Hi,

By law you need to have a, unsubscribe link in an unsolicited email, otherwise its considered spam.

I saw an email suggesting you have to start developing pages with Data Assist to create the code required to unsubscribe a user.

Your FAQ state that you don't need coding knowledge or other webassist products to use Power Messenger.

So, without creating new pages or buying other products, now do I add a link for users to unsubscribe from my newsletters?

There is an unsubscribe link token you can add through the interface... or you can add it manually:

<a href="*:Unsubscribe:*">Unsubscribe</a></p>

I have added this token but when you click on the link in the email I get the following error:

Not Found

The requested URL /home/livingwi/public_html/newsletter/unsubscribe.php was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


The link should be to: /newsletter/unsubscribe.php

OK, further to what I have already said, I like most users it seems would like an unsubscribe feature that does not require the user to log on.

To accomplish this I have replaced the unsubscribe.php file with my own that accepts one URL parameter "UserEmail" the user is presented with a "Confirm" button which when pressed updates the database setting the "UserSubscribed" field to 0.

In my newsletter template I have added the following link:

<a href="http://newsletter.livingwisdom.com.au/unsubscribe.php?UserEmail=*:UserEmail:*">Unsubscribe</a>

This should work fine, using the UserEmail token. I have two issues. One, when I click on the "unsubscribe" link I get sent to the following URL:

newsletter.livingwisdom.com.au/home/livingwi/public_html/newsletter/link.php?id=MjdAQF9QTV9TRVBfQEAxQEBfUE1fU0VQX0BAMjM=

This link is not resolving correctly to the root of my website (the part in red is superfluous)

Secondly when I remove the the red portion of the url and refresh the page, I'm sent to:

unsubscribe.php?UserEmail=*:UserEmail:*

As you can see the UserEmail token has not resolved correctly.

I have created a support ticket so we can look into this issue further.

To view and edit your support ticket, please log into your support history:
supporthistory.php

If anyone else is experiencing this same issue, please append to this thread.

I also would like to provide a possibility to unsubscribe without to require the user to log in.

I would like to have it like this:

User clicks the Unsubscribe link in the email and is taken to a new page lets say
unsubscribe_request.php.

This page has a form with only one field where the user enters the email-address
he wants to unsubscribe. (Similar like the email password page.)

If he clicks "send" the database IS NOT immediately updated by setting the
"UserSubscribed" field to 0 - like suggested in the post before.

Instead an email is sent to the entered email-address:

If you want to unsubscribe from the list please click here: "Unsubscribe-Link"

If this link is clicked the appropriate email will be subscribed by updating the database
setting the "UserSubscribed" field to 0.

(The step sending an email to the entered email-address is important, so that
no one can unsubsubscribe an email that doesn't belong to them!)

My Question is:

How should be the code of this last "Unsubscribe-Link" to achieve the result of
finding the right email address in the database and setting the "UserSubscribed"
field to 0 ?

Thank you!

For those of you who want the option of users unsubscribing without having the user log in, this is the way it was accomplished in my case:

1. Create a new page called unsubscribe_confirmation.php using the themed_content template. Add whatever message you want to display after the user has unsubscribed i.e. "You have been unsubscribed from our Newsletter." in the "main" editable region.

2. Open the file unsubscribe.php Select "SecurityAssist Restrict Access to Page" in the Server Behaviors panel and click the minus button to delete it.

3. Go to code view in the file and search for where the variable $canView is set and change the value set to "true" i.e in my case this was line 24

$canView = getUserCanViewPage($MailingInfo);

Change it to...

$canView = true; // getUserCanViewPage($MailingInfo);

and line 90

$canView = getUserCanViewPage($qsID);

change to...

$canView = true; //getUserCanViewPage($qsID);

4. Change the redirects to send you to the file you created in step one. In my case there were two, one in line 40

$WA_redirectURL = "unsubscribe_confirmation.php";

and one in line 78

header('Location: unsubscribe_confirmation.php');

Save the file and that's it. I realise that there are probably other ways to do this, but this gives the desired result for me.

Originally Said By: Lee Firth

  For those of you who want the option of users unsubscribing without having the user log in, this is the way it was accomplished in my case:

...  

Can this be done for the "View this email in a browser?
It seems that some people are not willing to log in to see the newsletter.

Just wondered if it could be done or not.

Thanks
TroyD

register a dummy user in the power messenger users database and make note of the user ID.

then in the archive.php file, change the following code:

to:

where 1 is the ID of the dummy user created

then find this code:

and unset the user session;

Thanks Jason.

I made all the changes to the archive.php file and a dummy account was created using the ID 1. This worked for the email sent to the dummy account (maybe I shouldn't have entered one). However, my other test account can't see the email in the browser without first logging in.

So to recap. Email was sent out, only two in the audience.
1-Dummy account to real email address
2-Test user account to different email address

Logged out, cleared all history and cookies, closed browser.
Clicked on Test users email but it wants me to log in.
Clicked on Dummy account email and it opens perfectly in the browser without logging in.

So it seems to be setting the session that user with ID 1 is automatically logged in when clicking from their email but won't let anyone else view it. Did I miss a step?

Thanks
TroyD