Tweak HCL Connections Newsletter v2

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Author: Christoph Stoettner
Read in about 2 min · 251 words

Postboxes for newsletter

Photo by Yannik Mika | Unsplash

The newsletter in version 2 format has one big disadvantage, we or our users lost the easy links to the topic, author profile or application.

Newsletter version 1

When we look at the same information in Newsletter version 2, we can’t open the profile or the main blog/application, just the post is linked on the “Open” link.

Newsletter version 2 with default settings

The links are stored in the homepage database and are stripped away during the generation of the newsletter/notification message.

/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/CellName/LotusConnections-config/notifications_v2/resources/commonUtil.ftl

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<#-- Convert html fragment structures to text
 #              Strip all tags but preserve html entities
 #              Structural tags converted to white space to maintain word separation
 #              Link URL's are discarded
 # -->
<#function convertHtmlStructuresToText html>
        <#if html??>
                <#return __convertHtmlStructuresToText(html?string) />
        <#else>
                <#return html />
        </#if>
</#function>

This function is called to prepare the headings in the notifications. So we can remove the call, or just return the html after the call:

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<#-- Convert html fragment structures to text
 #              Strip all tags but preserve html entities
 #              Structural tags converted to white space to maintain word separation
 #              Link URL's are discarded
 # -->
<#function convertHtmlStructuresToText html>
        <#if html??>
                <#return html /> # <.>
        <#else>
                <#return html />
        </#if>
</#function>

Replace the original line here with the highlighted code.

Now synchronize the nodes and test it again:

Newsletter version 2 with customized header

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