Hi Alan,
The language string for the course welcome email (in 1.9) is:
$string['welcometocoursetext'] = 'Welcome to $a->coursename!
If you have not done so already, you should edit your profile page so that we can learn more about you:
$a->profileurl';
I that case $a is an object that is being passed as a parameter to the get_string call which is retrieving the welcometocoursetext language string.
You need to locate the get_string call and add your course link to the object which is passed as a parameter to that call.
In Moodle 1.9 the call to get_string is around lines 4711 - 4718 in lib/moodlelib.php
4711 if (!empty($course->welcomemessage)) {
4712 $message = $course->welcomemessage;
4713 } else {
4714 $a = new Object();
4715 $a->coursename = $course->fullname;
4716 $a->profileurl = "$CFG->wwwroot/user/view.php?id=$user->id&course=$course->id";
4717 $message = get_string("welcometocoursetext", "", $a);
4718 }
You need to modify that code to add your course link:
4711 if (!empty($course->welcomemessage)) {
4712 $message = $course->welcomemessage;
4713 } else {
4714 $a = new Object();
4715 $a->coursename = $course->fullname;
//Add the course link to $a so it can be used in the language string
$a->courselink = "{$CFG->wwwroot}/course/view.php?id={$course->id}";
4716 $a->profileurl = "$CFG->wwwroot/user/view.php?id=$user->id&course=$course->id";
4717 $message = get_string("welcometocoursetext", "", $a);
4718 }
$a->courselink would then be available in the language file for you to use in your modification of the course welcome email
Stephen Mc Guinness
Enovation Solutions