WordPress SMS plugin – Beta Version 4.0.11 assessment – Part Two

Hi Mostafa Soufi (@mostafas1990),

Continuing on from part One –

Re Notifications Tab
(points 7 to 12 below)

7) The text boxes (without having used them) have no indication of the number of available character spaces left, (or how many too much there are),
or if the user wants to make a longer message (checkbox to choose).

8) Each Notification allows for only one version of a message.
This means that if the user wants to have a range of messages for each notification, they have to handle them externally to the plugin, and bring the text in by ‘cut and paste’.
a) It would be handy to allow multiple versions of each notification to be used.
b) It would be handy to allow creation of templates.
c) It would be handy if these could be saved exported and imported, so they can be shared with other users. They could also be sent to the plugin site, to be shared with other users, and maybe used as some default templates.

9) The delineation of each notification type is not as obvious as it could be.
a) Better methods to show titles (as described in Part One).
b) The line to the right of titles, could be used as a full width separator between notification types.
c) Possibly consider having each notification type in a separate sub-tab, under the notifications tab.
d) Possibly have the ability to show two notifications side by side, for easy comparison, and cut and paste.
e) Message duplication function

10) The variables
such as Post title: %post_title%, Post content: %post_content%, Post url: %post_url%, Post date: %post_date%
a) It would be handy to have these displayed as buttons, so that clicking on them would insert the variable in to the text for the txt message.
b) If they were to be placed at the top of the text area, then they would give the appearance of being a “Txt Editor” (just a little bit cool).
c) Additional variables could be made available to the user.
These would help achieve the same function as found on a phone.
e.g. select your greeting (possibly in the recipient’s language), standard phrases
d) insert link to web page, stored image or media (covered in another submission). This feature could have the appearance as similar link inserters, and media inserters.
show a thumbnail of the website or picture, during the selection process.
So the user can see what the recipient “will end up seeing”.
A truly “WYSIWTG” editor. (what you see is, what They get)

11) Published New Posts
This looks like it will automatically send a message out every time there is a new post.
a) it would be handy to be able to select which posts, are the topic of a txt message. This means that txts are not automatically sent when there is a new posting. But all new postings can be txtd, at a later time, when they have been selected.
the recent postings could be supplied as a drop down list with the editor.
b) or if more than one message can be reason to send a txt, then there could be more than one drop down list of posts, each of which selects a different post, any one of which will cause a txt to be sent, but only one text is sent to each recipient.
c) “New comment” would be better placed above “Register a new user”, so two article related notifications are near each other, and two user related notifications are near each other.

12) expandability by sub-plugin
There could well be other forms of notification that admin would like to receive. Technically proficient users could create snippets of code to do this, and these snippets could be sent back to the plugin team for incorporation into the plugin once they prove reliable and popular.
So it would be handy to have a “Custom Notification” creator.

Re Integration tab
(points 13 to 15 below)

13) WooCommerce
a) New Order – sends a message to “you”
Who is the “you” – this could be the web site admin, the business manager, the sales team? It is not clear who it is, or even if it is the best person/department in an organisation.
Perhaps the recipient info for this may need to be set in a User Management section.
b) Other messages might be handy, such as “A customer has made an enquiry (using the form), and has chosen to also have you notified (by txt), because of urgency (e.g. they are in town for a short while, and want to book a meeting)”.
So message is triggered by an option box in a form (like Contact Form 7).
or
Click here to send a text, and include (list of “text” options for purpose of txt) in the message and we txt back to you to initiate a phone call or let know we have emailed you back. Basically act as a queue confirmation system.

14) Invite plugin authors of form plugins and membership lists, to allow integration with this plugin.

15) WooCommerce txt “sent to recipients list”, when new products are added to a selected category. Possibly also allow different messages for each category.

16) Also
a) Sent Box
b) Drafts Box
c) Save messages in as sent state, for proper record keeping purposes.
d) Save message as template

I will soon begin to work towards making this plugin run.

Thank you for creating this plugin.