Confused about E-Mail templates

Product Support

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around understanding and customizing email templates in a forum platform, particularly for category-specific notifications. DDo is confused about which email template is triggered when a user creates a new topic in a watched category, noting differences based on watch settings (e.g., watching first post vs. watching category). codinghorror suggests searching for unique text in the email bodies to identify templates, but DDo clarifies that only subjects differ, making identification difficult. DDo confirms there’s no clear documentation on which template is used under which conditions, nor a list of available variables (like %{topic_title}) for use in templates. They discover that some templates, such as user_notifications.user_watching_first_post.subject_template, exist but are not used for all notifications. The core issue is the lack of transparency in the templating system: why some templates are present but not used, and which variables can be applied where. DDo seeks a way to customize notifications for a specific category to avoid sending full posts, instead showing only the topic title, but finds the system’s structure unclear and poorly documented.

1

Tried to identify which E-Mail Template is used when a user puts a new topic into a category.
I have users watching and watching first post.

Thought I found the correct template only to discover that when I’m putting a new topic in a special category, the users get mails from different templates.

These two users got different E-Mails:
One is administrator and team, and has the category on watching first post,
the other is team and has the category on watching.

Now I’m confused. How can I determine which template is used refering to which setting, or is there more to it?

Since my goal is to define a special template for one single category:
Is there a possibility to configure a fixed template for a special category?

And by the way: Is here somewhere a listing which variables are there and usable in the body? It surprised me that %topic_title refuses to be in the body.

2

Search for specific, unique words used in the email via the admin, customize, text interface.

3

That would sure be a way if the bodies were different … but all in question seem to go

%{header_instructions}

%{message}

%{context}

%{respond_instructions}

only the subjects differ.

I will have to go through all of them in my test environment and write something special in each one then, don’t I?

4

If the subjects differ, searching for the subject should work?

Those %{strings} are all replacement elements.

5

Just to get it straight:

There is no listing which template is used when. One has to resolve it upon the E-Mail the users have already gotten, and that may differ upon the watch mode. But there are no further implications s.a. trust level, e-mail level etc.

Also, there is no listing of the replacement elements (variables) which can be used in which parts of the E-Mail templates.

Right?
I’ll start searching then. :slightly_smiling_face:

6

sooo…after quite a while of searching, found that there is no e-mail template for user watching first post, but there are text templates: user_notifications.user_watching_first_post.subject_template & user_notifications.user_watching_first_post.text_body_template.

What I don’t understand: If e-mail templates aren’t necessary for notification e-mails, why are there some and some others not?

I don’t get the whole templating thing. There are body templates that use variables like %{topic_title} and %{topic_excerpt} etc., but if I copy them into eg. user_notifications.user_posted.text_body_template, it says they can’t be used.

Are these templates alterable at all? Which variables can be used? Where is the list of usable variables?

I want to alter the e-mail notifications, preferably for one category, so that they don’t send the whole post in the body any more, but would like to give at least the topic. How can I achieve this?