- Admin can set a per-locale intro paragraph for the next issue on
the preferences page; cleared automatically after a successful
send. Stored in module_setting (longText) so multi-paragraph
notes fit.
- Intro is rendered via webtrees' CommonMark factory (same flavour
as notes) with raw HTML escaped, supports {{first_name}},
{{last_name}}, {{username}}, {{email}} substitution per recipient.
- Two-column intro layout: tree contact user's linked Individual
becomes the editorial portrait on the left. Their avatar is
added to the per-recipient embed set so the inline image always
resolves rather than falling through to a tree-page login link.
- Masthead now shows the tree URL under the title.
- Avatar source dimensions bumped 96→192 px and JPEG quality 75→88
so portraits stay crisp at retina display ratios.
- Admin preferences page can now subscribe existing webtrees users
per tree, not just external addresses.
- Subject prefix is now configurable per locale (en/de), and the
date in the subject is formatted via IntlDateFormatter in the
recipient's locale.
- "From:" header now uses SiteUser (SMTP_FROM_NAME/SMTP_DISP_NAME)
to match webtrees' own system-mail convention; the tree contact
becomes the Reply-To.
Admin-facing simplification:
- Dropped separate \"lookahead\" and \"historical lookahead\" tree
prefs (and the once-per-month historical gate). A single
\"send every N days\" number now drives both the cron cadence
and the window each issue looks ahead for living + deceased
events.
- Default 14, range 1–90, applies uniformly.
User-facing addition:
- The /my-account/{tree} subscription card gained an \"Email
frequency\" select with options: use site default, weekly,
every 2 weeks, monthly, every 2 months, quarterly. Stored as
a per-tree-per-user preference.
- Dispatch now checks each recipient's own cadence against
their own last-sent timestamp. Admin-added external addresses
with no webtrees account always receive every run (no
per-user state).
- Newsletter footer now reads \"You can change how often you
receive this email, or unsubscribe entirely, in the Newsletter
subscription section on your My account page\" — true now
that the control exists.
German translations updated for the new strings; stale ones
removed.
Replaces the previous "depth in generations along the strict
lineal chain" definition (which excluded siblings, aunts, cousins
entirely) with the metric the user actually wants: the number of
descent-steps separating the target from the recipient's closest
direct ancestor or descendant.
Examples relative to the recipient:
- sibling: 1 (parent → sibling)
- great-aunt: 1 (great-grandparent → great-aunt)
- nephew: 2 (parent → sibling → nephew)
- first cousin: 2 (grandparent → aunt → cousin)
- second cousin: 3
- ego, parents, grandparents, ..., children, ..., great-greats: 0
- own spouse, step-parents, brothers-in-law: inherit partner's
distance (so spouse-of-distance-1 is also distance 1)
Implementation:
- Anchor set seeded with R's direct ancestors + R + direct
descendants (capped at 25 generations to bound runaway data).
- Multi-source BFS expanding by descent only.
- Spouse propagation at every level so a person and their
spouse always share the same distance.
- Memoised per (recipient xref, max distance).
Tree preference key and range kept (NEWSLETTER_LINEAL_DEPTH,
0–10, default 3); only the semantics and the user-facing label
+ help text change, with concrete examples in both English and
German.
Per-recipient: only direct ancestors and direct descendants
within a configurable number of generations (default 3) get the
full row treatment (avatar, icon, timeline). Everyone else falls
through to a compact text-only bullet list at the bottom of the
same section.
- New tree preference NEWSLETTER_LINEAL_DEPTH (range 0–10,
default 3) with a clearly-explained admin input.
- RelationshipPathFinder::linealKin() does two cheap recursive
expansions (ancestors and descendants only — no spouse or
sibling traversal) and returns the xref set. Memoised per
recipient within a dispatch run.
- Avatar attachments are filtered per recipient to only the
embeds actually referenced in their HTML, so summary-only rows
no longer inflate per-email size with unused images.
- Recipients with no PREF_TREE_ACCOUNT_XREF (external admin
addresses, users not linked to a record) see the entire
newsletter in detail — no lineal anchor to filter against.
- German translations for the three new section kickers ("Other
birthdays", etc.) and the admin input help text.
Recurring email newsletter for webtrees 2.2+. Each enabled tree
sends upcoming birthdays of living individuals, optional marriage
anniversaries of intact couples, and a once-per-calendar-month
historical section of births and deaths of deceased individuals.
Triggered exclusively by an external scheduler (system cron,
systemd timer, etc.) hitting a token-gated HTTP endpoint — never
on visitor page loads. The "is it due?" decision is idempotent
within the configured frequency window.
Per-user subscription is integrated into the built-in
/my-account/{tree} page via a custom view + a decorated
AccountUpdate handler. Admins can add external addresses and
trigger an immediate send for testing. Email body renders in
German for German-language users; English otherwise. Birthdays
and anniversaries are formatted with the upcoming-event ordinal
age (e.g. "45th birthday" / "45. Geburtstag").
Alexander