SMF1.1:News and newsletters

News

News is located in the News and Newsletters section of the "Main" category in the Administration Center. It serves as the control point for editing and displaying news or announcements in the news box/fader of an SMF forum.

News items can be added at the bottom of the screen by selecting "Click here to add another item". Upon creation of a new item, a blank box will be added to the display.

News items should be written into the boxes and generally be short in length to avoid the members browser from adding scroll bars to the news box. News items can contain full BBCode, Smileys and HTML. Simply enter the content desired into the box and select "Save" to make the changes live.

News items can be edited by changing the content in the box and selecting "Save". Marking the checkboxes and selecting "Remove Selected" will remove all news items marked and remove them from active rotation.

In the Settings tab, an Administrator can select which membergroups can edit, add or remove news from the forum. Select the membergroups by marking the checkbox and then select save.

Newsletters

Newsletters are emails sent out by the forum to members with email addresses registered with the forum. The newsletters section can be located under the News and Newsletters section, in the "Main" category in the forum Administration Center.

Initially the membergroups to receive the email should be selected by marking the checkboxes required. Each membergroup on the forum will be displayed along with a count of the amount of members in the group. Should a member be in more than one group, only one email will be sent out.

Opening the advanced section will allow the administrator to add extra email addresses, and additional members to the mailing list being generated. Should any groups need to be specifically excluded from receiving the email those can be select, excluded groups will override any selected membergroups as will excluded members. The option exists to override any members who have elected through their profile to not receive forum emails, to be sent an email regardless.

After configuring options, selecting continue will bring up the message composition screen allowing the message to be sent to be entered. Newsletters do not support BBCode or Smileys but will support basic HTML if "Send in HTML format" is selected.

In composing the message, several "variables" or personalisation options can be used, by typing the code into the message where needed:

• {$board_url} - The URL to your forum.
• {$current_time} - The current time.
• {$member.email} - The current member's email.
• {$member.link} - The current member's link.
• {$member.id} - The current member's id.
• {$member.name} - The current member's name. (for personalization.)
• {$latest_member.link} - The most recently registered member's link.
• {$latest_member.id} - The most recently registered member's id.
• {$latest_member.name} - The most recently registered member's name.

Optionally the message can be sent as a Personal Message rather than an email if desired by marking the checkbox "Send this to these groups using personal messages." Additonally "Add
s and  s to this message." should be checked to ensure the message is sent with proper spacing for email clients (This will only be available if the HTML Format is selected).

After configuration and message editing is complete, selecting "Send" will enter the messages into the SMF Mail Queue, a progress bar will be displayed and SMF will process the emails based on the limits set in the forum configuration sections. Selecting continue manually will be required if Javascript is disabled in the browser. The queue must be utilised for server stability.

In the Settings section an administrator may select with membergroups have permission to send out email to members, by checking the membergroup and selecting save.