Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
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7 months 3 weeks ago - 7 months 3 weeks ago #1
by Chris
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Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro was created by Chris
Hi Christopher,
I have got 2 questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
1) Mails are getting sent as multipart MIMI messages, meaning that there is a plain text part first and a following html part. So far, so good. Now, in all newsletter I get from other services, links are explicitly written out in the plain-text part. For example:
You want to unsubscibe? Click here (https://yourwebsite.here/?unsubscribe.link).
Same with the link to online-version as well as with all other links that may be either in the head, body, footer or anywhere else in the mail: There's always a text-only link that can be copied out and placed in a browser tab.
Not so in NS Pro. All links are missing. Which is bad.
2) I miss the possibility to include some global style information for my email templates, (not inline-styles). In a html document, you can write style instructions into the <head> section - a procedure that does not work in the editor, as everything gets stripped on saving. You can, however include some things like fontstacks, font-size and the like into a table or div, but that’s it. Am I missing something, or are there any plans to include some possibilities there, or is most rendering left to e-mail clients?
Cheers, Chris
I have got 2 questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
1) Mails are getting sent as multipart MIMI messages, meaning that there is a plain text part first and a following html part. So far, so good. Now, in all newsletter I get from other services, links are explicitly written out in the plain-text part. For example:
You want to unsubscibe? Click here (https://yourwebsite.here/?unsubscribe.link).
Same with the link to online-version as well as with all other links that may be either in the head, body, footer or anywhere else in the mail: There's always a text-only link that can be copied out and placed in a browser tab.
Not so in NS Pro. All links are missing. Which is bad.
2) I miss the possibility to include some global style information for my email templates, (not inline-styles). In a html document, you can write style instructions into the <head> section - a procedure that does not work in the editor, as everything gets stripped on saving. You can, however include some things like fontstacks, font-size and the like into a table or div, but that’s it. Am I missing something, or are there any plans to include some possibilities there, or is most rendering left to e-mail clients?
Cheers, Chris
Cheers, Chris
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Chris.
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7 months 3 weeks ago - 7 months 3 weeks ago #2
by Christopher Mavros
Christopher Mavros
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Replied by Christopher Mavros on topic Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
Hello Chris and thank you for posting!
These are both excellent questions.
First of all, NS Pro automatically strips out the HTML of any outgoing email to imitate a text version of it and avoid having the no-text-version spam score, but you can specify your own text version manually just below the main newsletter editor. Automatically keeping the URLs of the links could possibly be added as a feature, but it's not possible at the moment.
Regarding having a head section with a style, it's been discussed many times across multiple platforms and media regarding emails, but the unfortunate truth is that sending emails with a <style> tag is not supported, even in very widely used email clients. See caniemail.com style .
Instead, you can use an inliner tool to prepare your HTML template and then copy-paste parts of it to replicate stylish content, or have a large template and remove parts of it that you don't need.
I'm unfamiliar of whether Acymailing includes an inliner of their own, but to my point of view, creating an inliner tool within NS Pro is out of scope at the moment, since free (and probably better) online alternatives exist.
I hope this helps!
These are both excellent questions.
First of all, NS Pro automatically strips out the HTML of any outgoing email to imitate a text version of it and avoid having the no-text-version spam score, but you can specify your own text version manually just below the main newsletter editor. Automatically keeping the URLs of the links could possibly be added as a feature, but it's not possible at the moment.
Regarding having a head section with a style, it's been discussed many times across multiple platforms and media regarding emails, but the unfortunate truth is that sending emails with a <style> tag is not supported, even in very widely used email clients. See caniemail.com style .
Instead, you can use an inliner tool to prepare your HTML template and then copy-paste parts of it to replicate stylish content, or have a large template and remove parts of it that you don't need.
I'm unfamiliar of whether Acymailing includes an inliner of their own, but to my point of view, creating an inliner tool within NS Pro is out of scope at the moment, since free (and probably better) online alternatives exist.
I hope this helps!
Christopher Mavros
me@mavxr.com
If you like our extensions, please rate us on the JED!
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Christopher Mavros.
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7 months 3 weeks ago - 7 months 3 weeks ago #3
by Chris
Cheers, Chris
Replied by Chris on topic Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
Christopher, thanks for your reply.
I am aware of the possibility to write a text-only section myself. But this would have to happen for each and every newsletter - to be frank that’s not helpful. I would expect at least the link to unsubscribe and the one leading to the online version of the newsletter to work. Otherwise the the plaintext part of the mail becomes meaningless. And in frankness, I have looked at all mailings I have received this last week, and there was not one among them that didn’t have links written as text in the plain-text part. I was made aware of this problem by one of my subscribers who apparently still uses a very old email system and could not make head or tail of my newsletter.
But apart from that I accept that styles are getting stripped and I am also aware that there are mail clients that are far behind what one could do in modern browsers. That's not the point. The point is rather that most html mails would state something like
whereas your templates do not contain any DOCTYPE declaration. I would have thought that such a declaration would help mail clients to know how to render things, but perhaps I am mistaken. Again, this is something that other mailings I receive do, but I don't know whether this is a necessity or not. And my remarks are not about inliner tools, I am aware they exist. I have written my style requirements into the table tag, and that seems to work as far as it goes.
Thanks again and cheers.
Chris
I am aware of the possibility to write a text-only section myself. But this would have to happen for each and every newsletter - to be frank that’s not helpful. I would expect at least the link to unsubscribe and the one leading to the online version of the newsletter to work. Otherwise the the plaintext part of the mail becomes meaningless. And in frankness, I have looked at all mailings I have received this last week, and there was not one among them that didn’t have links written as text in the plain-text part. I was made aware of this problem by one of my subscribers who apparently still uses a very old email system and could not make head or tail of my newsletter.
