Section 1 Why Should I Customize LISTSERV Maestro?

One of the great advantages of using LISTSERV Maestro is the ability to customize what you and your subscribers see. The customization available varies depending on the type of user you are (administrator, data administrator, template manager, end user) and the type of permissions you are granted in LISTSERV Maestro.

If you are an administrator, then you can perform limited customizations to the User Interface and the Administration Hub (see Section 3 User Interface Branding for more information) or you can translate the text in the User Interface to another language using the L-Soft Resource Translation Tool (see Section 4 Using the Resource Translation Tool for more information).

If you are a data administrator, or you have the permission to customize subscriber pages, then you can customize the Subscriber Interface, which means you can modify every page and email that a subscriber will see (see Section 2 Customizing the Subscriber Interface for more information).

If you are a template manager, or you have permission to create message templates, then you can create customized message templates in plain text or HTML using a variety of methods (see Section 5 Creating Customized Message Templates for more information).

There are many situations where customization is beneficial. Below is a list of the most common situations, along with some advice on how to handle each.

1.	Customizing the page frame and/or style.

Situation: You are fine with the default layout of the membership area pages, but you do not want to use the default style. Instead of the default blue bar at the top of each page and the default colors and fonts, you want to define a design style of your own, including a common frame for all pages and common styles, fonts, and colors.

Solution: Use the Customization wizard in LISTSERV Maestro to customize the Membership Area Header/Footer Template. This template is inherited by all pages of the membership area; therefore, by defining your own common frame (i.e. header/footer) in this template, and by providing your own HTML styles, you can easily give the pages your own unique design. For an overview of the Customization wizard, see Section 2 Customizing the Subscriber Interface. For information on customizing the Membership Area Header/Footer Template, see Section 2.4.1 The Membership Area Header/Footer Template.

2.	Customizing specific text for all of your datasets, all at once.

Situation: In general, you are fine with the appearance of the pages, error messages, and email notifications, but you would like to change the wording of a few sentences or messages. You would like to only make these changes once, allowing your datasets to use the changes and preventing you from having to repeat these same changes for each new dataset.

Solution: Do not use the Customization wizard; instead, use the Resource Translation Tool. The Translation Tool allows you to change some of the default text that LISTSERV Maestro uses for the default layout. By directly modifying the default text, you will influence not only a single dataset but all of the datasets that are using these defaults. For this situation, you are not translating text; instead, you are supplying custom replacement values for parts of the text. Make sure to choose English as your target language when using the Translation Tool for this situation. For information on the Resource Translation Tool, see Section 4 Using the Resource Translation Tool.

3.	Translating all text to a different language, for all of your datasets, all at once.

Situation: In general, you are fine with how the pages, error messages, and email notifications look, but you would like them to appear in a different language. Plus, you would like all of your datasets to use this different language for the default pages.

Solution: Use the Resource Translation Tool to customize the default texts that LISTSERV Maestro uses for the default layout. By directly modifying the default text, you will influence not only a single dataset but all of the datasets that are using these defaults. For information on the Resource Translation Tool, see Section 4 Using the Resource Translation Tool.

4.	Customizing specific text, for a specific dataset.

Situation: In general, you are fine with how the pages, error messages, and email notifications look, but you would like to change the wording of a specific sentence or message for a specific dataset.

Solution: Use the Customization wizard in LISTSERV Maestro to customize the pages, error messages, or email notifications that contain the sentence/message you would like to change. For information on customizing a specific page, error message, or email notification for a specific dataset, see Section 2.2 Using the Membership Area Layout Tab and 2.3 Using the Customization Page Layout Screen, plus Section 2.4 Editing Templates and Pages, Section 2.5 Editing Subscriber Notification Emails, or Section 2.6 Editing Informational and Error Messages.

5.	Customizing the actual layout of a page, for a specific dataset.

Situation: There are certain pages in a specific dataset that you are not satisfied with and you’d like to change how the pages look. For example, you’d like to have a different order of the various elements on the page.

Solution: Use the Customization wizard in LISTSERV Maestro to customize the pages, error messages, or email notifications you are not satisfied with. To do this, simply change the current HTML code to provide your own layout. For more information, see Section 2.2 Using the Membership Area Layout Tab and 2.3 Using the Customization Page Layout Screen, plus Section 2.4 Editing Templates and Pages, Section 2.5 Editing Subscriber Notification Emails, or Section 2.6 Editing Informational and Error Messages.

6.	Creating a customized message template.

Situation: There are certain email jobs that you create on a weekly basis for your newsletter. These email jobs can be very time consuming, and you wish they could look better, but you’re not very good at HTML coding. Or, you know some HTML coding, but you don’t have the time to create what you really want.

Solution: Using LISTSERV Maestro’s template designer will let you easily create professional looking HTML messages with or without the HTML coding. The template designer will save you time and will also give you the opportunity to save templates for future use. For more information, see Section 5 Creating Customized Message Templates.

1.1 Who needs to be involved?

Customizing the Subscriber Pages:

•	The Maestro Administrator defines any Data Administrator account in the HUB by defining the The user may administer hosted Recipient Datasets user-right setting.

•	The Data Administrator may perform membership area layout customizations or use the Team Collaboration feature to assign permission to another account in the same group to customize the subscriber pages.

Customizing the LUI and HUB pages headers and footers (User Interface branding):

•	A System Administrator with administrative access to the LISTSERV Maestro application folders must create the custom.properties files and place any custom image files on the server.

•	A graphic artist may be required to create custom image files of the correct size.

Translating or providing new default text for subscriber pages, LUI, and/or HUB:

•	No special access is needed to perform the translation. Anyone can download the translation kit and run the resource translation tool on their own workstation.

•	A System Administrator with direct access to the LISTSERV Maestro application folders must make the translation files, produced by the resource translation tool, available to LISTSERV Maestro.

•	A System Administrator must make changes to the lui.ini file if a translation is to be the default for datasets belonging to a particular group or for all datasets on the site.

Creating and Customizing the Message Templates

•	The Maestro Administrator enables any Template Manager accounts in the HUB by defining the The user may administer Content Templates user-right setting.

•	The Template Manager creates, customizes, and enables a template for use when defining a message.