Tribulant Documentation

Newsletters: Contact Form 7 Subscribers Extension Plugin

phil — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:55:52 +0000

WordPress Newsletter plugin : Contact Form 7 Subscribers extension plugin

With this FREE extension plugin you can easily integrate the free Contact Form 7 plugin’s forms with the WordPress Newsletter plugin by adding a simple checkbox to your website’s contact form.

Installation

1. Make sure that you have the WordPress Newsletter plugin and Contact Form 7 installed AND ACTIVATED.

2. Download the Contact Form 7 Subscribers extension plugin (free) in a ZIP archive.

Automatic Installation

3. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload in your WordPress dashboard where you can browse to the newsletters-cf7.zip file and then click the “Install Now” button. Upon successful installation you will be given the option to activate the plugin immediately so you can click the “Activate Plugin” link and skip the upcoming activation instructions.

Manual Installation

3. Extract the ZIP archive named newsletters-cf7.zip in order to be presented with a single folder named newsletters-cf7.

4. Upload the newsletters-cf7 folder to the wp-content/plugins/ directory of your WordPress installation, as seen in the example image below. Follow the upcoming activation instructions to activate the Contact Form 7 extension plugin.

Activation

Once you have installed the Contact Form 7 Subscribers extension via FTP you need to activate it.

To activate it you need to go to the normal Plugins > Installed Plugins section via your admin sidebar. There you will see the extension as a plugin listed amongst other plugins, as in the screenshots below:

Before Activation

After Activation

Once activated you will see it listed in the Newsletters > Extensions section (via the “Newsletters” menu item in the admin sidebar), as seen in this image below:

Usage

The Contact Form 7 Subscribers extension plugin has no configuration settings and can be used in conjunction with the WordPress Newsletter plugin and Contact Form 7 plugin right out the box, so to speak.

When creating or editing a contact form with Contact Form 7, the Contact Form 7 Subscribers extension plugin adds an item called “Newsletters” to Contact Form 7′s “Generate Tag” selection:

When selected, the “Newsletters” item presents the user with the following interface:

1. Name

A name (no spaces or special characters) given to the checkbox that is created by the “Newsletters” item. A default name is generated by the plugin, but you can rename it if you want.

2. Checked by default

Select this checkbox if you want the subscription checkbox (to be included in the contact form) to be checked by default.

3. Checkbox Label

Give the checkbox a descriptive such as “Please subscribe me to your newsletter.”

4. Mailing List(s)

Select the mailing list(s) that a person should be subscribed to if they choose the option to subscribe via the contact form.

5. Custom Fields

Any custom fields from the Newsletter plugin for the mailing list(s) listed above will be displayed here. The corresponding Contact Form 7 field names should be inserted into these fields to map the fields from Contact Form 7 with those of the Newsletter plugin.

6. The Shortcode

This shortcode should be copied and added to the form HTML (to the left of this interface in Contact Form 7 as seen in the screenshot below), to insert the checkbox that allows visitors to contact you to subscribe to your mailing list at the same time.

Checkout: Using Child Theme Folders

Antonie Potgieter — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:44:40 +0000

« Theme, Scripts & Custom CSS

Using child theme folders with the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin.

The WordPress Shopping Cart plugin has theme folders inside wp-checkout/views/ . For example the wp-checkout/views/default/ folder which contains all templates, Javascript files, CSS files, images, etc. These are served to the customers on the shop front.

You can use child theme folders to create the same files and folders as inside wp-checkout/views/default/ for example so that these new files are served rather than the ones inside the plugin. To do this, create a folder named checkout inside your current, active WordPress theme with the same files and folders as inside one of the theme folders.

So say your current WordPress theme folder is wp-content/themes/mytheme/ you’ll create a wp-content/themes/mytheme/checkout/ folder with files using the same folder/file names as the ones in the theme folder of the plugin.

All files inside wp-content/themes/mytheme/checkout/ will now be served as priority above those in the plugin’s theme folder. This includes all files like PHP, CSS, JS, etc.

Checkout: Realex Payments (Realauth Remote)

phil — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:04:33 +0000

« Payment Methods

Realex Payments (Realauth Remote) allows customers to remain on the merchant’s site throughout the checkout and payment process. This provides for a better sense of security during payment.

Please note: In order to use the Realex Payments (realauth remote) payment gateway with the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin, you need one of the following:

search engine friendly URLs (“pretty permalinks”) activated in the WordPress admin area, or URL rewriting used for the response URL
SSL activated on the site with a valid SSL certificate installed.

Realex Payments (Realauth Remote) Configuration

Configuration is done under Checkout > Configuration > Payment Methods:

1. Title/Caption

The title for the payment method as it should be shown to customers at checkout, for mayment method selection.

2. Merchant ID

The merchant ID as provided by Realex Payments.

3. Account

This is the account or sub-account name, which will in all likelihood be “internet.”

4. Secret

The account secret, a special security code provided by Realex Payments.

Newsletters: WordPress Dashboard Widget

phil — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:44:05 +0000

« Usage

Newletters > WordPress Dashboard Widget

The WordPress Newsletter plugin places a handy widget in the WordPress dashboard where the site or newsletter admin can get a quick overview of their newsletter statistics.

click the image to enlarge

1. The Graph

This provides a clean, good-looking graphical representation of the statistics for Subscribers, Emails Sent, Bounced Emails and Unsubscribes.

2. Latest

This shows the last four newsletters sent, with links to each newsletter’s History/Draft page for more statistics about the specific newsletter send.

3. Overview

This gives a global overview of all-time statistics for the Newsletter plugin on this site in terms of Subscribers, Emails Sent, Bounced Emails and Unsubscribes.

Newsletters: Ways to Prevent High CPU Usage

phil — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:47:47 +0000

The Newsletter plugin is fairly resource intensive and if used indiscriminately could be the source of CPU overload on your hosting account.

By paying attention to a few key settings one can easily reduce the amount of CPU usage by the plugin. The following processes are among those that can cause spikes in CPU usage, and by increasing the intervals in their operation so that they execute less frequently one could drastically lower the effect the Newsletter plugin has on CPU usage:

Sending/queuing a large number of emails.
In the process of sending from the queue.
Having the ‘Auto Import WordPress Users’ setting turned on.
‘Latest Posts Subscription’ feature firing to queue emails.
POP/IMAP bounce configuration firing regularly to check for bounce notifications.