UBB.Developers Forums UBB.classic V6.4 - 6.7 Modifications V6 Mod Ideas Enhancing Out-Going Emails

I mentioned this before, but it always gets pushed back to the next release. Well, here we are with 6.4.0, and since I cannot program in PERL, I'm asking for your assistance.

I would like to be able to create a database of sponsors that one is randomly pulled each time an email is sent out to anyone aside from the staff. Like so:

Dear Member,

Per your request all account names which use the email: [email protected] have been emailed. Blah blah..

Please visit our Sponsor:
Infopop! - Maker of UBB.Classic:
https://www.ubbdev.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?sponsor1

Do you follow me? Then you'd be able to choose which sponsors are in the "pool" from the CP.

It's a very non-intrusive method to advertise. I'm no money-grubbing fool, but I do pay out of my pocket to keep my site running.

Ya know, if only most email clients had Javascript turned on... then you can use a service like textads.biz and put ads at the bottom of each mail's HTML via the footer. That would be a very clean method of doing this....

But most mail clients forbid Javascript.

So, it would have to be done server side.

This should be pretty easy nowadays... you're using HTML email, right?

We are sending HTML emails. I would really like to see it integrated into the UBB control panel though.

Do you follow me with the whole pool of sponsors dealio? I am aware of the textads.biz solution too. However, how would one integrate this to the current system? I tried to add things to the email wordlets, but nothing ever works like I think it should.

I'm not sure about putting it in the control panel... you might not need to - it could be very simple.

You've seen the %%VARIABLE%% bits in the email wordlets, right?

Here's what I'm thinking.

You assemble a custom HTML header and footer, assign it to the email template...

The header or footer will have some %%VARIABLE%% stuff in them. Those will get translated right before each mail is sent.

The translation bits will open up a file, pick an entry to add, then add it... or perhaps open a directory and pick a text file to include in the mail, so it's random.

Pretty simple and straightforward. Thoughts?

It sound very straight-forward, but the issue remains of how will I define those variables, and where? Also, how do I assign custom anything to an email template?

Are you discussing the wordlets? I'm a tad confused with this one, m8.

Actually, I was gonna do the coding myself on this one.

Drop me a mail at capps (at) solareclipse.net - I'll hack it into your board. You get to be the guinea pig.

Charles, you're renewing my faith in the UBB community.

I feel badly, because I'm not able to contribute programming experience. I'm a business / theory person. So, when I ask questions, it's because I know it's both beneficial to my community as well as potentially lucrative.

So, I hope the coders around here don't think I'm a slouch I am eternally grateful for all the support I get with the UBB Dev community. .. and I've been coming here for a while

I would love to be able to help more but I'm a Systems guy, I run enterprise networks but Perl kicks my butt.