We are revamping the page so it can be sent to an RSS feed or posted to a Facebook page w/out changing or reformatting it similar to a blog post.
Would it be possible to insert an internal link from the Umbraco tree (a news item) similar to what you do for an RSS feed w/little need to format.The idea would be for editors to insert news stories w/out the need to reformat them. The screenshot below is on a text page, but it shows the general idea.
Has anything changed in your package since the time of the above post which would address the request to more seamlessly integrate content from the Umbraco tree?
No everything works the same. Have a look a the video "Send newsletters from the content section" in the video-gallery: http://www.newsletterstudio.org/videos/
Thanks. However, I don't think you really answered the question. I viewed all of your videos. BTW, the background music is a real distraction - completely unnecessary - I turned the sound off. I'm senior content editor of 55 Umbraco sites under one version 4.11.10 installation. We are considering adding a newsletter feature. We're looking at your package vs. Constant Contact and MailChimp. I have already read the long post on the web where you essentially debated (very effectively I might add) someone who argued that the third party applications were a better choice.
As I see it the main benefit of your package is you can directly insert media images into a newsletter from the media library. And that's very convenient. As far as using the Umbraco UI for creating newsletters vs. Mailchimp/CC I can't really speak to that except to say that the version of TinyMCE in Umbraco lags way, way, way behind the competition (Wordpress/Joomla etc. in terms of extending it. TinyMCE in Umbraco lacks a spell-checker. This is pathetic. This is not your fault, but the lack of extensibility really limits what you can do in Umbraco. Umbraco has a very weak editor. Your newsletter package may indeed be a Mercedes, but TinyMCE, at least in Umbraco 4.11x is a Chevy (that's the lowest priced GM car).
I see you can also insert links into your newsletters. That's all well and good, but the real question is if you can insert content from other nodes in the Umbraco tree dynamically or to you need to open another Umbraco window and copy and paste the content from another node.
The most essential value proposition of creating a newsletter within Umbraco is 1)inserting media and 2) leveraging existing content via a tree controller type of UI. Clearly you have the former. It's not clear you have the latter.
I’m very glad to hear that you are considering the package for your web sites.
I guess that you are looking for is some kind of solution where you render your content with a custom template and then insert it using the “Render URL content”-feature, have you watched that video as well?
You could also use a custom content Umbraco-template like shown in the video you’ve watched and dynamically render the newsletter-node using your custom Umbraco-template.
Thanks for the feedback about the music – I’ll make sure to have a look at that for upcoming videos.
I’m not sure that I agree on what you are saying about TinyMCE since it’s extendable and if you don’t like the TinyMCE-rte you can just write your own property editors (data type) and use another rte. I think that Umbraco is extremely extensible and since I’m an official trainer, just let me know what you need to achieve and I’ll point you in the right direction. Some links here:
But I do understand that you may need something more “robust” to generate your newsletter-markup and my recommendation for that kind of case is to use Umbraco content nodes are source and set them up with more “blocks”-like properties and not just a rich text editor. I tend to create “newsletter container document type” and then have different “blocks” that the editor can add like “Text only”, “Text and image”, “Image only” etc.
2. You can do this either with the insert url content-feature or if you are sending from the content-section since you are using regular Umbraco templates (views) to render the content.
Please let me know if you need any further assistance.
re: the spellchecker, believe me, its not as easy as you saying. Google has disconnected the underlying spell check engine which TinyMCE was reliant on; we tried HunSpellChecker and that was a disaster - blew up our development server, and we're in a .net environment. It's truly shocking how many Umbraco extensions have significant bugs in their installation and/or uninstall routines as well as poor documentation. (Your extremely well-supported application is clearly not one of them.)In contrast, it took me all of 5 minutes (as a content editor) to install a WordPress plugin. Umbraco is always behind on support for versions of TinyMCE as well. So now I check spelling in Google Chrome in the HTML.
I will have my developer look at the dynamic content feature.
I see, I have not used it in a while but the chrome spellchecker works for me as well – did you report the bug here http://issues.umbraco.org/ ? You could of course add a custom tinymce plugin with a spellchecker but I guess that’s too much work – I tend to use word sometimes and then copy my content – I like that spellchecker better.
I know what you mean – some plugins don’t really keep up with the changes in the core, the “karma” or “votes” for the plugins/packages are a good pointer. If they have some votes they are more likely to me maintained.
Umbraco and WordPress is very different in inner workings and if the packages are complex it takes some work to keep up with changes in the core – that’s why I think the commercial packages survive since we continuously work on improvements, bug fixes and to support new stuff in Umbraco. I don’t think that the TinyMCE-version in Umbraco is a problem, I like to strive for a setup that never force my editors to insert tables or pictures in the RTE, they only use it for rich text (and links).
Sounds great! Just let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Repurposing Existing Content for Newsletter
This is our current internal newsfeed. Each item is a page in the Content area.
http://surgery.ucsf.edu/news--events.aspx
We are revamping the page so it can be sent to an RSS feed or posted to a Facebook page w/out changing or reformatting it similar to a blog post.
Would it be possible to insert an internal link from the Umbraco tree (a news item) similar to what you do for an RSS feed w/little need to format.The idea would be for editors to insert news stories w/out the need to reformat them. The screenshot below is on a text page, but it shows the general idea.
