The Journeyman

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? A growing list of providers is being gathered.

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 in its place. The previous eNews widget was wholly removed in Genesis 2.0

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

Download the latest stable version: Genesis eNews Extended 2.0.0

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

For support, please create a post on the WordPress.org Support Page for the eNews Extended plugin. I receive each post and others in the future can see it to help them self-resolve issues.

Comments

51 responses to “Genesis eNews Extended”

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  10. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  11. Ali Burden-Blake Avatar
    Ali Burden-Blake

    Works with Campaign Monitor too 🙂 Thanks!

    Reply
  12. John Bogdanski Avatar
    John Bogdanski

    No Luck with aweber tho’.

    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  13. Damien Avatar
    Damien

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  14. vicentedepablo Avatar
    vicentedepablo

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

    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  15. vicentedepablo Avatar
    vicentedepablo

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  16. vicentedepablo Avatar
    vicentedepablo

    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
  17. bmchaves Avatar
    bmchaves

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  18. hai nusantara Avatar
    hai nusantara

    hy just say thx about your information..:)

    Reply
  19. Carsten Avatar
    Carsten

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      Thanks! I haven’t heard of any bugs yet. Likely launch this week.

      Reply
  20. scriptcrazy Avatar
    scriptcrazy

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

    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  21. Org Spring (@OrgSpring) Avatar
    Org Spring (@OrgSpring)

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

    Reply
    1. Quincy Zikmund Avatar
      Quincy Zikmund

      Did you ever get a tutorial up? I’m having the worst time trying to get this to work with Emma. Thanks! 🙂

      Reply
  22. sebokelly Avatar
    sebokelly

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

    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      I haven’t heard of anyone using it and not personally familiar with it.

      Reply
  23. Patty Avatar
    Patty

    (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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      Sorry about that—missed that text when moving the tutorials to their own page: https://kraft.blog/contrib/plugins/genesis-enews-extended/install/

      Reply
  24. Patty Avatar
    Patty

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

    Reply
    1. Brandon Kraft Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      Thanks for pointing out my slip up! I’m sure many have left the site frustrated by that 🙁 Cheers!

      Reply
  25. Carol Poortvliet Avatar
    Carol Poortvliet

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      The last I checked, Feedburner didn’t support extra fields so it isn’t enabled to prevent lost data.

      Reply
      1. Carol Poortvliet Avatar
        Carol Poortvliet

        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 Avatar
          Brandon Kraft

          I’m not sure off the top of my head re FeedBlitz, but MailChimp does offer that.

          Reply
  26. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      I’m not familiar with Dynamic Website Builder. You can target those two form elements using #subbox1 #subbox2 in CSS.

      Reply
  27. Thendral Avatar
    Thendral

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  28. Julia Avatar
    Julia

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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
  29. Danny Brown Avatar
    Danny Brown

    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 Avatar
      Brandon Kraft

      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 Avatar
        Jason Lemieux

        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
  30. Lou Archell


    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
  31. Jane Unsworth Avatar
    Jane Unsworth

    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

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