Customizing your Donate / Subscribe / Volunteer Forms

When you subscribe to our hosting service, during installation, we will send you a copy of our stock supporters.copy and supporters.conf files for you to customize for your campaign. Or you may download them at: supporters.copy and supporters.conf. Please edit these with a plain text editor and return these files for installation.

The .conf file includes a variable definition looking like this:

templateurl = http://he.campaignfoundations.com/?q=node/5

This defines a template which is wrapped around your donate, volunteer and subscribe forms before they are served to the browsing public. To create this template and to determine what its value ought to be, take these steps:

  • Use the "create content" link on the left
  • Create a 'story' or a 'page'
  • In the Title field, write only and in all CAPS: HEADING
  • In the body field, write only and in all CAPS: RESERVED
  • Under Publishing Options, uncheck: Promoted to front page
  • Submit story
  • When your HEADING page is displayed, copy the url from the location bar into your supporters.conf file

The format is critical. If we break the format, this will break your donate, subscribe and volunteer forms.

Do not delete any variable defined in either file. The .copy file looks like this:

$variable_name = <<END

You may edit this text, but not the line with the dollar sign
prefixed variable name, nor the line with only END on it.

END

The supporters.conf file should look like this:

$variable_name = You may edit this value, but not the $variable name itself.

Make sure you leave spaces around the equal sign.

Customize the content of these files to reflect your own campaign's details and message, to cast it in your candidate's voice. The content of these variables will be served as html to a browser. So you may include html markup as does the sample file we'll send you. But you are advised to keep it simple, to use the existing markup already included and to limit your edits to the text between the html tags.

If you have any questions, just call. We would be happy to help you understand how to do this.

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