See screenshot.
This thread is roughly along the lines of my comment above, at least the portion about adding content directly.
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/backoffice-extensions/newsletter-studio/comments/27732-Using-umbraco-pages-as-content-for-newsletter?p=1
Has anything changed in your package since the time of the above post which would address the request to more seamlessly integrate content from the Umbraco tree?
Hi!
No everything works the same. Have a look a the video "Send newsletters from the content section" in the video-gallery: http://www.newsletterstudio.org/videos/
Let me know if you need any more help!
Cheers!
Thanks. However, I don't think you really answered the question. I viewed all of your videos. BTW, the background music is a real distraction - completely unnecessary - I turned the sound off. I'm senior content editor of 55 Umbraco sites under one version 4.11.10 installation. We are considering adding a newsletter feature. We're looking at your package vs. Constant Contact and MailChimp. I have already read the long post on the web where you essentially debated (very effectively I might add) someone who argued that the third party applications were a better choice.
As I see it the main benefit of your package is you can directly insert media images into a newsletter from the media library. And that's very convenient. As far as using the Umbraco UI for creating newsletters vs. Mailchimp/CC I can't really speak to that except to say that the version of TinyMCE in Umbraco lags way, way, way behind the competition (Wordpress/Joomla etc. in terms of extending it. TinyMCE in Umbraco lacks a spell-checker. This is pathetic. This is not your fault, but the lack of extensibility really limits what you can do in Umbraco. Umbraco has a very weak editor. Your newsletter package may indeed be a Mercedes, but TinyMCE, at least in Umbraco 4.11x is a Chevy (that's the lowest priced GM car).
I see you can also insert links into your newsletters. That's all well and good, but the real question is if you can insert content from other nodes in the Umbraco tree dynamically or to you need to open another Umbraco window and copy and paste the content from another node.
The most essential value proposition of creating a newsletter within Umbraco is 1)inserting media and 2) leveraging existing content via a tree controller type of UI. Clearly you have the former. It's not clear you have the latter.
Hi Richard!
I’m very glad to hear that you are considering the package for your web sites.
I guess that you are looking for is some kind of solution where you render your content with a custom template and then insert it using the “Render URL content”-feature, have you watched that video as well?
You could also use a custom content Umbraco-template like shown in the video you’ve watched and dynamically render the newsletter-node using your custom Umbraco-template.
Thanks for the feedback about the music – I’ll make sure to have a look at that for upcoming videos.
I’m not sure that I agree on what you are saying about TinyMCE since it’s extendable and if you don’t like the TinyMCE-rte you can just write your own property editors (data type) and use another rte. I think that Umbraco is extremely extensible and since I’m an official trainer, just let me know what you need to achieve and I’ll point you in the right direction. Some links here:
http://www.tinymce.com/wiki.php/Plugin3x:spellchecker
http://our.umbraco.org/forum/getting-started/installing-umbraco/17476-Spell-Checker-in-TinyMCE
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/backoffice-apis/tinymce-spellchecker
But I do understand that you may need something more “robust” to generate your newsletter-markup and my recommendation for that kind of case is to use Umbraco content nodes are source and set them up with more “blocks”-like properties and not just a rich text editor. I tend to create “newsletter container document type” and then have different “blocks” that the editor can add like “Text only”, “Text and image”, “Image only” etc.
Yes you can insert dynamic content using the “insert url content”-feature: http://www.newsletterstudio.org/videos/.
1. No problem
2. You can do this either with the insert url content-feature or if you are sending from the content-section since you are using regular Umbraco templates (views) to render the content.
Please let me know if you need any further assistance.
Sincerely / Markus
Thanks for the detailed reply.
re: the spellchecker, believe me, its not as easy as you saying. Google has disconnected the underlying spell check engine which TinyMCE was reliant on; we tried HunSpellChecker and that was a disaster - blew up our development server, and we're in a .net environment. It's truly shocking how many Umbraco extensions have significant bugs in their installation and/or uninstall routines as well as poor documentation. (Your extremely well-supported application is clearly not one of them.)In contrast, it took me all of 5 minutes (as a content editor) to install a WordPress plugin. Umbraco is always behind on support for versions of TinyMCE as well. So now I check spelling in Google Chrome in the HTML.
I will have my developer look at the dynamic content feature.
Hi!
I see, I have not used it in a while but the chrome spellchecker works for me as well – did you report the bug here http://issues.umbraco.org/ ? You could of course add a custom tinymce plugin with a spellchecker but I guess that’s too much work – I tend to use word sometimes and then copy my content – I like that spellchecker better.
I know what you mean – some plugins don’t really keep up with the changes in the core, the “karma” or “votes” for the plugins/packages are a good pointer. If they have some votes they are more likely to me maintained.
Umbraco and WordPress is very different in inner workings and if the packages are complex it takes some work to keep up with changes in the core – that’s why I think the commercial packages survive since we continuously work on improvements, bug fixes and to support new stuff in Umbraco. I don’t think that the TinyMCE-version in Umbraco is a problem, I like to strive for a setup that never force my editors to insert tables or pictures in the RTE, they only use it for rich text (and links).
Sounds great! Just let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Cheers
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