I'm forced to use ConstantContact as a development platform for email marketing, and it offers some custom XHTML tags like <Property> and <Article>, and the documentation over at http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2215 seems to assume that adding such a tag into your custom XHTML template will simply allow the property to be editable in the "control panel" area rather than hidden deep in the HTML code.
My client is not experienced with hunting through code to find the area that needs to be edited, so I'd like to make it easy on them and allow the text to be editable in a textarea right from the control panel. This is possible with the "Greeting" property. Can I create custom properties in ConstantContact much like the default <Greeting />, which can be edited right from the wizard?
Since I didn't see a rated answer, I figured I'd add one.
Just to clarify, Constant Contact is a crap service that skates by on name recognition and clients too ignorant to know there are better options. (No offense to your client...)
Now, to answer your question, there is no way currently (4.13.13) for you (or any developer outside of the Constant Contact fortress) to create a custom template that can be used within their WYSIWYG editor.
The only way to have a truly custom design converted into an editable template is to send Constant Contact your art files and pay them $600 to create it for you.
http://www.constantcontact.com/services/email-marketing/index.jsp#template-creation
So I feel your pain, as I've been in this exact situation.
I want to add to this as I just faced a similar problem. After spending 6 hours building an HTML and testing it via MailChimp - I prefer it 100% - I had to then port it across to Constant Contact (CC). They have an advanced editor but as the persons above mentioned, you cannot add editable areas - it looks like you need to use XHTML for that...?
However that all said, my work around was to take a template they provide that looks as close as possible to my design and then manipulate it as you get to edit the HTML for those areas. I have to say, I was able to get my email to almost 100% the same - not being able to edit the disclaimer stuff at the bottom was a pain.
The only reason I couldn't get them to move to MailChimp - a 100% superior bit of kit - was because their CRM system is tied up with CC.
Related
I have a basic footer that would be super easy to create in almost any environment but email.
i am looking to do a email/phone/unsubscribe line to appear like
"email#email.com | 1-888-PHONENO (1-888-111-1111) | Unsubscribe"
works perfect in desktop view (600px width) but once i try and do anything responsive it dies and formats all crooked. I've had good luck with flex box with apple products, but many of the microsoft products (email clients) strip the flexbox out. so i am using table but finding it difficult to make it responsive.
I would use media queries but when i use display:none, it doesn't always work. it almost like the sendgrid console wont let me target certain elements. for example i can easily change the html background using html, but when i give classes to elements, nothing happens, id's either. its like the style doesnt get applied.
to solve this issue i'd be totally happy with writing different header/footers and then rendering them per the view (599 down, 600 up) if anyone has experience using media queries in emails or sendgrid please advise.
I could also write a responsive table but having trouble w how to set that up for the above. some of the items would need to be wrapped, like it would be ok to render on 2 lines in mobile as long as the style looked decent. right now it looks jacked.
you cant-
due to email clients rendering code totally different (some strip margins/padding, some strip flexbox, some strip other things from your css)
just stay to best practices: inline style, single column tables work good on almost anything. keep it simple.
I made a nice looking inline css flex box footer. looked great on mac/google products, looked like garbage on all outlook/samsung.
so i had to dumb down my beautiful footer to something that was more compliant across platforms.
litmus is a tool we bought that really helps. you basically just have to design it then test. litmus will show you previews on every possible email client so u can go thru and find a good balance of compatibility and design.
for sendgrid, the built in template and drag and drop option render good on everything. use the v3 api and dynamic templates. use a drag and drop then add html blocks to customize what u need to. use the drag and drop as much as possible because they build a robust html code for you. unless you want to manually type out a 600 line email that is totally disorganized.
I looking for either an open source (or otherwise) php script/library/code that will provide me with a similar email composer that Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor have.
I've played around with lots of wysiwyg editors (eg: tinymce, ckeditor) but, they don't work very well for allowing users to compose emails.
Mosaico Editor is the first open source email template builder of this kind (AFAIK).
You can find a free to use deployment (working also as live demo) at http://mosaico.io and you can get sources at https://github.com/voidlabs/mosaico
I choose blocks from a set defined by the "master template", then you fill you contents and change their styles in a WYSIWYG style. If you're on a large window you can also have live preview for the mobile version.
The master template defines what are the blocks, what you can edit and what you can style and it contains any html trick to make it compatible with most clients: this means you can change the editor behaviour a lot by simply writing a new master template.
