What's New Digest 5.0.6
- Author Sim
- Creation date
-
- Tags
- digest email what's new
Q) Does this honour the "Receive news and updates emails" mailing list checkbox in user preferences?
A) as of v5.0.0a, yes - there is an option to choose whether to honour the "Receive news and update emails" setting in user profiles.
Q) Can a user click a link in the email to unsubscribe automatically?
A) yes, unsubscribe links are included and will set their digest preference to "None"
Q) Does the list of threads honour user permissions?
A) yes, the list of candidate threads is filtered for each user - they will only see threads they have permission to view
Q) How many threads are included?
The number of new and updated threads to include is configurable in the options.
Q) Which users receive the emails?
A) Users who are considered by XF to be "Valid", ie:
A) Yes, you will need to disable the existing cron tasks and create your own tasks to run at the time you choose.
There are two tasks you'll need to add:
Weekly:
Refer to this thread for more information about why you need to do it this way: https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-of-fields-in-this-item-may-be-edited.140761/
Q) How to hide the widget for certain users
A) Widget hints:
Q) What's the difference between this addon and the XenForo v2.2 Activity Summary emails?
A) The Activity summary emails are similar - but serve a slightly different purpose.
The key difference is in when they are sent.
What's New Digest
Emails are sent daily, weekly or monthly (or not at all) - depending on the preference of the user.
This is intended to maintain frequent interaction with the community and is especially useful for low volume sites where you want to keep prompting members to contribute regularly.
The original design for this addon was based on requirements of one of my clients who runs a small private discussion forum with less than 100 members - we send out a daily summary email to members.
This is a user-driven system where the user can choose how frequently they receive emails.
Customisation of the emails sent is limited - it only sends a list of new and a list of updated threads based on criteria set by the admin and respecting user permissions.
XenForo Activity Summary
Emails are sent based on inactivity. They aren't sent until a user has reached the minimum inactivity threshold and then are sent regularly based on admin preference - but only while the user is inactive.
This is intended to re-engage with members who haven't visited in some time.
This is an admin-driven system where users don't get to choose how frequently emails are sent (but of course, they can turn them off).
There is a lot more flexibility in what types of content are included and it would be extensible to include other types of content as well.
Which should I use?
It really depends on what you are trying to achieve.
You could use both - since they do serve a different purpose, but once a user becomes "inactive" according to the Activity Summary system, then they will potentially receive both emails, which might not be ideal - but it also might work well to re-engage the user.
I do expect that a lot of users will find that the built-in XenForo Activity summary does everything they need and they will no longer use this What's New Digest addon.
A) as of v5.0.0a, yes - there is an option to choose whether to honour the "Receive news and update emails" setting in user profiles.
Q) Can a user click a link in the email to unsubscribe automatically?
A) yes, unsubscribe links are included and will set their digest preference to "None"
Q) Does the list of threads honour user permissions?
A) yes, the list of candidate threads is filtered for each user - they will only see threads they have permission to view
Q) How many threads are included?
The number of new and updated threads to include is configurable in the options.
Q) Which users receive the emails?
A) Users who are considered by XF to be "Valid", ie:
- not banned
- User state is "Valid"
- Users who are "Recently active" (which by default means have logged in at least once in the past 180 days) - this can by bypassed in the options
- Users who have either explicitly selected "Daily" or "Weekly" in their digest preference
- Users who have NOT made an explicit selection, and the admin has set the Default Frequency to anything other than "None" (ie the admin is sending these emails out by default).
A) Yes, you will need to disable the existing cron tasks and create your own tasks to run at the time you choose.
There are two tasks you'll need to add:
Weekly:
- Cron entry ID:
whatsnewdigestWeekly2 - Title:
What's New Digest: Weekly Digest Email - Cron callback:
Hampel\WhatsNewDigest\Cron\SendDigest::sendWeeklyDigest - Run on type of day:
Day of the week(select your preferred day) - Run at hours: (select your preferred hour - remember this is UTC time!)
- Run at minutes: (select your preferred minute)
- Allow cron entry to run automatically when scheduled:
checked
- Cron entry ID:
whatsnewdigestDaily2 - Title:
What's New Digest: Daily Digest Email - Cron callback:
Hampel\WhatsNewDigest\Cron\SendDigest::sendDailyDigest - Run on type of day:
Day of the month::Any - Run at hours: (select your preferred hour - remember this is UTC time!)
- Run at minutes: (select your preferred minute)
- Allow cron entry to run automatically when scheduled:
checked
Refer to this thread for more information about why you need to do it this way: https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-of-fields-in-this-item-may-be-edited.140761/
Q) How to hide the widget for certain users
A) Widget hints:
- To hide the widget from guests - set the Display condition to:
$xf.visitor.user_id - To hide the widget from guests and from users who have already opted in - set the Display condition to:
$xf.visitor.user_id && !$xf.visitor.Option.whatsnewdigest_email
Q) What's the difference between this addon and the XenForo v2.2 Activity Summary emails?
A) The Activity summary emails are similar - but serve a slightly different purpose.
The key difference is in when they are sent.
What's New Digest
Emails are sent daily, weekly or monthly (or not at all) - depending on the preference of the user.
This is intended to maintain frequent interaction with the community and is especially useful for low volume sites where you want to keep prompting members to contribute regularly.
The original design for this addon was based on requirements of one of my clients who runs a small private discussion forum with less than 100 members - we send out a daily summary email to members.
This is a user-driven system where the user can choose how frequently they receive emails.
Customisation of the emails sent is limited - it only sends a list of new and a list of updated threads based on criteria set by the admin and respecting user permissions.
XenForo Activity Summary
Emails are sent based on inactivity. They aren't sent until a user has reached the minimum inactivity threshold and then are sent regularly based on admin preference - but only while the user is inactive.
This is intended to re-engage with members who haven't visited in some time.
This is an admin-driven system where users don't get to choose how frequently emails are sent (but of course, they can turn them off).
There is a lot more flexibility in what types of content are included and it would be extensible to include other types of content as well.
Which should I use?
It really depends on what you are trying to achieve.
You could use both - since they do serve a different purpose, but once a user becomes "inactive" according to the Activity Summary system, then they will potentially receive both emails, which might not be ideal - but it also might work well to re-engage the user.
I do expect that a lot of users will find that the built-in XenForo Activity summary does everything they need and they will no longer use this What's New Digest addon.