This follows on from a blog post I wrote recently about the WordPress Welcome Email Editor. I have released the plugin into the WordPress Extend Directory. This page is used to host a changelog and screenshots.
As there were no hooks for the welcome email I had to override the wp_new_user_notification function and write my own then simply converted it to use Options and wrote a nice admin page for it. Let me know if I can extend it at all or if you find any bugs..
Downloads have been moved to the WordPress Plugin Directory although you can download the first version below.
>> WordPress Welcome Editor Plugin Page
Admin Email Received
Admin Page for Plugin
Email Received By User
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Hello Sean! I would like to use this plugin on a wordpress buddypress installation. Will it work with buddypress?
And, if so, is there anything different or special about using it on buddypress?
Thanks!
Dianne
Hi Dianne,
Thanks for your message. Yes it will work with Buddy Press although not when in multi site mode. I have been working on multi site to get things functioning but it’s pending at the moment. I have included support for BuddyPress profile data in the settings for my plugin which you might find useful.
thanks
Sean
Thanks for your reply, Sean! What I need is to be able to edit the email that goes out to the person who becomes a user from the top level – NOT any users that this person may permit on his own blog that he may create once he is a user, just when HE becomes a user on my top level buddypress blog (hope that makes sense).
In other words, I have buddypress on a blog that will allow people to create their own blogs. I want to be able to edit the welcome email that THIS person gets. I have no need to edit the emails that would go out from his blog – just the one going out from my buddypress installation.
So my new question is: When you say it will work with BuddyPress but not multi-site mode, is this what you mean?
Hi Sean,
your plugin worked great! everything went fine but i realise that after changing the ‘From Email Address’ and ‘Send Admin Email To…’ field to my domain email address, there isn’t any more new user signup notification to me (admin) already.
Can i ask what went wrong? i need the new user notifcation to be sent to me(admin) as well.
i have tried adding the admin email to the ‘additional email headers’ but it doesn’t work.
btw, the domain email address and the admin email address are the same address.
Thanks!
Dear Sean,
Thank you for your work on the Wolcome Email Editor. When looking thru your code the other day, I discovered some very serious security issues!
Admins can send users their current password over email. The welcome email can be configured to include the user’s password. The practice of sending passwords by email is simply not done. Ever.
It seems that a copy of the users password in kept in the usermeta table without any form of encryption. What’s the point of keeping a copy of the password? Besides that, why isn’t that copy encrypted?
User password have to be known to the user only. No admin should be able to retreive any user password in any way. All passwords must be stored in the database with encryption and salted with a hash. Now, in case the database gets hacked, all user passwords are out in the open in plain sight.
Maybe I’m missing something here, so please enlighten me why plain text copies of user passwords are in the database.
Hi Ruben,
Thanks for your message. You are correct it does store the passwords in Plaintext. This is simply to power the password reminder feature of the system. Other people have expressed the same comments as you too and to everyone I say this is a feature of my plugin.. I make no excuses for the insecurity of it however I do provide an option to turn off the password reminder feature and then no passwords will be stored and the database purged of those it does have already.
I see no issue in providing a means for the admin to get the passwords in their inbox their their email. I don’t use it personally and don’t know many people that would however it’s another feature of the system and the admin can choose to keep this information if they like. I don’t publicise this feature so really only those people who go over the plugin as you have will find it. Therefore logically anyone who wants to get the user password in their inbox goes into it knowingly.
Thanks again for your feedback. It’s all aprpeciated.
thanks
Sean
great plugin, thanks a lot!
Hi!
Nice plugin, works fine overall!
Is there a way other than reading the links in the user-table to determine, which user-id(s) to send the mails to?
Thanks in advance,
Matthias
Hey Matthias,
Thanks.. I presume you mean for the admin email. It’s relatively straightforward. Just go to your users admin page and move your mouse over ‘edit’ or visit the profile of another user (except yourself) and it will be shown in the URL.
thanks
Sean
I found a conflict with another plugin called User Spam Remover. (http://lyncd.com/user-spam-remover) When I activate it, it disables your plugin.
I receive the error from you plugin in my dashboard “SB Welcome Email Editor can not function because another plugin is conflicting. Please disable other plugins until this message disappears to fix the problem.”
I’m hoping you can both talk to each other and work it out since I think both of your plugins are totally necessary for my project.
Hi Tom,
This has happened before. It’s why I wrote that error check. Simply change the name of the plugin directory from welcome_email_editor to something like a_welcome_email_editor or _welcome_email_editor. Then reactivate the plugin. WordPress loads plugins alphabetically and so another plugin loading before mine might cause the even that I hook onto to pass and for my plugin to not be active (as you are experiencing). Once renamed it will load first and work and then the User Spam plugin will be able to function normally too.
Let me know how you get on.
thanks
Sean
Rather than rename your plugin, I renamed the other so that it loads after yours. It activated without any issue and no errors are reported. Thanks for the attention to this. I really appreciate it.
Hello,
Loving the flexibility this plugin has given us. One issue we are having is that only new users created after the plugin was installed has the ‘Remind PW’ showing…all previous users don’t. Are you looking to fix this? Thank you.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for the feedback.. the Remind PW option is set because the system has their password stored in a format which can be retrieved and sent back to them. For older users preexisting the plugin install we don’t have that information so we can’t tell them their password. If they change their password using their profile then the Remind PW option will show as it stores the necessary info then also.
thanks
Sean
Thank you Sean for the quick response.
