How-to Hack The Welcome Email Part 3

[JFarrow]

What I have been showing you in detail is How to Hack the Welcome Email into a Getting Started Guide which translates into any language.   Hack Part 1   Hack Part 2

Step 4: Upload the page you made to your server (or public dropbox public folder) and get the URL. Preferably a place where you can simply update at will and the page you created will show live when you refresh the page on the network.

You can do this in many ways and you might be asking yourself "Why can't I just upload the page using a text box or file manager?"  The short answer to this is because you will then have to open up that Getting Started page and replace the LOOOOOONG Url everytime you make a change to your page.  I would either suggest placing the page inside your Public Dropbox folder or on a subdomain that you created inside your domain host.  When I began, I used my dropbox, which gave me a URL like https://dl.dropbox.com/u/49sdg/my-file.html but now I use a subdomain like  files.landsurveyorsunited.com/my-file.html

Step 5: Iframe that page into the page you just created, Name that page you added Getting Started or similar and set it to Full Width (hide sidebar). Also set it to members only.

<p align="center"><iframe width="950" height="800" src="https://yourserver/getting-started.html" scrolling="yes"></iframe></p>

Step 6: Go to language editor and after choosing language, search for the following

Welcome to %2$s! There are %1$s simple things you can do to get started:

  and replace the words only with something more well, welcoming and provide the link to the page you just made. NEVER replace anything with %$ or similar.

This is what I replaced mine with:

Welcome to %2$s! We are happy that you joined the community and look forward to all that you have to share with us.  Take a look at the getting started guide here: http://landsurveyorsunited.com/getstartedlsu  There are %1$s simple things you can do to get started:

What this does is modifies the existing email which is automatically sent to a member once they have been approved to join your network. This new page that you directed them to should have the language translation installed.

I hope you enjoyed learning the fruits of my labor and find this tutorial helpful when getting serious about growing your community.  It has worked wonderfully with mine and with time, you will get it just right!

If you need help with this, do not hesitate to ask!  If you happen to be in search of freelance development or expertise, i can be hired.

[Eric Suesz]

Epic!

[JFarrow]

its a lot to swallow all at once so hopefully breaking it up will make it digestable

[Ningaholic]

This is absolutely genius man--was thinking about this the other day.  Will definitely need to give this a shot.  Think Ning should look at making this standard practice...looks great...

[JFarrow]

Thanks Ningaholic... glad it all made sense and hope it works out for you!

[Peter Matthews]

Why is it necessary to use iframe and an external page to design the welcome page, before putting it into the Ning page? 

Why not just use the page and page editor inside Ning? Can we put a 'translate this' button directly into a Ning page?

I have never used iframe or independent page design software. For me it is easier to do everything inside Ning.

Finally, is there any way to see the welcome message using a test function, or do we have sign up as a new member in order to see what users will see?

[JFarrow]

@peter... if you read part one and part two i explained in detail why it needs to be an iframe for it to work this way. if you have a better way i'd love to know about it...
also it is ALWAYS a good idea to try signing up for your own network every now and then to see what others see, especially if you have made significant changes to your network
language editor

[JFarrow]

how is this working out for everyone?