Products.eCards 1.1rc1

eCards is a simple product that allows your website visitors to send e-cards to people via email.

eCards is a simple Plone-product that allows your website visitors to
send eCards to people via email. eCards can help boost website
traffic and visitor engagement.

Product home is http://plone.org/products/ecards.
A `documentation area`_ and `issue tracker`_ are available at the linked locations.

.. _documentation area: http://plone.org/products/ecards/documentation
.. _issue tracker: http://plone.org/products/ecards/issues

Please use the Plone users' mailing list or the #plone irc channel for
support requests. If you are unable to get your questions answered
there, or are interested in helping develop the product, see CREDITS.txt
within the same directory.

Compatibility
***************

* Plone 3.x-series, if you need to use eCards with version 2.5.x, see
http://plone.org/products/ecards/releases/1.0

Overview
***************

For site managers:

* Addition of new content type "eCard Collection" which can contain selected eCards
* "eCard" content type that contains the image and an option thumbnail for
overriding
the default generated thumbnail
* Configuration of layout of eCard Collection view, to suit variable site design
widths
(i.e. choose the number of eCards in a row, which will not overextend the main
content area)
* Configuration of a "pull" message appended to the end of each email that
raises awareness about
the organization hosting the eCard application where the eCard was sent.

For site users:

* User can choose amongst multiple eCards from a thumbnail gallery, as uploaded
by the site managers
* Users can add a personalized message to their eCards.
* Cards are emailed to recipients.

Fully customizable templates

* ecardcollection_view - a page that includes HTML content, a
thumbnail gallery of eCards, and email settings.
* ecardpopup_view - loaded when an eCard is chosen from the collection view,
includes the full sized eCard image,
a byline for the image, and HTML email message to be appended (see above), the
form fields required for the user
to send the email.
* email_template - contains the HTML-rich email template that gets sent out to
include the
chosen eCard and custom message. Note: we're passing several variables via
options dictionary. If you want to include
additional "dynamic" data in your email template, you'll need to customize
ecardsuccess.cpy as well.

You can customize these templates via the ZMI or on the filesystem to match your
site's branding.

Installation & Setup
**********************

See INSTALL.txt

Demo
***************

You can see customized eCard implementations in action at:

* `SnowLeopard.org`_
* `The Women's Field Guide`_

.. _SnowLeopard.org: http://www.snowleopard.org/photos/ecard
.. _The Women's Field Guide: http://www.womansfieldguide.com/

Changelog
=========

(svn/unreleased)
----------------

- TBD [developer's name in brackets]

1.1rc1 (2008.11.10)
--------------------------------

- Tweaking actions for eCardCollections and eCards items to take maximize impact of
efficient tabber user inteface (i.e. no longer need properties tab) and the fact
that sharing is now a global action
(see:
http://plone.org/documentation/manual/upgrade-guide/version/2.5-3.0/products).
Other minimal cleanup [andrewb]

- Changed schemata name "Email Settings" for the eCardCollection content object.
In a
nutshell, multiple word schemata's are a bad idea when pared with the new tabber
user interface. In addition to having it's own schemata, our two word schemata
fields
also appear in a separate fieldset on the default page. I didn't have time to
investigate
the root cause and Google didn't turn up results, so we take this workaround of a
renamed schema [andrewb]

- Utilizing Plone 3.x viewlet managers for control of template elements like:
document
actions, above content body items, etc. If the ecardcollection_view is
customized
and you're upgrading eCards, see the following changeset for what should be merged
within your custom template:
http://dev.plone.org/collective/changeset/75433 [andrewb]

- Pulling as much installation boilerplate and cruft out of Extension/Install.py and
into Generic Setup profiles as is currently feasible. Still maintain an Install
module with uninstall method because as of CMFQI version 2.1.6 we don't have a
convention for looking for an appropriate uninstall profile and InstalledProduct
instances don't fully clean-up like we want [andrewb]

- In previous releases of eCards we were essentially hand rolling the necessary
block
of text required to send an HTML email. Because this is a profoundly bad idea
and
quite fragile, the structuring of the emailing is now done in a helper method
within
browser.py utilizing Python's email message module. The aim is to let
people freely customize "email_template.pt" within the ecards_template
skin folder. This should be pretty future proof. Because branding of the
full eCard
experience is pretty important, if you also needed to customize send_ecard.cpy,
you may need to merge your modifications with the updated code base. See the
following
changeset for help: http://dev.plone.org/collective/changeset/75168
[andrewb, thanks to mborch & collective.singing for inspiration]

- Updates to ecardpopup_view.pt and ecardpopup_thanks.pt. Bringing in line with
the plone.htmlhead
viewlet. Again, because customization of skin layers is pretty critical and
it's quite likely
that the ecardpopup_view.pt and ecardpopup_thanks.pt were customized if you're
upgrading to eCards 1.1, you'll want to merge the following changes into your
customizations: http://dev.plone.org/collective/changeset/75162
Please keep in mind that old versions of these templates no longer work with
Plone 3.x because of the lack of a header.pt within the skin layer [andrewb]

- Code updates and refactoring for Plone 3.x compliance. Plone 2.5.x no longer
actively
maintained, though patches that maintain compatibility in both releases
happily accepted.
Thanks to mborch for all initial work [andrewb, mborch]

1.0 final (2008.11.6)
--------------------------------

- fixed image transparency for type icon used for the eCard Collection folderish
type.
Requires updating the 'content_icon' value within an eCardCollection's
portal_type listing from 'ecardcollection_icon.jpg' to
'ecardcollection_icon.gif'. This can
either be achieved with product reinstall or by manually changing the value
within the
types tool [andrewb, thanks to jboese]

- fixed http://plone.org/products/ecards/issues/12, whereby the eCard collection
view doesn't account for position in its parent collection for a given eCard
[andrewb]

- fixed http://plone.org/products/ecards/issues/10, whereby the eCardCollection
content objects within a site were not reorderable within their parent folder.
Requires updating the 'Product Meta Type' value within an eCardCollection's
portal_type listing from 'eCardCollection' to 'ECardCollection'. This can either
be achieved with product reinstall or by manually changing the value within the
types tool [andrewb]

1.0 release candidate 1 (2007.10.15)
-------------------------------------

- fixed issue where main page reloaded after clicking on popup link [davidg]
- fixed Javascript error with popups in IE7 [davidg]

1.0 beta 1
--------------------------------

- Pulling HTML email out of cpy, so that it's a designer, rather than a
developer task to (thanks davidg and jbaldivieso)
- Adding feature to allow content editors to choose their desired thumbnail size
for the collection view,
cleaned up language on the various fields that impact this behavior (thanks
davidg and vedawms)
- Fixing bug where the popup ecard template was a fixed width, rather than based
upon
the width of the actual uploaded image
- Registering custom permission, protecting the sending of email by that permission
- Protecting the send_ecard success action with validation, so it's harder to abuse
with a GET REQUEST (not relevant for Plone 3.0+, but important for earlier
Plone versions)
- Ensuring product winzip capable with non-empty __init__.py files

1.0 alpha 2
--------------------------------

- registering css resource with styles that can be customized within
site-specific theme product
- cleaning up templates so that they more Plone-like in their use of style
and html structure
- displaying all fields that will go into the email in the pop-up template
- fixing bug in eCard type generic setup profile causing the view action
to go directly to the index_html method, rather than the view alias

1.0 alpha 1
--------------------------------

- initial import of content types and skins from working code on snowleopard.org
- addition of comprehensive test suite of all no ZPT, CMFFormController code
to ensure quality control going forward