Title: HTML stripped from confirmation email
Last modified: February 21, 2018

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# HTML stripped from confirmation email

 *  Resolved [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/)
 * Unfortunately, the confirmation email is sent as plain text. In addition to that,
   we had problems with umlauts. We fixed that using the usual WP filters. However,
   the email is still sent as plain text. I checkd the class.mail.php that seems
   to be ok. Then I realized that HTML tags are stripped when the settings are saved.
   Bummer! How cann we fix that? A plain text confirmation email is hard to swallow
   these days. 🙂

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10000956)
 * Thanks for this report.
 * Can you clarify “HTML tags are stripped when the settings are saved”. Where are
   you seeing that?
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10001666)
 * We use standard p, br and a tags in the textarea where we can change the text
   for the confirmation email (SpeakOut! > settings > confirmation emails) I change
   the serialized data directly in the options table. However, this is not a solution.
   Any changes in the settings would overwrite this.
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10001838)
 * OK, this is sorted out in 1.8.2 – there was a strip_tags() command that I have
   tweaked to allow certain tags which makes the HTML work.
 * Appreciate the report.
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10001858)
 * Awesome, thank you! Allow me to be greedy! Today, people are used to high quality
   HTML emails. A simple HTML email is better than plain text. However, it would
   be much more elegant, if we could add CSS and complex HTML. Could you tweak the
   strip_tags command so that even tables and CSS would be accepted? At least tables
   and inline css styles should be possible. That’s enough for acceptable HTML emails.
 *  [tomtodd](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tomtodd/)
 * (@tomtodd)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10002271)
 * Hi 123host
    Thanks for your support and bug fixing. We will contribute a little
   something. Project coordinator for MKJ2
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by [tomtodd](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tomtodd/).
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10002429)
 * I have allowed the <span> tag so styling is supported e.g. <span style=”color:#
   FF0000;”>
 * Have also enabled the <table> <tr> and <td> tags.
 * But…this is only a “please confirm your email address” message. How complex does
   it need to be?
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10002436)
 * Thanks for the donation! A rare treat, much appreciated.
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10002509)
 * Thanks for the support! No need for a complex email, but a pretty one. 🙂 These
   days, users expect large buttons and stuff. Would you mind posting the mod here?
   So we wouldn’t have to wait for the update.
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10002545)
 * Sure, it was quite simple
 * change /wp-content/plugins/speakout/includes/class.settings.php – line 142
 * `$this->confirm_message = strip_tags( nl2br( stripslashes( $_POST['confirm_message'])),'
   <em><strong><hr><span><br /><table><tr><td>' );`
 * We convert textarea `/r/n` to `<br />` and then strip all tags except em, strong,
   hr, span, br, table, tr and td.
 * change /wp-content/plugins/speakout/includes/settings.view.php – line 198
 * `<textarea name="confirm_message" id="confirm_message" cols="80" rows="6"><?php
   echo str_replace("<br />", "",$the_settings->confirm_message); ?></textarea>`
 * This stops the `<br />` being displayed in the text area otherwise it keeps adding
   additional br tags each time it is saved.
 * The line numbers may not be perfect as they are my updated files, but it should
   be close.
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10003313)
 * Thanks a lot. Almost there. I added the `<a>` and `<p>` tags. The textarea line
   breaks were not converted to `<br />`. Inline styles are working, too. Nice! 
   The `<a>` tag is quite important, in my humble opinion. Is there a reason not
   to include the `<p>` tag? Anybody who can write HTML will probably know how to
   use is.
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10005217)
 * Yes, I intentionally have not allowed `<a>` tags to minimise the possibility 
   of phishing attacks where a malicious URL is hidden behind a link. This will 
   force URLS to be displayed openly.
 * You can always enable it yourself by adding `<a>` to the edit above for /wp-content/
   plugins/speakout/includes/class.settings.php
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10005981)
 * I get your point. However, you wouldn’t believe how, say, unexperienced users
   are. To manually copy a link and paste it in the browser is without any doubt
   some challenge for many. I have customers who asked me: What is an URL? Where
   should I put it?
 * Overwriting core files is always a bad idea, since it is not update-safe. A hook
   would be the way to go.
 * Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate your effort and support and thank you very much
   for sharing this plugin with us. These are just some ideas for improvements (
   from the user’s point of view).
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10005985)
 * Yes and Yes.
 * But these days, isn’t something like [http://example.com](http://example.com)
   in an email converted into an active link?
 *  Thread Starter [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/)
 * (@mkj2)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10006028)
 * Usually it is. But you can’t depend on it. I use Thunderbird, and the confirmation
   link was not converted to a clickable link. Don’t know why, but it wasn’t. Furthermore,
   the line breaks were not converted to proper HTML line breaks. The result was
   something like this:
 * `Hello, Thank you for signing our petition. Please confirm your email: https://
   example.com/?dkspeakoutconfirm=242f2b489c908b9f&lang=`
 * By the way, suddenly WordPress stopped sending the confirmation emails. I couldn’t
   figure out why. Then I found that due to an autofill mistake a text was saved
   instead of a proper email (settings > confirmation emails > sender email). If
   you don’t fill in a fully valid email address, it won’t send any email at all.
   Might be a good idea to add a warning and save youself some trouble. 🙂
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/).
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by [mkj2](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mkj2/).
 *  Plugin Author [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * (@123host)
 * [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10006140)
 * I have just released version 1.8.2 which includes all the HTML fixes hopefully.
   And your German fix.
 * Let me know how the confirmation email goes. Looks good to me, but I am not an
   end user.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

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 * 15 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [SpeakOut! Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/123host/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/html-stripped-from-confirmation-email/#post-10006140)
 * Status: resolved