You may have read my recent post about Google shutting down their Feedburner API.
Because of this, Copyblogger media’s StudioPress themes has decided to slowly phase out the existing eNews widget which is part of the Genesis theme framework core files.
The good news is they are supporting a new plugin which is even better and has been developed by the community.
Genesis eNews Extended
This is a new plugin which creates a widget to easily add mailing list integration to websites using Genesis and StudioPress themes.
Works with:
- FeedBurner
- MailChimp
- AWeber
- FeedBlitz
- and more email service providers.
The existing eNews Widget only supports Feedburner which has always been a problem for anyone who prefers to use their own email service.
Integration with MailChimp
Login to MailChimp and go to:
- Lists
- Select the list you want to connect with the eNews widget
- Click on ‘Forms’
- Click on ‘For Your Website’
- Click on Sign up form embed code
- Copy the form code into notepad and find the url which relates to your ‘form action’
- Simply add the url next to the form action which you can copy from your form code.
- Enter the email field as is displayed in your form code.
- Enter any hidden fields (if shown in your form code)
The MailChimp code i used to test this form didn’t include any hidden fields and the email subscribe form tested perfectly when i tested it.
Contact your email service provider for the form action and hidden fields details if you get stuck integrating the plugin with any other email services.
Conclusion
- Excellent plugin which provides an easy solution for adding a email sign up form to all StudioPress themes built on the Genesis framework.
- Easily integrate the major email marketing services providers like Aweber, MailChimp, Feedblitz & Feedburner into your WordPress theme.
- Still works with Google’s Free Feedburner service.
Not sure why they don’t build this plugin code into the Genesis core or simply change the existing widget with this new plugin.
Brad Dalton
@wpsitesdotnet
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Brad — thanks for this write-up and for the YouTube video. My understanding on why they didn’t add this to Genesis core was a desire to streamline the code more and to reduce the pressure to add more “features” to core that could be easily added via a plugin for those sites who needed the extra feature.
It doesn’t replace the existing one mostly because of history. The extended widget was released back in April (or so) and already add about a thousand downloads before StudioPress contact me and opted to promote Extended. To save those early-adopters trouble, I didn’t modify the plugin to assume the previous widget’s settings, which would have broken it for those other folks (or, at least, added bloat to the code for a relatively small subset of users).
I hope it’s relatively painless for users to switch over–especially those coming over from Feedburner since it’s only one simple settings to reset!
Cheers!
Hi Brandon. Great little plugin.
I like the fact there’s dozens of different plugins built exclusively for the Genesis framework. I think this is the best way to go because different theme owners can install the plugin they need. I know the framework is very effecient and in my opinion the best overall package.
Would really like to see your plugin integrate with Jetpack subscriptions as well.
Thanks for your comments.