PowerMail 4 Joomla Help

Install

Account setup

User Setup

Powertags use

Installation

Install powermail component in standard joomla install fashion

A reinstall can be over the top of the current install without worry of losing your data

Account Setup

Setup one or more "account" for receiving email

If using an email account on the same server that your joomla installation is on then use localhost as the server as below. Specify the user and password. Typical settings for email on your own local server would be:

Protocol: POP3
Server: localhost
Port: 110
User: Email address here
Password:
Option: /notls/

Specify the default section and category for this account and whether published or active. Specify interval for server to check for mail. See below:

Name: Specify any name for this account
Published No or Yes
Active: No or Yes
Interval: 1-30 minutes
Section: Select any joomla section
Category: Select any joomla category

Send an email to this address and make sure that there is some frontend activity on the website (just do a page view on your frontpage if you have a small inactive website or a new trial site)

Now you should receive an email as a superadministrator (if receive system email set to "yes") specifying a new user is using powermail and a second email specifying the content. If the "from email address" is already in the joomla user database, then the author will associate automatically with the sending email author's name specified in the Joomla user table.

User Setup

Under "User" you can associate any received email address with any joomla section or category (or leave it on the default section/category)
You may also associate the from email address with any Joomla user who is an author. (in case the "from email" is not already in the joomla user database)
You may change the default publish preference for the content from this email address (overiding the default global value of "unpublish")
You may any email address the message is coming from to allow the use of powertags ("be a poweruser")


We recommend that you leave the global default for publish for powermail to "unpublish" and set the publish preference for any user or any account to default or to "unpublish"

We recommend the following ways to use PowerMail 4 Joomla for best success:

1. Set up one receive email account within the backend and do not give this email address to anyone except top administrators. Give out a different email address to any user that wishes to add content. Choose an email address that you can receive or a specified editor can receive. You or your specified editor can then forward the edited email onto the "hidden" email address and embed any tags that are appropriate to publishing dates, publish status, section and category, author name and where to add readmore

2. Set up email accounts for each user that is a regular contributor and specify which section and category each user's email should go to. Only allow powertags for trusted users that have been educated on their use and that have sufficient rights to change content if needed once it is sent.


There are essentially 4 levels of control for both the publish status and for the content section or category for each email sent. These controls including their relative order of precedence are:
1. global settings - found under "parameters"
2. account settings - for the specific email the message was sent to
3. user settings - for the specific email address the message was sent from
4. poweruser tags overrides - if poweruser is enabled, the tags within the email content will take top precedence for controlling publish status and the section and category

If you wish to allow each user to have their own personal blogging space, set up a category for each user's blog and link each user's email to their category blog

If you wish to use powertags, please refer to the "help" section for the syntax for each of the following tags:
{readmore}
{alias}
{secid}
{catid}
{publish_up}
{publish_down}
{state}
{metakey}
{metadesc}
{access}
{end}

Syntax of PowerTags

There are 10 powertags that can be used by a poweruser. Two additional tags, {readmore} and {end} are available to all users. The following include the syntax and usage.

{alias NAME} Place the name of the author overriding the default

{publish_up YYYY-MM-DD} This will populate the publishing on date
{publish_down YYYY-MM-DD} This will turn the article off on the specifed date

{state 0} Article will be unpublished
{state 1} Article will be published
{state -1} Article is expired
{state -2} Article is in the trash

Please note that the default state for a poweruser is for an "unpublished" state unless overridden with the above tags. This forces a poweruser to always think and decide whether to turn on or off the publishing state for each email sent.

{frontpage} Article will be on the frontpage

{secid xx} Replace the xx with the desired section id
{catid xx} Replace the xx with the desired category id

{metakey xx} Replace the xx with the desired meta keywords for the article
{metadesc xx} Replace the xx with the desired meta description for the article