Module Overview

Simplenews publishes and sends newsletters to lists of subscribers. Both anonymous and authenticated users can opt-in to different mailing lists. HTML email can be sent by using Drupal Symfony Mailer (or Mime Mail module for D7).

Dedicated handbook pages are available on: sending emails and theming newsletters.

Quickstart (for Drupal 7 version)

• Install and enable the module (and its dependencies).
• Adjust Simplenews configuration settings at /admin/config/services/simplenews. There you can also set newsletter "categories", each of which is a mailing list.
• Create/edit a content type that you want to be for newsletters. The crucial setting is in the "Publishing options" tab, labeled "Use as simplenews newsletter".
• Subscribe members via /admin/people/simplenews. Alternatively, people can subscribe themselves via subscription blocks (which you expose at /admin/structure/block).
• Create a node of the enabled content type. After saving, you'll see a "Newsletter" tab, through which you can send the node as a newsletter.

Requirements

• Taxonomy module for D7.
• Large mailing lists require cron (poormans cron can be used but not recommended)
• HTML-format newsletters and/or newsletters with attachments require mime mail module. Note that after installing mime mail module you need to enable html both in the simplenews and the mime mail settings: admin/config/services/simplenews/settings and admin/config/system/mimemail.

Installation

• Create a new directory "simplenews" in the sites/all/modules directory and place the entire contents of this simplenews folder in it.
• Enable the module on the Modules admin page: Administer > Modules
• Grant the access at the Permissions page: Administer > People > Permissions (or Administration > People > Permissions if using Drupal 7).

Configuration

Configure Simplenews on the Simplenews admin pages: Configuration > Web Services > Simplenews (Administration > Configuration > Web Services > Newsletters for D7).

Access control

To enable users to (un)subscribe to a newsletter use the "subscribe to newsletters" permission. This will enable the subscription form in the Simplenews block and give access to the subscription page at /newsletter/subscriptions (D7) or simplenews/subscriptions (D8+).

To restrict the access for different newsletters only to its audience, you may use some of the access control modules like Taxonomy Access Control Lite.

Simplenews blocks

With the Simplenews block users can subscribe to a newsletter. For each newsletter one block is available. To enable it:

1. Navigate to Administration > Structure > Block layout.
2. Choose the theme you're interested in from the subtabs.
3. Find the region where you'd like to place the blocks, and hit the Place block button.
4. Configure the block in the modal window, and then hit Save block.
5. At Administration > People > Permissions, permission "Subscribe to newsletters" is required to access the subscription form in the block or to view the link to the subscription form.
6. If it needs to be accessible by anonymous users, clear the caches.

For Drupal 7, go to Administer > Structure > Blocks, and then visit the block configuration page to configure the block settings. Everything else is the same.

Simplenews block theming (D7)

More control over the content of simplenews blocks can be achieved using the block theming. Theme your simplenews block by copying simplenews-block.tpl.php into your theme directory and edit the content. The file is self documented listing all available variables.
The newsletter block can be themed generally and per newsletter:
* simplenews-block.tpl.php (for all newsletters)
* simplenews-block--[tid].tpl.php (for newsletter series tid)

Multilingual support

Simplenews supports multilingual newsletters for node translation, multilingual taxonomy and url path prefixes. When translated newsletter issues are available subscribers receive the newsletter in their preferred language (according to account setting). Translation module is required for newsletter translation.

Multilingual taxonomy of 'Localized terms' and 'per language terms' is supported. 'Per language vocabulary' is not supported. I18n-taxonomy module is required.

Use 'Localized terms' for a multilingual newsletter. Taxonomy terms are translated and translated newsletters are each tagged with the same (translated) term. Subscribers receive the newsletter in the preferred language set in their account settings or in the site default language. Use 'per language terms' for mailing lists each with a different language. Newsletters of different language each have their own tag and own list of subscribers.
Path prefixes are added to the footer message according to the subscribers preferred language.

The preferred language of anonymous users is set based on the interface language of the page they visit for subscription. Anonymous users can not change their preferred language. Users with an account on the site will be subscribed with the preferred language as set in their account settings.

HTML for Newsletter only

If you only want to send html newsletters and not set the entire site to use html as default for sending emails, got to the Mail System Settings (/admin/config/system/mailsystem), select 'Mail Simplenews Newsletter' (under New Setting), save and set the 'Simplenews module class' in the 'Mail System Settings' to 'MimeMailSystem' or 'HTMLMailSystem'.

Useful tip for a standalone newsletter subscription page

Here's how to create a standalone page that JUST lets a user subscribe to a newsletter:

• Create a new Page called "Subscribe to Newsletter" or whatever you want.
• Add to the body of the page whatever text you would like
• Go to the block administration page.
• Enable the "subscribe" block from Simplenews, and put it in the content region of the page.
• Configure the block. Down at the bottom of the configuration page, select the setting that says "Display ONLY on the following pages." Put the path to the page you created there.

Useful end user links related to newsletters

There are a couple of direct links that any visitor can use to access newsletters: "www.example.com" should be replaced with your Drupal installation's URL.

Subscribing to newsletters, and managing your subscriptions:
http://www.example.com/newsletter/subscriptions

To view sent issues of the "my-news" newsletter:
http://www.example.com/category/newsletter/my-news

This URLs assume you have Clean URL's enabled. If not, you need to put "?q=" after "example.com/" if they are not.

Hide image labels in newsletters

If you are using CKEditor to create newsletters and also adding images, everything may look well in CKEditor and the node itself, but in the newsletter that get sent out, there can be an "Image" label above images. The label CSS class may be visually-hidden, but the CSS itself is missing.

You can fix this under the Image Media type Display settings (/admin/structure/media/manage/image/display), changing "Visually hidden" to "Hidden", and the label is now not shown.