Obscuring Email Addresses

[Scott]

Just purchased the Pro version! Awesome! But is there a way to obscure the email addresses to cut down on spam? I tried adding an addition text filed and using this code as I do on various places on the site:

<span class="code direction">MOC.LIAME@UOY</span> ([email protected] backwards) and then using this to make it read correctly:

<style type="text/css">
span.codedirection { unicode-bidi:bidi-override; direction: rtl; }
</style>

But when I try this, it strips the span class away. Do you have another workaround?

Thank you,

Scott

[Scott]

I just want to add that I did see the link to add plugins to obscure the email address but for whatever reason, I could not got the to work.

Thanks again,

Scott

[George]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for your patience with our delayed responses over the holidays!

As for “the email addresses” can you clarify exactly which email addresses you are referring to when you say this? I just want to be 100% sure I address the right concerns 🙂

Cheers,
George

[Scott]

Hello George,

I am speaking about the email for the Organizer. I used the link you provided the help obfuscate the emails (https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/obfuscate). I tried PHPEnkoder and I believe Email Encoder Bundle. The latter I couldn’t figure out of if I was supposed to add code to the files. Seemed confusing to me.

Most, what I would like to do is to be able to add HTML to the Organizer’s email. I hope that makes sense.

Thanks,

Scott

[George]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for elaborating on this and for your patience with things. Just to be 100% clear, you want to obfuscate the email address but make sure they are “Clickable”? So that they are both obfuscated but then if you click on the email it is like a link and opens the email client etc.?

If so, this is a bit tricky and would unfortunately require custom coding which we can only provide very limited support for, but I will try to write some custom code if this is exactly what you are looking for.

Thanks!
George

[Scott]

Thanks George, but I don’t need it to be clickable. I’m trying to cut down on spam. What I would really like to be able to do is enter this into the email address area:

<span class="code direction">MOC.LIAME@UOY</span>

But when I do all I get is this: MOC.LIAME@UOY because the plugin strips away the span HTML. I use this code all over the site but I can’t seem to get it to work with your plugin.

How about this, has anyone had success using one of the obfuscating plugins? I would use one of those but I can’t seem to get them to work. I would like to use my method if I could. Or any suggestions you may have.

Thanks, Scott

[George]

Thanks for clarifying Scott!

To add that “Span” tag, the best option is not to enter it into the input for Email address at all – allowing HTML in a form input is a security hole (look up “Cross-site scripting” if you’re not familiar).

Probably wouldn’t be an issue since it’s an admin-facing input, but still…

I would recommend instead using the principles outlined here to customize the template file that generates the front-end email address itself → https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/themers-guide/

Now, I know you might see that and go “oh, great, something complicated. I just wanted a simple fix.” But don’t fret! The gist of the information you need from that article is as follows:

1. Head into your theme files and create a new folder in your theme called tribe-events</me>. So there should now be a new directory in your theme at this directory path: /wp-content/themes/[your-theme]/tribe-events

2. Once this new folder exists, add folders inside it called modules. Then add a folder inside that called meta. finally, add a file in tribe-events/modules/meta called details.php

TO RECAP: you should basically have a new file that exists at this file path on your site:

/wp-content/themes/[your-theme]/tribe-events/modules/meta/details.php

3. Copy and paste the contents from this URL into that new file → http://m.tri.be/18zd

This should add the SPAN tags around the email address on events, while not affecting obfuscation.

I hope this helps!

Cheers,
George

[Scott]

Thanks again George,

That didn’t do it entirely, not sure if I followed the instructions correctly but I did figure out it is actually the organizer.php file that I had to modify. I don’t mind modifying theme files, I’ve done to for some time now. And it works! What I also discovered was I can add the right sidebar to event pages. This will make my client very happy. But in doing so is “scrunches” the email and website names. See: http://66.147.244.188/~coconva1/event/golden-coconut-awards-2016/

I tried using css to remove the 3rd column:

.tribe-events-meta-group-other {display: none !important;}
and/or
.tribe-events-meta-group.tribe-events-meta-group-other {display: none !important;}

And it would be removed but not expand the previous two columns. So, how do I do that? So the Details and Organizer take up the whole width of the info box?

Thanks for all the help,

Scott

[Mathew]

Scott,

Flipping the email address over is genius!

I am using a different approach using the built-in function found at https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/antispambot

Then wrapping the email with the shortcode (instead of a class) in the organizer.php, as you have already found.

As for the scrunching, the padding is set at 4%. Try reducing the percentage or set it to a px amount.

.tribe-events-event-meta-group {padding: 0 2% !important;}

Hope this helps.

[Scott]

Thanks Mathew! I really like your suggestion for obscuring email and will use that in the future since I have already gone through all the trouble of putting it all over the site.

Your CSS did not work but I added this and now everything works great:

.tribe-events-meta-group-organizer {width: 300px !important;}

Thank you George, Mathew and MT for helping me look good!

Scott

[George]

Woot! I’m glad progress has been made here – I will close up this issue for now, but best of luck with your project, and come open a new thread any time if other issues arise.

(And thanks for contributing, Mathew! 😀 )

— George

[Author]

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