Here as a hobyist at the moment, as I am on my holidays from phpList ldt.
Am working on my advanced list segmentation, but having some issues with the preferences pages.
First of all, all my attributes show on the preferences pages, even those I would like to keep secret. This is driving me crazy because some of these really should not be seen by the subscriber ideally.
Secondly, I would quite like to be able to send subscribers to a specifically designed preferences page, rather than the one phpList “builds” for them. I have been managing with a complex array of subscribe pages so far, but really, it would be great to have these auto filled with the subscribers data like a preferences page. Anyone know if I can just add some =ID type bit to the URL to achieve this?
[quote=“anna, post:1, topic:1515”]
First of all, all my attributes show on the preferences pages, even those I would like to keep secret.[/quote]
You might be referring to something a bit different but the preferences page is based on the subscribe page, and on that you can select which attributes should appear.
You can still set attribute values through admin functions or importing, but only those selected will appear to the subscriber.
You can certainly specify which of your subscribe pages to direct your subscribers to, just use “/test/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1” where &id= your specific subscribe page number, found by looking at the number given on your admin subscribe page.
As for using secret attributes, for example if you wanted to have a field which you fill in, rather than the subscriber, to signify a specific detail to show how they subscribed, you’d need to be able to edit the page HTML code I think to set the type value to “hidden”. Not something that phpList current allows as far as I know. Maybe @duncanC knows differently?
So the issue seems to be people who were subscribed by an csv import, ie: never used a subscribe page, get sent to a generic preferences page which shows all attributes. Any idea how to remove the attributes from there?
I will give you an example, I import attributes like “Last-order” and “average-order value” - useful for attribute send or just for the info, or even occasionally to say “we can see that your last order was [LAST ORDER] - thats a few years ago now, perhaps you would like to unsubscribe from our lists?”
But at the same time don’t really want subscribers to see that I have imported that kind of info about them, or to be able to edit it at any point.
So each subscribe page has a different function or topic, some people may sign up on a specific page for the first time, like Discounts or Products, but most people are simply specifying what mails they want and don’t, for example, “don’t mail me about…” allows me to “list exclude” people from mails which are about politics or expensive items, and even make a temporary opt-out list for people who need a break.
My problems are two fold.
Anyone who was simply uploaded and never used a page gets this problem preferences page which contains all attributes
As soon as they use one page for the first time, like “discounts” the prefrences url gives them options based n that page. It won’t give them any options for the other pages, even if they have been manually added to lists which are on those pages.
3 ) I am using these footer links as preferences pages, but they are technically subscribe pages, so the data won’t be auto-filled for them (I don’t think). So for example if someone goes to “ethical issues” and I have already added them to the list “vegan” (because they have bought a vegan product) they should be able to uncheck the list “vegan” if they decide they don’t want mails about that topic. That is normally the role of preferences pages, but that a) that only works if the pages are auto-filled, which subscribe pages are not and b) number 2 above means I can’t use the prefrences url to good effect.
I could just never use [PREFRENCESURL] and always give links to the pages separately, but I would like to the data to be autofilled as in 3).
I could make one massive subscribe page which would give one massive preferences page, but it does really give the ease of use I would like for subscribers.
I know I am pushing at the limits of phpLists normal functionality here, but I am really interested to see what this software can do in this area. It was @clotilde that got me motivated to finish my subscribe page experiments
I think the key issue is weather or not you can put a reference to the user in the subscribe page ID to make it behave like a preferences page. I can imagine sending a mail with links like
@michiel is this possible? If not I guess I will make a feature request.
This would give phpList admins more control over the whole process without messing with the preferences system. Then I just would not use the [PREFRENCESURL] at all.
