Frank J.

Looking at other newsletter plugins I partly agree: Lists can be confusing.

What you wrote is probably true, Brian: Many site owners will only use one list — the big one — to send out newsletters once in a while. So lists would be an extra feature fpr them which they would not need. In a ideal solution more than one list could be “hidden” as long as this feature is not activated.

Even though the backend of the plugin “Email Subscribers” is a mess regarding intuition and user friendliness the software offers a rather good list approach: The admin can decide what list(s) a subscriber will be added to — meaning: no choice for the subscriber.

As a second method Email Subscribers offers the subscriber to chose from a list of lists defined by the admin. (The subscription form then gets rather messy: All these checkboxes and the GDPR consent are confusing.)

You mention custom field as a possible criteria for sending out newsletters. I cannot comment on that because I have no idea how this would work. Being limited by the bubble I live in (regarding newsletters) I would probably prefer subscribers who are “members” of one or more lists. Email Subscribers solves this with the typical WordPress approach: category-like.

Did I miss anything? Well, maybe I didn’t describe the point very well that made me thinking of lists. I will try in a few sentences — even though I am aware that you know what the list thing is about. Sometimes a real life situation helps:

My latest online project is about saving historic buildings that are endangered. Building a community is the first step — and a regular newsletter for this community is a must to keep people informed and involved.

In a second step we will have more and more buildings online that are endangered reported by various people. Some will set up a petition. Such a petition needs immediate awareness and it is not a good idea to tell the community only in the next newsletter — which could be in several weeks. This newsletter has to be sent out as soon as possible. “Regular” newsletter recipients could consider this as spam due to a higher frequency.

So something like a “Petition Alert” list would be a good idea.

Overall: Yes, it is complicated and I don’t know a newsletter plugin that solves this in a convincing way today. (I kept away from paid services like MailChimp for reasons of privacy. Maybe they offer their own WordPress integration which is close to perfect? I simply don’t know.)

So much for the moment — this got way too long for 1 am. Please excuse my talkativeness. I am tired.

Cheers, Frank

Hi Brian,

I re-installed and had a look. The whole interface is soooo intuitive — I am definitely a fan of Noptin (and I know what I am talking about, having tested many other newsletter plugins). The explicit GDPR hint/checkbox is well integrated and works fine (not that I expected anything else).

So I sent a first test newsletter and again: Compared to all other newsletter plugins I saw so far (a lot!) this works just fine: No checking of code necessary, the email editor works just fine with all the standards I expect from WordPress.

It works out of the box.

Chapeau!

Frank

PS. Two cents regarding GDPR:

The whole thing is still rather new — and complicated. One can still find tons of websites where the Cookie Consent gives users no other choice than to accept all cookies — which is not ok after the European Court decision from October 2019.

When it comes to a consent to store personal data of a person who suscribes to a newsletter I think that one is on the safe side if an explicit consent is requested.

The solution you provided (thanks again!) is sufficient for today and probably for tomorrow. Nevertheless I would prefer the consent as a “normal” field with a checkbox, followed by a label to edit (html should be possible to add the link) and the choice to make this a required field.

Such a solution would answer all future requests I can think of today. If someone came up with the idea that a privacy notice has to be agreed with explicitely (using a checkbox) this could be solved by standard fields then in Noptin.

Hi Brian,

any news on double opt-in? Did I miss something?

Cheers, Frank

Sounds, well, reads great, Brian. I will have a look.

Cheers, Frank

Just to report the outcome:

Webnus asked me via email to set up a fresh test site with a really detailed and rather long list of requirements. I did all this carefully. This raised my hopes because they obviously invested time in explaining what they needed to have a look into the problem.

A few days later it was clear that they did not look at the problem. Instead of checking the problem with the theme I intended to use their answer was:

“As you can see the single event page is loading properly on your fresh WordPress.”

Well, this was with the standard theme Twenty-Twenty — and not with not the theme Directory+ by AIT (which they asked me for to instell but not to activate).

Webnus support wrote: “You need to contact your theme provider and ask them about this issue.”

Well, guess what the theme provider wrote? You knew it: “Sorry but we cannot support and controll every plugin with our theme. Is not possible.”

Cheers, Frank

Testing the plugin’s visual component with different browsers (all latest versions) on a desktop Windows computer:

Firefox and chrome: looks good

IE: The “Deny Button Text” overlaps the “Accept Button”.

