[RELEASE v2] Auto-Welcome Email to New User

[tubedogg]

Update - Apr 13 03:35 PM: I fixed another small bug that occured when you used email verification.

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This hack was requested by RobAC. It sends a welcome email to a new registrant at your board automatically. You can change the email wording to whatever you like, and turn the feature itself on or off in your Admin CP. If you require your new users to verify their email, it waits until that is done to send the welcome email. Otherwise, it sends it right away.

No demo, for obvious reasons. However, you can register at the vGeekIsland Board (link in my sig) to see it working. Or you could register there anyway, to help us build up our small community.

For version: version 2, beta 5

Files needed: none

Files to edit: register.php

Templates to create: email_welcome, emailsubject_welcome

Instructions
1] Open register.php in an ASCII editor (you know at this point why you can't open it in a WYSIWYG editor; if not, read any of the hack threads in my sig).
2] Around line 414, find

    eval("\$subject = \"".gettemplate("emailsubject_activateaccount",1,0)."\";");

    mail($email,$subject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>");

  }

Right below this, add

// send a welcome email using email_welcome and emailsubject_welcome templates, but don't
//   send it now if they need to activate their account
  if (!$verifyemail && $welcomeuser) {
    eval("\$message = \"".gettemplate("email_welcome",1,0)."\";");
    eval("\$subject = \"".gettemplate("emailsubject_welcome",1,0)."\";");

    mail($newuseremail,$subject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>");
  }
// end send mail

Then, around line 489, find

			eval("standarderror(\"".gettemplate("error_moderateuser")."\");");
		} else {

Add right below it

			// send a welcome email using email_welcome and emailsubject_welcome templates but only if it's on
			if ($welcomeuser) {			                  $email = $userinfo[email];
			  $username = $userinfo[username];
                          eval("\$message = \"".gettemplate("email_welcome",1,0)."\";");
                          eval("\$subject = \"".gettemplate("emailsubject_welcome",1,0)."\";");
	                  mail ($email,$subject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>");
			}
		        // end send mail

3] Save and upload register.php. Then upload welcomemysql.php to your forums /admin directory. Go to http://yoururl.com/forums/admin/welcomemysql.php in a browser. If it is successful, it will display a link to you Admin CP.
4] Follow the link, and then create two new templates. First, one called email_welcome, filled with this:

Dear $username,

On behalf of the $bbtitle team, I would like to welcome you to our forums.
I hope you enjoy your stay and would like you to know that if you ever have any problems, please do not hesitate to contact me or one of the other team members.
I have listed our emails below for future reference.

Once again, thanks for joining us!
I hope you have a long and enjoyable stay with us.

Sincerely,
the $bbtitle team

Then, create another one called emailsubject_welcome and fill it with this:

Welcome to $bbtitle!

That's it. You can check out the new option under "Change Options" in the Admin CP.

Instructions are also in the zip file - welcome.txt.

Please do not PM me or contact me via AIM or ICQ about this hack. Post your message here - I will see it and try to help you.

Enjoy!

Edit: Almost forgot this. In the email_welcome template, you have these variables available to you:
$username - inserts the username of the recipient
$bbtitle - inserts the title of your BB
$u - inserts the userid of the recipient
$email - inserts the email address of the recipient
$webmasteremail - inserts the webmaster's email address

[chrispadfield]

thanks for writing this out. I have been meaning to add this is and glad you have done.

[jojo85]

Oh
Thx you very much guy

[bokhalifa]

good hack
thanks

tubedogg

[RobAC]

Hmmmmm....Kevin, when does the email get sent out to the user? I ran a test twice by registering the username of test and I didn't receive the welcome email. It is set to YES in the control panel and the hack installation was successful. It was a breeze to install. Any ideas?

[tubedogg]

If you use email verification, it should get sent after the email is verified. If not, it should get sent right after registration.

Double-check that you saved and reuploaded register.php (I forgot to do this at first...).

Other than that, I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work...You said it appeared in the control panel, which is right. And it's set to yes, which is right.

Hmm...one thing to try. On lines 426 and 498, which should look like this:

	          mail ($newuseremail,$subject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>");

change it to this

	          mail($newuseremail,$subject,$message,"From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>");

I can't imagine that would make a difference, though...

[RobAC]

Verifying now....code is all there in register.php. I'll try making the code change you suggest and see what happens. I registered two separate test users last night and did not receive the email.

[RobAC]

It worked! Taking that space out after "mail" in the code worked. Don't ask me why, it doesn't make any sense, but I've tested it twice with email verification turned off and on and it worked both times.

However, there is something strange...with email verification turned off, the message starts out as expected:

Welcome test, (test is the username)

With email verification turned on, the message received after verification starts out like this:

Welcome ,


Any ideas?

[tubedogg]

On line 493 of register.php, try changing

			  $emails = $DB_site->query_first("SELECT email,username FROM user WHERE userid='$u'");

to

			  $emails = $DB_site->query("SELECT email,username FROM user WHERE userid='$u'");

[RobAC]

No email sent.

[tubedogg]

On lines 493-495, try changing

			  $emails = $DB_site->query("SELECT email,username FROM user WHERE userid='$u'");
			  $email = $emails[email];
			  $username = $emails[username];

to this

			  $email = $userinfo[email];
			  $username = $userinfo[username];

[RobAC]

Bingo! Nice job Kevin. It works great now!

-Rob

[tubedogg]

It seems odd that no one else ran across this error mine...is no one else using email verification? Or is it just no one has installed it? Anyway I fixed the problem both in the instructions and the zip file.

[RobAC]

Oh oh......I just had a new member sign up and I received the welcome email! LOL Time to go look at the code again....

[Wayne Luke]

Why not use $bbuserinfo[userid] and $bbuserinfo[email]. Would cut down on the number of queries needed in fact it should eliminate any extra queries.

These should contain valid data if the member is already registers.