Title Placeholder in E-Mails

1 Initial Problem

Depending on the recipient of mails, it is desired to include the title into the salutation, e.g. "Dr." (doctors, lawyers, etc.). There is currently no corresponding placeholder for that purpose.

2 Conceptual Summary

An additional placeholder is introduced which is available both for "Mails to Members" as well as in other mails.

Usage of the placeholder and corresponding result:

1. Simple usage within the salutation:
   • [SALUTATION] [TITLE] [FIRSTNAME] [NAME],
   • Usage in case the field "Title" is completed for all recipients. In that case, the title is accordingly inserted after the salutation, e.g.: "Dear Dr. Michael Müller, ..."
2. Additional syntax for cases with possibly empty "Title" fields:
   • [SALUTATION] [IF_TITLE][TITLE][/IF_TITLE] [FIRSTNAME] [NAME],
   • This will avoid a space in cases where the field is empty.
   • Result with title (as in #1): "Dear Dr. Michael Müller, ..."
   • Result without title: "Dear Michael Müller, ..."

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

mail/compose/

3.2 User Interface Details

Additional placeholder in ther "Activate Serial-Letter Placeholders" list.

There is a new language variable for the placeholder with the following default text (that might be changed via the language administration, of course):
Title ([IF_TITLE]...[/IF_TITLE] can be used to prevent obsolete whitespaces if a user has no title).

German translation:
Title ([IF_TITLE]...[/IF_TITLE] kann verwendet werden, um Leerzeichen zu vermeiden, falls ein Benutzer keinen Titel hat.

4 Technical Information

5 Contact

• Author of the Request:
• Maintainer: Jansen, Michael [mjansen]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: Jansen, Michael [mjansen]

6 Funding

Funding has been provided by Sächsische Landesärztekammer.

7 Discussion

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], Jan 12, 2017: It is good to support the title in such mails. But please avoid the [IF_TITLE] procedure and let do this by the ILIAS automatically. Even I have often problems with these IF_... constructs. A usual user is overstrained.

Jansen, Michael [mjansen], Jan 12, 2017: I don't know if an automatic handling of this is a good idea, because this this requires hacky and error-prone string operations to replace duplicate whitespaces.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 16 Jan 2017: We appreciate this feature request if double whitespaces are removed. In the example written above (Top 2) two whitespaces would be created as well. So the problem exists no matter if IF.. is used or not.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• C18380: Titel

Approval

Approved at 01.03.2017 by (Qualitus GmbH).