Genesis eNews Extended

Future Development

Genesis eNews Extended was built for a specific need—an easy way to have a subscription form that matched the design of the typical Genesis-based child theme. This was in an era where web design was virtually all done outside of WordPress in CSS and the like.

As the Site Editor has advanced over time and Blocks have replaced Widgets, Genesis eNews Extended doesn’t serve a real need in this environment.

It’s a simple plugin. It’ll stay compatible with WordPress for years to come without any action on my part (except confirming and updating the “Tested To” metadata). If you’re using a classic theme with classic widgets, keep using it!

I’m not going to update it to provide a block or move away from the classic widget framework.

Last Updated: 25-Feb-2021, Latest Stable: ver. 2.2.0

Installation Help? I have an old list of providers.

Genesis eNews Extended History

I use Genesis by StudioPress now. When helping install one of their themes, I didn’t like having to screw around with CSS to make a non-Feedburner subscribe form look the same as the subscribe forms in the demos. This plugin fixed that.

In addition, Brian Gardner reached out to me about Genesis 1.9. In 1.9, StudioPress began to depreciate the eNews Widget is Genesis core and recommends this plugin. The previous eNews widget was wholly removed in Genesis 2.0

Lastly, while the plugin was designed with Genesis in mind, nothing in it prevents it from functioning on a non-Genesis site.

Download the latest stable version: Genesis eNews Extended 2.2.0

The widget asks for the form action, the e-mail field name and any hidden fields. On your mailing list provider’s code, copy/paste the<form action="COPY JUST THIS PART"> into the form action box and the <input name="THIS FIELD" type="text" /> of the e-mail form field into the “e-mail field” name box. If your service uses hidden fields <input type="hidden"...>, paste that in the proper box. (More detailed tutorials for select services.)

I’ve confirmed it works with Feedburner, MailChimp, Constant Contact, FeedBlitz and others.

Known Issues: Tracked on GitHub.

Changelog

Visit the WordPress.org changelog.

Support

Support is no longer offered for this plugin.

Comments

51 responses to “Genesis eNews Extended”

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Reply
Dave

September 30, 2013

Having trouble getting widget to connect to Feedburner, when email address is entered get error message saying email subscriptions are not turned on for website. my site bfavery.com

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  November 5, 2013
  
  That typically means the Feedburner ID isn’t the right one or within Feedburner, the e-mail subscription option hasn’t been turned on.
  
  Reply
Ali Burden-Blake

October 3, 2013

Works with Campaign Monitor too 🙂 Thanks!

Reply
John Bogdanski

November 10, 2013

No Luck with aweber tho’.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  November 21, 2013
  
  If you still need help, can you open a thread at http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-enews-extended ? Thanks! The plugin has worked for Aweber for a lot of folks.
  
  Reply
Damien

November 21, 2013

Where is the more detailed Mailchimp tutorial you mention above? I have the form action working fine but it is not posting the name and email to the form when it opens in a new window. The instructions above are not very clear on what to put in the Email and First Name fields in the widget.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  November 21, 2013
  
  Hi Damien,
  
  There’s a link to the instructions at the top of the page, but here’s a direct link to the screencast for MailChimp: https://kraft.blog/contrib/plugins/genesis-enews-extended/install/#mailchimp
  
  If you have any issues, please open a ticket at http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-enews-extended
  
  Thanks!
  
  Reply
vicentedepablo

November 29, 2013

Hi! Love the plugin. What about Wysija compatibility?? does it work yet?? Thank you very much. Cheers, V.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  November 29, 2013
  
  Some in the past been able to get it working: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/getting-this-to-work-with-wysija
  
  I’m waiting on a patch from the Wysija team that will hopefully make it smoother.
  
  Reply
vicentedepablo

November 29, 2013

Thank you very much indeed for your prompt reply Brandon 🙂
I will check it. I was just trying with a Wysija widget I had just seen in my widgets page but obviously it woud be better to go with your Genesis own solution integrated in most studiopress’s themes’ design…

thanks, I will try and be waiting pro the patch too. :=)

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  November 29, 2013
  
  Their widget will work just fine, but likely won’t be styled as the eNews widget would be.
  
  If I don’t get something from them soon, I might just try to figure it out myself 🙂
  
  Reply
vicentedepablo

November 29, 2013

Yep. It works wonderfully, I just tried. E-mail verification without leaving your wordpress, no external redirection involved, very pro-looking proccess. Not very different from enews extended in genesis sample theme at least (I am checking it now in http://vicenti.co sidebar if you need to check) so it doesn’t seem difficult to style back to the theme’s design even for a newbie like me.
However, if you are so kind… I think the best way is going with Genesis Enews Extended to get each Genesis Theme’s best and be sure you are getting the advantages of the framework…
Thank you very much for the replies (and the eventual solution/try 😉

Reply
bmchaves

December 6, 2013

Hello Brandon
I’m in Portugal and I’m making a webpage for a public library.
I am working with the Agency child theme pro
I can not configure the GENESIS EXTENDED ENEWS mainly form action fields and email field
How do? I have to subscribe to me to stay there in the Champi registered users?
please need your help.
thank you

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  December 6, 2013
  
  Hi,
  
  This may take a few back and forth responses. Can you open a new thread at the bottom of http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-enews-extended and include what mailing list service you’re using? Thanks!
  