But apart from that I accept that styles are getting stripped and I am also aware that there are mail clients that are far behind what one could do in modern browsers. That's not the point. The point is rather that most html mails would state something like
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whereas your templates do not contain any DOCTYPE declaration. I would have thought that such a declaration would help mail clients to know how to render things, but perhaps I am mistaken. Again, this is something that other mailings I receive do, but I don't know whether this is a necessity or not. And my remarks are not about inliner tools, I am aware they exist. I have written my style requirements into the table tag, and that seems to work as far as it goes.
Thanks again and cheers.
Chris
Cheers, Chris
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Chris.
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7 months 2 weeks ago #4
by Christopher Mavros
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Replied by Christopher Mavros on topic Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
Hi again Chris, and thank you for your insightful messages.
I think we can certainly implement and include a link filtering to convert links to text like so:
Would that be sufficient in your opinion?
Regarding the DOCTYPE declaration, I recently read a post saying that many primitive email clients will just remove the !DOCTYPE part of the tag and spill out the rest of the HTML.
It does seem to have broader implementation than the style element, (see caniemail.com doctype ) but adding it won't help you get better support for basic elements like table, div and p.
We have never had a rendering problem with tables and inline styles. I know it's restrictive and tiresome, and I would certainly like to see CSS flex, grid and email-wide <style> declarations, but I personally feel we still have to wait to see it.
Perhaps I'm the one who's mistaken about it.
So, to properly address this issue, I can offer a feature implementation and a configuration alternative.
Since the Joomla editor doesn't support it, I can add a wrapper template, something like a textarea where you can write your email body's wrapping HTML and allow you to place the rest of the body using a tag like %body%.
This could be added in the global options and applied to all your templates and newsletters, automatically.
The other option you have is to use JCE, which is an excellent editor, and create a profile just for NS Pro. In that profile, make sure you allow every tag, including the html tag and the !DOCTYPE tag - I think you can do that - and as such work with as much detail as you with. I think it's possible and NS Pro will not strip it out.
Let me know if these help.
Thanks again!
I think we can certainly implement and include a link filtering to convert links to text like so:
Code:
From:
<a href="https://abc.com">Link text</a>
To:
Link text (https://abc.com)
Regarding the DOCTYPE declaration, I recently read a post saying that many primitive email clients will just remove the !DOCTYPE part of the tag and spill out the rest of the HTML.
It does seem to have broader implementation than the style element, (see caniemail.com doctype ) but adding it won't help you get better support for basic elements like table, div and p.
We have never had a rendering problem with tables and inline styles. I know it's restrictive and tiresome, and I would certainly like to see CSS flex, grid and email-wide <style> declarations, but I personally feel we still have to wait to see it.
Perhaps I'm the one who's mistaken about it.
So, to properly address this issue, I can offer a feature implementation and a configuration alternative.
Since the Joomla editor doesn't support it, I can add a wrapper template, something like a textarea where you can write your email body's wrapping HTML and allow you to place the rest of the body using a tag like %body%.
This could be added in the global options and applied to all your templates and newsletters, automatically.
The other option you have is to use JCE, which is an excellent editor, and create a profile just for NS Pro. In that profile, make sure you allow every tag, including the html tag and the !DOCTYPE tag - I think you can do that - and as such work with as much detail as you with. I think it's possible and NS Pro will not strip it out.
Let me know if these help.
Thanks again!
Christopher Mavros
me@mavxr.com
If you like our extensions, please rate us on the JED!
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
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7 months 2 weeks ago #5
by Chris
Cheers, Chris
Replied by Chris on topic Two questions concerning emails produced by NS Pro
Hi Christopher,
as to including links, I think this would be the same as others do, so yes, I believe that this would be the right solution. I would appreciate, if that could be included in a future version of NS Pro.
As to the <DOCTYPE> thing - it's just something I see in commercial newsletters I have subscribed, and I wondered about that to be missing in NS Pro - but as mention, when one looks at what they say at canimail I think it's possibly not too important, or at least still early days. I had thought about re-writing my templates to use flexbox instead of tables, but when I realised how shaky support for that is in mail clients, I quickly abandoned the idea.
But then looking ahead, I think it would be nice to have the possibility to configure a wrapper for those who know how to deal with this.
I'm using JCE as a matter of fact, but I'm not sure what you suggest would work. I have tampered around with one template without using an editor at all, but most things would still get stripped on saving. Apart from the fact that you could never edit such templates without getting rid of all editors before opening it, I think this is not really feasible.
But for now, I am content that you see the problem and are prepared to think about implementing such things.
Thanks, Chris
as to including links, I think this would be the same as others do, so yes, I believe that this would be the right solution. I would appreciate, if that could be included in a future version of NS Pro.
As to the <DOCTYPE> thing - it's just something I see in commercial newsletters I have subscribed, and I wondered about that to be missing in NS Pro - but as mention, when one looks at what they say at canimail I think it's possibly not too important, or at least still early days. I had thought about re-writing my templates to use flexbox instead of tables, but when I realised how shaky support for that is in mail clients, I quickly abandoned the idea.
But then looking ahead, I think it would be nice to have the possibility to configure a wrapper for those who know how to deal with this.
I'm using JCE as a matter of fact, but I'm not sure what you suggest would work. I have tampered around with one template without using an editor at all, but most things would still get stripped on saving. Apart from the fact that you could never edit such templates without getting rid of all editors before opening it, I think this is not really feasible.
But for now, I am content that you see the problem and are prepared to think about implementing such things.
Thanks, Chris
Cheers, Chris
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