It is 99% javascript (IE10+, and any other modern browser) and depends on server-side functions only to do "final inlining" and "image upload/resizing"
Next generation tool for building templates without coding
Grapejs official site
GrapesJS is an open-source, multi-purpose, Web Builder Framework which combines different tools and features with the goal to help you (or users of your application) to build HTML templates without any knowledge of coding. It's a perfect solution to replace the common WYSIWYG editors, which are good for content editing but inappropriate for creating HTML structures. You can see it in action with the official demos, but using its API you're able to build your own editors.
I'm in the process of building one but as a designer it is a work in progress! I'd suggest looking at PHP template engines. They have a similar functionality. Most however will use php variables inside the html page instead of tags.
Another oprion is to check out Perch it is officially a CMS, but is really lightweight and might get the job done for you.
Hope that helps even though it is a year after you posted the question...
EDIT: Actually just stumbled across this thread which links to the new CKEditor - looks pretty cool.
I am thinking of converting my forum input textarea exclusively to TinyMCE HTML editor. I already have both options but it is a pain maintaining both and inserting images in textarea needs preview etc...
This is more of a general question. Do you think it is safe to include HTML editor (with all the safety measures like paste only text, filter for html not allowed etc...) as the only kind of editor on a forum? It's 2011 and machines are generally fast, connection are better.
What are the downsides of using HTMl editor instead of text field? I can not imagine a blog CMS to have "normal" textarea for input.
But for some reason on forums I do not see many html editors... Even the TinyMCE site has a textarea for their editor. So is there really something to watch out for and a no go...?
I know it is more of a phylosophical question, but I guess you have experience with forums, blogs, etc...
My site is about cooking and beeing able to insert pictures (and upload them) the easy way seems to be a big plus for our home cooks ;-)
If you don't consider security (you'll need to filter the HTML input on the server side so it won't contain anything dangerous), there's only the user experience left for consideration. On a forum you write text most of the time. There's seldom any use for more functionality than bold, italics and images. The solution used here on Stack Overflow addresses this by having a very limited set of functions, and applying it in the textarea with a sane markup language.
Other forums either use old software or didn't think the improved user experience was worth the effort. The textarea-only solution fits most forums well enough since most of the input is text-only anyway.
I do think you would benefit from HTML input. Make sure that only allowed HTML can be sent though, since the user can circumvent everything on the client side.
TinyMCE uses Javascript to add functionality to an existing textarea. If Javascript is disabled, then the user will be presented with a normal textarea anyway.
I would say it's relatively safe, as long as all input from the user is validated on the server before it's used for anything.
I've generated the backend of my application, and am now just 'jazzing' the forms up (adding correct labels, validation rules etc).
One thing I'd like to do is add a map (Google) which updates the marker as an address is entered into the form, then allows the user to drag it to correct the lat/lng should it be a little off.
My question is, how can I customise the output of the form - I've read the docs (1.0,1.1,1.2 also) and it all seems very confusing. Customising forms not generated with the admin generator I know how to do using renderRow(); etc; but finding a way to add a little bit of HTML to the forms is making my eyes hurt! There's so much out of date stuff on the web regarding Symfony it's hard to know what to trust!
If anyone can point me in the right direction that'd be great.
Best Regards,
Rich
Maybe you can start by looking at this plugin : http://www.symfony-project.org/plugins/sfEasyGMapPlugin .
For your question, customizing the forms can be done by creating your own widgets and using them as default widgets.
You may want to read this page : http://www.symfony-project.org/more-with-symfony/1_4/en/05-Custom-Widgets-and-Validators .
i am building a webapp that will have notes fields all over the place, but i dont know what kind of markup i should use.
these are my requirements
User must be able to change the text style (bold, italic, underlined)
User must be able to create bullet lists
User must be able to create numbered lists
User must be able to change the font-size or use pre-definded headings
User must be able to add links
User must have a WYSIWYG - Editor that hides the actual markup
the last one is the most important requirement, my target users struggle even with word, so using markup style input like here on stackoverflow is not an option.
so what kind`s of markup do you know that fits ans has some fancy WYSIWYG - Editor?
if you think that i missed a important requirement please feel free to suggest it.
tia
You'll need to check out tinyMCE.
It's the best javascript-based WYSIWYG editor I've found.