  Reply
hai nusantara

December 23, 2013

hy just say thx about your information..:)

Reply
Carsten

January 1, 2014

Just updating. MailPoet works fine on WP 3.8, Genesis 2.0.1, out of the box 🙂 All the best Carsten

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  January 1, 2014
  
  Thanks! I haven’t heard of any bugs yet. Likely launch this week.
  
  Reply
scriptcrazy

January 3, 2014

Hi! Do you have a tutorial for use on Outreach child theme?

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  January 3, 2014
  
  I haven’t tried out the new Outreach theme, but checking at the code, it looks like it would be compatible out of the box. Install the theme, install the plugin, and add the widget where you’d like, then configure it for your service.
  
  Reply
Org Spring (@OrgSpring)

January 26, 2014

I confirmed this works with Emma email marketing and with outreach pro theme. I’ll post a tut later.

Reply
1. Quincy Zikmund
  
  October 23, 2015
  
  Did you ever get a tutorial up? I’m having the worst time trying to get this to work with Emma. Thanks! 🙂
  
  Reply
sebokelly

February 16, 2014

Is anyone using Genesis eNews Extended with Sendy? If so, are there any issues?

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  February 21, 2014
  
  I haven’t heard of anyone using it and not personally familiar with it.
  
  Reply
Patty

March 19, 2014

(A more in-depth tutorial for MailChimp is below.)
Where, please? I see a link, but it just goes to MailChimp.com.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  March 19, 2014
  
  Sorry about that—missed that text when moving the tutorials to their own page: https://kraft.blog/contrib/plugins/genesis-enews-extended/install/
  
  Reply
Patty

March 19, 2014

Wow, that was fast. Thanks, Brandon! It’s a nice plugin, I appreciate it.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  March 19, 2014
  
  Thanks for pointing out my slip up! I’m sure many have left the site frustrated by that 🙁 Cheers!
  
  Reply
Carol Poortvliet

April 15, 2014

If I’m using the plugin with Feedburner, how do I get the first and last name fields to show up in the form? I’ve entered the Feedburner ID in the appropriate setting field and left everything else to the default.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  April 15, 2014
  
  The last I checked, Feedburner didn’t support extra fields so it isn’t enabled to prevent lost data.
  
  Reply
  1. Carol Poortvliet
    
    April 15, 2014
    
    So it sounds like if I want to be able to gather the subscriber’s name along with their email, I’ll need to use a feed service other than Feedburner. Like Feedblitz, MailChimp, etc?
    
    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft
      
      April 15, 2014
      
      I’m not sure off the top of my head re FeedBlitz, but MailChimp does offer that.
      
      Reply
Jack

April 23, 2014

Somehow I can’t get the widget to look the way it should look. I’m using Dynamic Website Builder together with Genesis. Are there perhaps some plugins not compatible?

I’m sorry, always difficult question when css is involved 🙁

This is how it looks at the moment: http://storage8.static.itmages.com/i/14/0423/h_1398278250_3394578_3ed41596d5.jpeg

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  April 30, 2014
  
  I’m not familiar with Dynamic Website Builder. You can target those two form elements using #subbox1 #subbox2 in CSS.
  
  Reply
Thendral

April 26, 2014

Hi Brandon,

The Plugin is awesome… ! Just one thing…. will I be able to customise the content and maybe the UI of the Confirmation Page, Email Template etc.

Thanks in advance,
Thendral

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  April 26, 2014
  
  That is all dependent on your mailing list service. MailChimp allows you to do all that (including specify what page on your site should be shown on success).
  
  The plugin, specifically, serves simply as a wrapper to the form itself to achieve unity across themes and services on form styling.
  
  Reply
Julia

September 16, 2015

Hi Brandon. Thanks so much for this plugin – love it! Are there any plans to enable a captcha or anything like that? I’m getting an increasing number of clients wanting to use MailChimp’s captcha to prevent spam signups. Would hate to have to go back to using MailChimp’s signup form instead of the plugin.

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  October 23, 2015
  
  There aren’t any direct plans at the moment. eNews is a pretty “simple” plugin—it doesn’t actually interact with any mailing list system directly, just provides a standardized form structure for sites to style against.
  
  Reply
Danny Brown

December 3, 2015

Hi Brandon, quick question – would it be possible to add Postmatic support for this? That would be awesome if so – thanks!

