th23 Subscribe

Subscriptions for receiving notifications upon updates (new posts, responses or further comments) via mail – manageable by users via widget, links and …

Author:	Thorsten Hartmann (th23) (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:	4.2
WordPress version tested:	5.4.1
Plugin version:	3.2.0
Added to WordPress repository:	21-05-2019
Last updated:	12-05-2020 Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:	0
Rated by:	0
Plugin URI:
Total downloads:	711
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Provide your users the option to subscribe to new updates and get notified via mail. Make your subscribers curious about new posts published as well as responses to comments made and further comments on the same post.

No need for external providers, scripts or other resources. Making GDPR (DSGVO) compliant usage easier and allows you keeping in control of your user and visitor data.

Basic styling included with plugin, highly adaptable to fit your theme.

Plugin options

th23 Subscribe offers you various options to make it smooth and easy for your users:

Subscribe option via widget
Checkbox upon registration to subscribe
Checkbox in the comment form to subscribe
Both checkboxes can be pre-selected (admin option)
Confirmation / feedback via overlay messages you can style via CSS
Log file to keep track of subscription actions and mails (optional)
Notification mails sent in batches to avoid spamming / overloading your mail server
Easy configuration via plugin settings page in the admin area

Professional options

Further functionality is available as Professional extension:

Personalized e-mails using the user name as an introduction
Subscriptions by visitors without registration as a user
Consent with terms and conditions upon subscription to support legal compliance
E-Mail confirmation of new visitor subscriptions to ensure valid address
Upgrade path for visitors to become a fully registered user with profile etc.
Handling password reset / registrations of users previously subscribing as a visitor

Special opportunity

If you are interested in trying out the Professional version for free, write a review for the plugin and in return get a year long license including updates, please register at my website and contact me. First come, first serve – limited opportunity for the first 10 people!

Integration with other plugins

For a good user experience this plugin integrates with the following plugins:

th23 User Management offering subscription management on frontend page, enhancing “Last Visit” tracking for users and visitors following a link in the notification mail, integrating into frontend registration and password (reset) – find this plugin in the WP plugin repository or the plugins website for more details and its Professional version with even more features
th23 Social showing a subscription button within follow bars, manageable via th23 Social settings in the admin area – find this plugin in the WP plugin repository or the plugins website for more details and its Professional version with even more features
WP Better Emails sending mails in styled HTML and plain text format – find this plugin in the WP plugin repository
th23 Featured including new post header images in HTML mails – this plugin is currently in a beta phase (not yet published)

For seeing the plugin in action, feel free to visit the authors website or for seeing some styled examples his personal website and travel blog.

Screenshots
FAQ

How can I see who is subscribed for what?

Subscriptions are stored in the database and are not directly accessible via an interface.

If enabled via the plugin settings page, a log file will be kept with all user and mail actions. This log is kept within the plugins directory on your server (/wp-content/plugins/th23-subscribe) and named log.csv (for easier readability use eg Microsoft Excel to open it).

The file contains the following columns:
* User ID
* User login
* User mail
* Action
* Content (post/ comment ID)
* Timestamp (machine readable)
* Date/ Time (human readable)
* IP address

The file is protected from access via the browser by an htaccess rule from the public – you can simply access it via FTP, while it will be hidden from everybody else!

How can I input field placeholder instead of labels for the visitor form?

The plugin provides both description options for the input fields and adds them to the HTML output.

You can simply use CSS eg via your theme to show placeholders instead of the labels by adding the following:

/* widget and overlay: th23 Subscribe - form label/ placeholder */
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form label[for^="th23_subscribe_mail"],
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form label[for^="th23_subscribe_name"] {
    display: none;
}
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form input::placeholder {
    opacity: 1;
}

How can I (initially) hide the name and terms field for visitors?

This is best achieved with a combination of added CSS and JS to your theme, assuming that jQuery is available (WP default). By using the following example code the fields will “slide down” upon a user focusing on the e-mail field.

CSS:

.th23-subscribe-visitor-form .th23-subscribe-name,
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form .th23-subscribe-terms {
    display: block;
    visibility: hidden;
    opacity: 0;
    max-height: 0;
    transition: max-height .5s, visibility .3s, opacity .3s;
}
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form .th23-subscribe-name.show,
.th23-subscribe-visitor-form .th23-subscribe-terms.show {
    visibility: visible;
    opacity: 1;
    max-height: 200px;
}

JS:

$('input[name^="th23_subscribe_mail"').focus(function(){
    $(this).closest('form').find('.th23-subscribe-name, .th23-subscribe-terms').addClass('show');
});

In case you want to see this in action on the authors personal website and travel blog.

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