Just two more cents: I never understood why the “Deny Button Text” in your plugin has no button. Two buttons would be more intuitive.

Selectable colors would be nice for that: So that I [a good one] can make the “no button” green whereas the bad guys could make the “yes button” look more friendly. ??

Cheers, Frank

Hi Nikel,

I didn’t forget this — there were just too many other things to do. Heard that before? ??

I implemented the shortcode [cc_revoke_settings_link_nsc_bar] and tested it. It works (https://fliegende-ente.de/cookies/).

What I would expect though is that clicking on the shortcode generated string would make the banner appear again (which has been the user interface to accept or deny the use of cookies for first time visitors).

I would not go as far as saying that a user is “used” to that bar and would expect it (instead of a plain string) — but in a way this assumption is not completely wrong: Most Cookie Policy user interfaces come as a bar, box or similar.

Just clicking on a text string — and that was it — to change my cookie decision is something that I would not expect — even though the changing text string tells me that something must have happened :-).

Cookie policies are a pain in the neck (and in most cases user won’t read provided information or understand what it is all about). Your solution makes things easier. Thank you a lot for your work, Nikel!

Cheers, Frank

Hello Support,

I went through all the steps you provided carefully (I hope):

1. WP Backend –> M.E. Calendar –> All Events –> editing (opening) each event — > clicking the update button. No change of behaviour after that.

2. WP Backend –> Settings –> Permalinks –> changing Common Settings to “Plain” –> saving changes (Testing: No change of behaviour after that.) –> changing Common Settings back to “Day and name” –> saving changes (Testing: No change of behaviour after that.)

3. Deactiving all plugins, the theme is a fresh install. No change of behaviour.

Any ideas? Just an incompatibility of the theme (or even all themes of AIT based on that framework)?

In case you want to have WordPress backend access I can set it up for you.

Cheers, Frank

Hello Support,

that’s right, I deactivated the MEC plugin in the meanwhile and replaced it with an on-board solution (which does look half as good as yours).

I installed Modern Events Calendar Lite in a seperate testbed (same theme, no additional plugins) and the problem is the same as described above.

Here’s the link to a MEC test page I created there:

https://dev-directory.anke-feil.de/

I hope that you can have a look and help.

Cheers, Frank

Hi Webnus Support,

thanks for your reply.

I went through all the steps you provided (most of them for the second time). As there was no change to the better I also deleted and installed Modern Events Calendar Lite again, setting the Main Slug to “mecc-event” now.

No change: As before events are shown (at the bottom of https://karuszel.anke-feil.de/) but clicking on one event the problem is as described above.

Cheers, Frank

Hi Nikel,

that’s good news, thank you! I will check that soon — and will give you a feedback then.

Cheers, Frank

Hi dcell,

a am working on a similar case — and I must say that Google integration is way more complicated than it was. As All-in-One Event Calendar uses Google Maps this became an issue for me.

One thing is what Google does. Alone setting up the bits and pieces at console.developers.google.com is quite complicated. After adding a second and third project my first one doesn’t work anymore. I must confess: This is a bit too complicated for me and I probably have to invest several hours to find the problem.

The other thing regarding the Google Maps quota is All-in-One Event Calendar’s behaviour — and there could be a workaround for your project: There is an option in the All-in-One Event Calendar settings to activate Google Maps only after a click. Hopefully this will prevent the Google Maps counter from any action. ??

To me seems to make sense — in many cases the map is shown without any need.

-Frank

Kinsella55 wrote: “I will keep you updated.”

I appreciate this, Kinsella!

Thanks for your replies, akrems.

Thinking it over I agree with your opinion. The idea I had (an admin would have access to data anyhow so that there is no violation to GDPR) is not convincing.

I don’t agree though with your expression “dumb gdpr”. Even though there are some concerns I am convinced that GDPR helped a lot to enhance responsible handling of data.

Frank

Please help me to understand, akrems. Is this your scenario?

1. A user uses a Torro form to send a message.

2. Torro will save the message in the WP database and (if enabled) send the message to you or someone else via email.

3. Your concern is that the messages can be viewed by everyone who has access to the WP backend and not only the email recipient?

Even though I like the idea of an option to disable the storage of messages in the database I also wonder if admins’ access (who else should be allowed to access the Torro backend?) to messages would be a violation of GDPR.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,

Frank