_subsc_page’ and the option value is set correctly to the subscription page ID.
Alo, I noticed the following as I did some testing tonight.
When I receive my activation email I receive the following link
http://mentabolism.com/blog/?page_id=212&ac=activate&em1=jmacmull&em2=blah.com&uk=123samplekey
This returned a 404 error page not found
I made the following change to the activation link removed “blog” and pasted this in a browser window and my subscription was activated and I landed on the newsletter subscription page, the following worked.
http://mentabolism.com/?page_id=212&ac=activate&em1=jmacmull&em2=blah.com&uk=123samplekey
Where do you get the URL for building the activation message? When you retrieve this do you know if it’s the wordpress address, where wordpress is installed or if it is the blog address based on reference to general settings?
My wp install is in my root/blog directory and in my root directory have redirect setup in my .htaccess.
Hi Alo,
Here’s the change that I made that is working with my installation, you may want to look at this further for the next release since it will use the URL to the blog site vs. the URL to the WP installation.
Here is the change I made to “alo-easymail.php”
In the “ALO_em_send_activation_email” function I changed:
$content .= get_option ('siteurl') . "/?page_id=". get_option('ALO_em_subsc_page'). "&ac=activate&em1=" . $div_email[0] . "&em2=" . $div_email[1] . "&uk=" . $unikey . "\r\n";to$content .= get_option ('home') . "/?page_id=". get_option('ALO_em_subsc_page'). "&ac=activate&em1=" . $div_email[0] . "&em2=" . $div_email[1] . "&uk=" . $unikey . "\r\n";Hi Alo,
One more change in the unsubscribe and I think that’s everything…
file alo-easymail_action.php
unsubscribe section
$updated_content .= "<a href='".get_option ('siteurl') . "/?page_id=". get_option('ALO_em_subsc_page');to$updated_content .= "<a href='".get_option ('home') . "/?page_id=". get_option('ALO_em_subsc_page');Many thanks John for your tests and suggestions! I’ll keep them in mind for next release.