Reply
1. Brandon Kraft
  
  December 7, 2015
  
  As discussed in GitHub, this doesn’t look like a trivial addition, so not something foreseen in the near future. Postmatic is pretty sweet, though.
  
  Reply
  1. Jason Lemieux
    
    December 7, 2015
    
    Hey Brandon,
    
    Thanks for giving Postmatic integration some consideration. Looking at the plugin we can see why it would be non-trivial to make enews extended work with our subscribe api. Got it.
    
    If you ever do want to take the leap into doing an integration you can find our api docs below.
    http://docs.gopostmatic.com/article/106-subscribe
    
    Be well!
    Jason
    
    Reply
Lou Archell

July 27, 2018

Grab yourself a cuppa, I’m gonna share all about setting up an RSS feed in Mailchimp. Not that exciting, I know, but as it’s something I’ve only just worked out how to do, it might be useful information to you too. Here goes…
If you’ve been blogging for any length of time then you’ve probably heard the term “RSS Feed” tossed around. It’s how Bloglovin and feedly grab all of your blogs content. Every blog has an RSS feed, the easiest way to find yours is just add /feed to your blogs url.
But what can we do with this info?
In Mailchimp you take your average RSS feed up a notch. By using a newsletter service like Mailchimp you can take your standard feed and turn it into an email campaign. An automated newsletter that can be sent to your entire list, which will share all of your latest blog posts.
Simples!

HOW TO SETUP AN RSS FEED IN MAILCHIMP
Through Mailchimp you can customise your email so it has your brand colours, logo and all sorts of information that your mailing list subscribers will love to receive. And once you’ve added your RSS feed to it, Mailchimp does all the hard work for you.
Here’s a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to set up a FREE RSS to email campaign in MailChimp.
First of all, you are collecting subscribers to your newsletter, right? If not, it’s time to start. Just add a sign up form on your blog. I use the Genesis e news plugin on my blog. It’s neat looking, not glaring or distracting. But it’s up to you how you wish to collect subscribers.
Once you have set up your list and you have a few contacts… you need to start to create your newsletter.
Here’s how to set up your RSS to email campaign.

Log in to Mail Chimp and click “create campaign” on the top right side.
You’ll see these options:
create an email
create an ad
create a landing page
create a postcard
you will need to click on create an email.
next page, click automated. As you want your Mailchimp to run it for you.
then click, share blog updates.
it will then show you a share blog updates page… you can rename it here if you like… I haven’t bothered.
Use the pull down tab here to select your mailing list (if you have more than one).
Next add your RSS feed… remember this is your blogs URL /feed.
Timing. I’ve set mine up to go out every Friday at 5pm. So it will grab the people on their commute home, plus it’s something for people to read over the weekend if they like. But you can do it whenever you feel is best for you.
Next you are asked if you’d like to send it to a segment or the entire list. I’ve sent mine to my entire list.. again that is up to you.
Now you can start to customise your email. The email header… I put blog updates from Littlegreenshed so my followers know it’s from me. I leave the rest and click next.
Templates. This where you can get creative. I use the ‘tell a story’ template, but again you go wild and use whatever you wish.
Design. Here is your creative bit. From here you can add your blog logo, change the colours so it is in keeping with your brand and so on. So that Mailchimp know you want to use your RSS feed, you will need to add the RSS Items box. Just drag it into your template where you’d like it to go.
Once you’ve dragged that into place, you will see a pull down menu on the right show up. Excerpts, Titles Only, Full Content, Custom. I use Excerpts, as it shares just enough of the content, and an option to click through to the blog to read more. And in doing so, your blog gets more TRAFFIC!
Once you are happy with your design. ( you might want to add a call to action at the bottom – like follow me on Instagram or check out my shop) etc. You can test it to see if it’s all working. Click on the preview and test at the top right. Send yourself an email – to make sure it looks ok.
Once you are happy… click next and confirm. And you are done!
This is what mine looks like:
https://us6.campaign-archive.com/?u=ffb683b75d085fbc3c31b4834&id=1c7afd05e1
I hope that was useful for you. Now you have an automated newsletter going out once a week sharing all your blog updates to your fans.. cool eh?
Oh whilst I’m at it, fancy receiving my newsletter? Sign up here:

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:100%;} /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Subscribe to the Littlegreenshed mailing list

Reply
Jane Unsworth

June 16, 2021

Hi Brandon

Are there plans to enable the use of Genesis dNews with Genesis Blocks on a Guttenberg based theme, where I’m using Genesis Monochrome Pro?

They’re now based on Gen Blocks plugin to work alongside the themes (that are staying) I’d still love to find a way to create a block on the home page that people can opt into using your layout?

Many thanks.

Jane

PS My site’s in planning stages.

Reply