Editing Email Templates
Super Speedy Emails sends several kinds of automated email — product-update notices, instant new-post alerts, and the post digest. The wording of each of these is controlled by an editable template, so you can rebrand them, change the tone, or adjust what’s included without touching code. This page explains the Templates page, how the {{token}} placeholders work, and how to reset to the defaults.
Table of Contents
Emails are plain text
All of these emails are plain text, not HTML. There’s no visual/WYSIWYG editor, and that’s intentional — plain-text emails are simpler, more reliable, and land in the inbox more often. When an email is sent, Super Speedy Emails automatically turns it into a tidy HTML message and makes any URLs clickable, so you just write normal text and links.
That means: write the words you want, put each link on its own line (or inline — both work), and don’t worry about HTML.
Finding the templates
Go to Super Speedy Emails → Templates. Each template is a tab along the top:
| Template | Used for |
|---|---|
| Support / changelog email | The product-update emails sent to product owners. See Automated Support & Changelog Emails. |
| Newsletter — instant article alert | Sent immediately when you publish a post, to subscribers on the “instant” frequency. |
| Newsletter — digest email | The scheduled digest wrapper (greeting, intro, the list of posts, footer). |
| Newsletter — digest item (per post) | The small block rendered once per post and stitched together into the digest’s post list. |
A tab with a blue dot next to it has been customised; tabs without a dot are using the built-in default.
Editing a template
Each template has an editable Subject (where relevant) and Body. Edit the text, then click Save template.
- Leave a field empty (or click Reset to default) to go back to the built-in wording. An empty field always falls back to the default — it never sends a blank subject or body.
- The Preview panel on the right shows the template rendered with sample data, so you can see roughly what a recipient gets. Save to refresh the preview.
Tokens (the {{...}} placeholders)
Templates contain tokens — placeholders in double curly braces like {{first_name}} — that get replaced with real values when the email is sent. Each template’s tab lists exactly which tokens it supports, with a short description of each.
For example, the support (product update) email’s body might read:
Hi {{first_name}},
There's an update available for {{product_name}}.When that email goes to a customer, {{first_name}} becomes their name and {{product_name}} becomes the product name. (For changelog emails, the version and the list of changes are supplied by the changelog companion plugin’s content filter — they’re written into the body text, not separate template tokens.)
A few practical rules:
- Use only the tokens listed for that template. Each template’s token list is shown right next to the editor.
- Unknown tokens are left alone. If you type a token the system doesn’t recognise, it’s left in the email as-is rather than being blanked out — so a typo is visible, not silently dropped.
- You don’t have to use every token. If you remove
{{excerpt}}from the instant-alert body, the excerpt simply won’t appear. (One exception below.)
Token reference by template
Product update (support) email
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{first_name}} | The recipient’s first name (or “there” if unknown). |
{{product_name}} | The name of the product. |
{{unsubscribe_url}} | The product-update unsubscribe link. |
{{site_name}} | Your site name. |
{{site_url}} | Your site URL. |
{{email}} | The recipient’s email address. |
(The template is deliberately generic. Changelog-specific content — version, the list of changes, a changelog link — is injected into the body by the changelog companion plugin, not via template tokens.)
Newsletter — instant article alert
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{first_name}} | The recipient’s first name. |
{{post_title}} | The post title. |
{{category}} | A “Filed under: …” line (or empty). |
{{excerpt}} | The post excerpt. |
{{post_url}} | Link to the post. |
{{unsubscribe_url}} | The unsubscribe link. |
Newsletter — digest email
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{first_name}} | The recipient’s first name. |
{{intro}} | The digest intro (set on the Newsletter page, or a default). |
{{posts}} | The rendered list of posts (built from the digest-item template). |
{{site_name}} | Your site name. |
{{posts_label}} | e.g. “3 new posts” (handy in the subject). |
{{unsubscribe_url}} | The unsubscribe link. |
Newsletter — digest item (per post)
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{title}} | The post title. |
{{excerpt}} | The post excerpt. |
{{url}} | Link to the post. |
How the digest and its item template fit together
The digest is built in two pieces. The digest item template is rendered once for every post in that digest, and all those rendered items are joined together to form the {{posts}} block inside the digest email template. So if you want to change how each post looks (e.g. add the author, or drop the excerpt), edit the digest item; if you want to change the greeting, intro placement, or footer, edit the digest email.
The unsubscribe safeguard
For the support / changelog template there’s one protection you can’t switch off: if you remove {{unsubscribe_url}} from the body, an unsubscribe footer is added automatically before the email goes out. Product-update emails must always carry a working opt-out for compliance, so the system guarantees one is present even if you delete it from the template. (The default template already includes it, so you’ll only see the automatic footer if you take it out.)
Tips
- Test before you trust it. After editing a template, send a real test in Redirect mode (see Test Modes) so the whole message comes to you, then check the tokens all filled in correctly.
- Keep the unsubscribe link. Even where it isn’t auto-enforced (the newsletter templates), leaving
{{unsubscribe_url}}in place keeps you compliant and keeps your sender reputation healthy. - Short and scannable wins. Because these are plain-text emails, a few short lines with the key link read better than long paragraphs.
For developers
Templates are stored as WordPress options (sse_tpl_<key>_subject and sse_tpl_<key>_body); an unset or empty option falls back to the bundled default. The full registry — including the default text and the token list for each template — is exposed through the sse_templates_registry filter, so an add-on can register its own templates or override the defaults in code. Rendering replaces only the tokens it’s given and leaves the rest intact, which is what allows a template to be filled in two passes (for example, the changelog system fills the product tokens, then the send engine fills the per-recipient tokens).
- Automated Support & Changelog Emails — the feature that uses the support template.
- Newsletter — the instant + digest pipeline that uses the newsletter templates.
- Test Modes — rehearsing template changes safely.