Best wishes,
Adam
Great plugin Sean.
Is it possible to provide a link on a page to allow the user to “remind himself” and have the password email to him?
The ability to have the user enter his username or password and if a match is found remind that user via the found email. If no match is found nothing happens or an error message.
Thanks Mike,
Good idea. I suppose there is argument there for them to use the lost password functionality within WordPress though?
ta
S
Everything works fine except 1 thing. The email that users receive (with username and password) doesn’t work. They still receive the simple standard WordPress email.
How can I solve this problem?
Ha ok
Looks like there must be a conflict with another plugin. Try deactivating all other plugins and seeing if it works. Then turning them back on one by one until it breaks. Or just rename the plugin of mine to a-welcome-email-editor. Then it will be loaded first in the list and will override any other conflicts.
ta
S
Can I rename it in the FTP or do I have to edit a file?
Hey Mark,
Just change the name of the plugin directory via FTP. Hopefully that will crack it.
ta
S
That didn’t solve the problem
Can I deactivate all plugins without losing there settings (like the SEO settings of the plugin WordPress SEO)? Or does that depend on the plugin?
I suspect you will be ok to deactivate them. Maybe take a backup first just to be sure
Hi Sean, great plugin!! My issue is, the conflict maybe with Cimy User Extra Field. Last version was working ok with the trick of the folder’s name “a-welcome-email-editor”. With this new update the conflict appears again.
Tnx for your time.
It will have renamed the plugin on update to the latest version. Check your system for the name and reactivate… it should be fine then.
thanks
Sean
Where is the reminder button? I can’t find it any where.
Thans
Hey Kimberly,
It shows only when you have the password stored for a user. New users who sign up will have their password captured and the remind button will show when you hover over their name in the user list in the admin area.
thanks
Sean
Hi Sean,
Any chance you will make this plugin compatible with WPMU (WordPress Multi-site)
Thanks!
Jon
Hi Jon, It’s on the list yes but it won’t be any time soon. I have a huge workload at the moment so finding time to work on this plugin is hard at the moment.
thanks
Sean
Hi Sean like the plugin, query i have is it all works fine apart from I get (Unknown Sender) in email title? I have filled out admin form to best of my knowledge and I’m sure it is something trivial can you help?
Hi Sam.
Try using the WP Mail SMTP plugin.. that should sort it maybe?
thanks
Sean
Hi Sean, great plugin. Question for you, It all works fine however when a new customer registers to my account say with the charity package they receive an email with the from title as (Unknown Sender), I also have the plugin “Configure SMTP” do you think this may be conflicting with it?
Maybe.. try my most recent version. I recommend the WP Mail SMTP plugin but suspect Configure SMTP works in the same way.
thanks
Sean
Ty for this. Is it possible to include the activation link in this welcome email, for a BP site? thanks.
Thanks Jz, currently the system doesn’t support Multi site and therefore won’t support BP fully like that. The activation code for BP I think is a different email which is sent before the welcome email if memory serves me. Multi site and BP support is something I intend to add next..
thanks
Sean
Hi Sean,
I am looking for a plugin for a new site and wondering if yours will allow me to:
1. provide a “welcome back” message on the screen for Clients and/or Associates, and
2. identify how long it has been since they lasted visited and logged in.
I.e a message like: “Welcome Back! We have missed you since your last visit on [date]
Or, … since your last visit XX days ago.
Hi Sean,
Great plug-in you have made, thanks for your efforts.
One thing I have noticed on version 3.7.
HTML is not set for the Forgot Password Message, even though Send Email As HTML is choosen.
The message appears in test format.
Any way of changing this?
Regards,
Jim
Thanks Jim,
On the list..
ta
S
Just noticed your plugin is not available from the WordPress plugins area – what happened?
It was withdrawn for the remind password feature so I shall be removing this in a week or two and checking it in again. It is due a bit of a revamp anyway I think. Watch this space!
Ta
S
that was very nice feature is it possible to somehow get it back? thank you
No not really. Their issue was that the password was stored unencrypted. Sadly there is no way to store a password that can be decrypted in a secure manner. You can hide the passwords and obfuscate them but you always need to be able to reverse it to send the password to the user. Therefore this had to be removed as a security risk. I agree with the WP ruling on it. sorry but the feature can not return..
It’s back now!
I getting an error message today ” SB Welcome Email can not function because another plugin is conflicting. Please disable other plugins until this message disappears to fix the problem.”
The problem plug in is User Access Manager v. 1.2.4.1 but I don’t know what the problem is or why it suddenly started. Please help!
Thank you
Joerg
Hey Joerg,
Try renaming the plugin directory to awelcome-email-editor.. prefixing the a will bring it up the load queue in WordPress and might stop that issue.
ta
S
Hello Sean,
I foud the conflict with Contact Form 7, I tried the solution to rename plugin folder in a-welcome-email-editor but seem didn’t work, any suhhestion?
Thank you
Hey Jimmy,
Which conflict do you mean? There is a known issue with Contact Form 7 which I have yet to fix but that is to do with setting the FROM address for emails going out. Is it that one?
ta
S
Hi Sean,
thank you for answer. Yes I mean exactly that conflict, I already found some solutions but didsn’t work, any suggest?