Good plugin, Needs work, Poor Support

  • Our ham radio club purchased a license for the Newsletter Plugin so we could do more for our monthly readers. Our club is very active and has over 150 members. Previously, we had to use whatever desktop publishing program was available to create a PDF monthly club newsletter. It took loads of hours and effort to do, and that put us on course for a better alternative.

    Initially, the “Newsletter” plugin looked like it would meet our needs to (1) reduce the time and effort to publish, and (2) provide email dissemination to make it easier for club members to read the newsletter. Unfortunately, the longer we use the “Newsletter” plugin, the more we are finding out it has some rather serious faults and failings.

    One of the most glaring faults of the “Newsletter” plugin is the disconnect in functionality between the editor and the email product. What you see in the plugin editor may look fine, but what you get in the published email may be quite different and not nearly as pleasing. This is especially apparent in how the plugin handles images. What newsletter publisher doesn’t want to include lots of good images?

    There are a number of ways images can be included in a newsletter via the plugin, but there is little consistency in their execution, whether they are in a Text Block or Post Blocks (single, multiple, etc.), or even the Gallery Block. Again, images in the Text Block in the editor look fine. Text wraps nicely to the left or right. But, in the published email these images have no “float” characteristics and the text is at image-bottom. The plugin should provide a number of image & text wrapping options that carry over faithfully to the email published output. If you happen to include images in a post that are brought in via a Post Block, the best the plugin can do is provide small thumbnails with no text wrapping options, and no links to the actual media content. To get links to the media content in the email newsletter you have to use the Gallery Block. Unfortunately, the Gallery Block limits you to 10 images and you have to manually include the links for the image hyperlinks.

    There was also an issue we ran into where a bulleted list in a WP post that was included via a Single Post Block did not look at all pleasing whether in the editor or in the published email. In the email, the list was centered on the page in very small font, instead of left-justified and indented with a font consistent with the rest of the text or post.

    All of this is to say, the “Newsletter” plugin needs some work. Disappointingly, the “Newsletter” plugin team seems very slow to respond to questions, and even slower to publish updates and corrections. I am writing this review because its the last way I can think of to get the attention of the plugin author – Stefano. I have taken other steps and the response is either lacking, minimal, or quite slow. I would very much like to see the “Newsletter” plugin prosper and become more widely used once it has receive the attention and improvements it is sorely in need of. I will be only too happy to write a glowing review once the plugin receives the work and improvements it is in much need of.

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