EZ NewsLetter for vBulletin Description

[Greg]

The EZ NewsLetter eMailer add on for vBulletin forums is an application that allows you to send opt in multi-part (html and text parts) Mime 1.0 complaint bulk emails to your members via SMPT and includes bounce management headers with an automated and manual process for opting out members. The system is completely templated and 100% phrased.

Members can opt in at registration and through their user control panel. Administrators can opt members in and out in the user edit screen of the vBulletin Control panel.

Installation is file uploads, one template edit, and the import of the EZ NewsLetter product xml files.

The output to create emails is formatted using editable templates. Custom template sets (http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5142) to replace the stock templates included is supported via a template set prefix and a custom css style input box for css code. In line styling is of course supported as well.

Emails are compiled into two part, html and text, multi-part Mime 1.0 email bodies. Language settings are complied per your acp settings for your language.

Each email will have a body of text, the message, followed by the forum data selected for output. Forum data is selectable and you can configure the order it appears in.

There are 5 categories of thread selection including featured threads you can include via thread ids. Polls data is available and forum statistics are available.

The calendar system is supported for all events, single, ranged and recurring. All event data is produced from all calendars selected including birthdays and holidays with settings to enable or disable each.

The vBulletin Blog is supported and support for our vBPicGallery photo gallery for vBulletin is included for data selection if they are installed. You can turn data selection on and off and select how much data to display. vBPicGallery data includes thumbnails.

With the forum data turned off, you can create 100% custom emails that will appear on a vBulletin .page css background with the header image you specify and the footer.

Each HTML message part may have up to 4 ads or notices embedded in the message and data. They are located below the header image, below the message body, after any of the forum data blocks via a position setting and at the footer.

You message can address the members using replacement variables with information from the user table.


// Variables you can parse in the message body.
Your Forum Name: $username
Your Email Address: $email
Join Date: $joindate
Last Activity Date: $lastactivity
Last Visit Date: $lastvisit
Last Post Date: $lastpost
Your Post Count: $posts
Friend Count: $friendcount
Friend Requests: $friendreqcount
Profile Visits: $profilevisits
Social Group Invites: $socgroupinvitecount
Social Group Requests: $socgroupreqcount
Total PMs: $pmtotal
Unread PMs: $pmunread


Forum data selection is done via the ACP by selecting which forums to include in the data selection.

Usergroups to be included are selected via the acp and secondary usergroups are fully supported. For instance you can make an opt in secondary user group for receiving EZ NewsLetters and send to those members only and override the opt in/out setting they have selected if you wish.

After all of that is selected, you can move on to creating the email. You will tell EZ NewsLetter the url to your forum banner for the header. Then you create the message, add any notices or ads you want included in the html email and include any additional css you may need if necessary.

The first screen is designed to allow the input of a message built using bbcodes and/or html. Upon submitting the message the next screen will display the html part and the text part for further editing. The text part will have the html and bbcodes stripped.

You can then edit both parts if necessary and preview your work in real time until you get it the way you want.

At this point some might say, why bother with the first message input box, I know html. Well, that's good! The first input box is a tool, use it or skip it. Then on the next screen, you can create and edit both the html and text parts separately and send two entirely different parts to the mail, a custom html part and a custom text part.

When you are done on screen two with the text and html edits, you can click continue and move on to save both message parts, process any data selected and review your emails, both text and html, in a preview screen before sending. Don't like what you see? Back up and fix it.

After that the last screen is the send screen. You can set how many members are sent per page and if you wish, you can set the pages to wait x amount of time and then auto submit them. Buttons to halt the auto submit are included so that you may pause or stop to review an error if one should occur.

Once the emails are sent, sit back and enjoy the traffic. Get you message across clear and concise, install the EZ NewsLetter eMailer add on for vBulletin today.

Here are some screen shots. Some menus are rearranged a slight bit in the final app, but this is the overall picture. EZ NewsLetter Screen Shots (http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/vbpicgallery.php?do=view&g=159)

Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions, we appreciate your support.

Ready to purchase EZ NewsLetter? Order your download access via our secure checkout page.
Order EZ NewsLetter (https://www.2checkout.com/2co/buyer/orderpage?sid=59078).

Thanks,

Greg

[Greg]

HTML email output fully templated
HTML and Text email output fully phrased.
vBulletin product add on Installation.
Modifies vBulletin Database.
Adds Database Tables.

[mrmike]

Hi Greg,

I really like this product (great work) - I have the 3.54 version of vb and have to ask You if this will work for me?

TIA

/Mike

[Greg]

I don't know to be honest. I have to look and see if data manager was different back then.

I'll open a few files and get back to you shortly.

[Greg]

I just looked at the files for vBulletin 3.5.4 and I don't see any reason why EZ NewsLetter would not work. Everything is identical at the hooks. The template edit on the register form may be a little different, but easy enough to figure out where to display a check box if so.

And thank you for the compliment. I enjoyed doing this project.

[Sonnie]

Hallelujah... I am glad to see this. Or at least I hope I am. Combull is really old and outdated.

[Greg]

Hallelujah... I am glad to see this. Or at least I hope I am. Combull is really old and outdated.

