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Changing the dynamic Auto Tag Output

If you regularly include dynamic posts in your campaigns you are familiar with the auto feature of Mailster. To change the content of this feature you can add a simple function in your themes function.php file.

By default the content used in this feature looks like this:

{post_title:-1}

{post_excerpt:-1}

This will insert the title of your last post ({post_title:-1}) as the headline and the excerpt ({post_excerpt:-1}) as content. In the edit bar it will look something like this:

editbar and dynamic tags

If you like to link the headline to the actual blog post you can wrap the anchor tag around the tag. Add a new snippet to your themes functions.php:

function my_mailster_auto_tag( $pattern, $post_type, $options, $post ){

	return $pattern;
}
add_filter( 'mailster_auto_tag', 'my_mailster_auto_tag', 10, 4 );

This will basically add a filter to the ‘mailster_auto_tag’ and allow you to alter the $pattern of your output. At this state, it returns the original $pattern so there’s actually no change.

Changing the pattern

The $pattern is an associative array and contains the following keys:

  • title – the string used for the title
  • alt – used for the alt tag if an image is in the module
  • content – used if the content is selected
  • excerpt – used if the excerpt is selected
  • link – the link to the post
  • image – the image tag which links to the feature image of the post

To wrap the title with a link you have to add one line to your function:

$pattern['title'] = '<a href="{'.$post_type.'_link:'.$options.'}">{'.$post_type.'_title:'.$options.'}</a>

This replaces the old title and adds a new pattern with links. Note the $post_type variable which gets replaced with the selected post type. The $options represents the content after the “:” which is -1 for the latest post in this case.

Adding the name of the author

You can append the author’s name after the excerpt if you add this line:

$pattern['excerpt'] .= "<br>".'by {'.$post_type.'_author_name:'.$options.'}';

The whole code snippet you have to add looks like this:

function my_mailster_auto_tag( $pattern, $post_type, $options, $post ){

    $pattern['title'] = '<a href="'.$options.'}">{'.$post_type.'_title:'.$options.'}</a>';
    $pattern['excerpt'] .= "<br>".'by {'.$post_type.'_author_name:'.$options.'}';
    
    return $pattern;
}

add_filter( 'mailster_auto_tag', 'my_mailster_auto_tag', 10, 4 );
editbar with custom auto tags

The edit bar now reflects your changes and you will know if everything went well. 

Targeting multiple elements

By default, Mailster uses the first occurrence of a <single> element of the chosen module to inject the $pattern['title']. If you have multiple <single> elements, <multi> or <img> elements you can return an array like this:

add_filter( 'mailster_auto_tag', function ( $pattern, $post_type, $options, $post ){

    $pattern['title'] = array(
         'First Title',
         'Second Title',
    );
    
    return $pattern;
}, 10, 4 );

This will insert “First Title” into the first <single> element and “Second Title” in the second <single> element.

Did you know you can exclude certain posts from Mailster? Read more.