Believe it or not, I have been using a patched version of commbull from years ago with my own smtp send loop. But the whole thing was just so out dated, sloppy, didn't render the emails, used the css wrong and so many other issues, I got fed up and did this.

I gotta say thanks to Joeychgo, he has been prodding me for literally years to make an eMailer we could rely on. I believe I have archived that.

[michaelj]

"Members can opt in at registration and through their user control panel."

My forum is very new and my focus at this time is developing content however, its nature is very niche oriented. I will want to send "invitations" to visit the forum in the future. Is this designed so that I could email a "purchased list" of prospective members, or will it work only with existing members? And, if it is now for only existing members do you have any plans to add such a function?

[mrmike]

I just looked at the files for vBulletin 3.5.4 and I don't see any reason why EZ NewsLetter would not work. Everything is identical at the hooks. The template edit on the register form may be a little different, but easy enough to figure out where to display a check box if so.

And thank you for the compliment. I enjoyed doing this project.

Thanks for a fast and positive answer,

Then I might buy it and try it.

/Mike

[Sonnie]

Hey Greg...

What about those members who have already opted out of the commbull newsletter? Are they going to have to opt out again or is there a way to adopt those as is?

[Greg]

There is a query in the product xml. It is commented out. But I thought I may get these requests. So, before you install, you can edit the product xml.

Find:

// IMPORT COMMBULL OPT IN MEMBERS
// $db->query_write("update ". TABLE_PREFIX ."user set eznl = receivebulletin WHERE 1");


Change to:

// IMPORT COMMBULL OPT IN MEMBERS
$db->query_write("update ". TABLE_PREFIX ."user set eznl = receivebulletin WHERE 1");


You remove two slashes and save. Then install.

If that scares anyone, I can have a utility written in about a few minutes.

[Sonnie]

Good deal... I figured if you have been commbull you dealt with it in someway or another.

[MDsebil]

Hi greg

I want to know detaily about your product EZ Newsletter..
i had some problem with our server where we installed my site..its a shared one.
They suspened my account because of sending too much emails. i was using the option in admin cp > Users> send email to users.. . they said itz loading the server
and i went to VB.org and requsted for help
They told me about your site..
The only way to do it is via throttling the emails it sends out.

You'll probably have to get a modification for it, the only one i know that has throttling built in is the EZ Newsletter from http://cpurigs.com
__________________

How much i have to pay for this product or is this free?
Does this load my server?

I got like 10000 members.. is this possible to send these much mails like 2-3 times a month ?

Thanks
Sebil

[Greg]

That is a discussion that is so over looked. The problem is three fold.

First there is etiquette and limits in sending. The etiquette part is throttling your mail and not blasting off bounced emails all the time.

The second is what you see in your host saying you sent too much mail.

The third is the host saying while you did it you brought the server to it's knees.

There's a lot going on when you blast out emails. Depending on how you do it dictates how much overhead you cause.

Throttling the mail is easy, send less emails per page and wait longer between pages. The default send limit of emails per hour per domain on most cpanel hosts seems to be 2000 per hour. You can't send 2000 newsletters though, the other systems sending and receiving mail need room too. So you have to page your newsletter sends over the hour so both can happen without going over the limit. We like 50 per page and 180 seconds between pages and go to bed with auto next page turned on of course.

Not overloading the server while that happens is realized in how you send the mail and how much bounces back. Don't use php mail for multiple sends. That causes the server to open and close an SMTP connection for each piece of mail. Lots of memory management and code fetching. Implement bounce management and stop sending bounced emails.

Sure it's possible to send that much email three times a month. You just ahve to realize that it shouldn't happen as fast as a script can run. All of the above should be considered.

The exercise is not in sending email, it is in getting the email delivered. Don't send send emails that will bounce and don't send so much email per second or hour that other folks raise an eyebrow at you.

The product is listed at $22.95.

Thanks

[Ohiosweetheart]

Ok I'm still a bit confused.

I know that it can be styled, designed, etc, and that's great.

What I'm asking is, how customizable is the newsletter in terms of the layout? I've seen the default newsletter, with everything in one column from top to bottom. I need to know if you can create a 2 and/or 3 column newsletter layout, much like vbadvanced cmps.

Do these options exist for this newsletter?

[Greg]

Yes, you can do anything you want.

Use you forum background and create on a .page css background or blank out the template and paste in something you made in front page for example.

It is that flexible. From guided default templates to custom templates to no templates at all and a 100% custom message. It's really only limited to your imagination.

Just remember to put at least some info for the text part of the email A lot more people then you know use text.

[Ohiosweetheart]

ok I gotcha now.

[MDsebil]

how can i buy this product
could anyone give me the link?
and one more question
what if it doesnt work as i expected
will you give me a refund?

[Greg]

The term "as expected" is pretty subjective. Why don't we try and see what you need and if we can provide that before you buy? I'd be glad to answer some questions.

I can send you an example email if you opt into the news letter subscribers group. http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/profile.php?do=editusergroups

[MDsebil]

i would like to buy this product

is installtion is easy like other products in the vb.org


anyway
i would like to look ahead with this

could you you please provide me the link/purchase forum