links in emails

[Paul Spafford]

I have a client sending out quarterly marketing emails with this plug-in. It was very simple to set up and program -- loving it!

However, they are having a problem when they insert links in the emails they send out. The links aren't clickable.

They ARE clickable on my OSX Mail when I receive them (and even in my gmail), but not on-site for them (with various email apps, and even in their Yahoo mail).

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

I mostly just copied the calc that the sample file uses for multi-part sending. The only part I didn't include was any email headers. Could there be a problem there?

[Smef]

If you are sending a plain text email your links will need to be handled by the mail client which your users are receiving your email on. Most email clients will convert "http://...." text into a clickable link.

In an html email you can use the tag to mark a hyperlink like you would if you are making a webpage. Some email clients will convert "http://..." strings which are not tagged with to links, but most will need you to use the tag to make the link clickable.

[Paul Spafford]

Oops! Sorry, David. I forgot to mention that these are multi-part emails.

[Smef]

The same rules for links should apply. HTML emails will require the tag, and plain-text emails will require that your user's email client does the conversion from plain text to a link.

How are you creating your links right now? If you are using HTML, have you tried the tag?

[Paul Spafford]

I'm not doing anything different to the links right now. I had forgotten that there are two different email bodies created for a multi-part. I will encode the part that does the GetAsCSS to do the to the links, and let you know how that works.

Thanks!

[Paul Spafford]

You're a star, David!

Once I remembered that there are multiple parts in a multi-part email (duh), I was able to encode the url properly, using the following calc:

Let ( [

@templateCSS = GetAsCSS ( EmailTemplate::letterText )

; @urlStart = Position ( @templateCSS ; "http://" ; 1 ; 1 ) - 1

; @postURLStart = Right ( @templateCSS ; Length ( @templateCSS ) - @urlStart )

; @urlEnd = Position ( @postURLStart ; "<" ; 1 ; 1 )

; @url = Trim ( Left ( @postURLStart ; @urlEnd - 1 ) )

; @encoding = Substitute ( @templateCSS ; @url

; "" & @url & "" )

];

@encoding

)

That works as long as they only have one link. Now I have to figure out how to do something recursive.

Thanks!

[Paul Spafford]

There we go. I wrote a recursive custom function that seems to do the trick. In the email message field, you just need to enclose all urls in square brackets.

// CF name: EncodeURL_CF

// Parameters: textToCode

//

// This function encodes all urls enclosed in square brackets for html.

Let ( [

@textToCode = textToCode

; @openSquarePos = Position ( @textToCode ; "[" ; 0 ; 1 )

; @closeSquarePos = Position ( @textToCode ; "]" ; 0 ; 1 )

; @afterOpenSquare = Right ( @textToCode ; Length ( @textToCode ) - @openSquarePos )

; @url = Left ( @afterOpenSquare ; @closeSquarePos - @openSquarePos - 1 )

; @encodedUrl = "" & @url & ""

; @subbed = Substitute ( @textToCode ; "[" & @url & "]" ; @encodedUrl )

];

Case (

PatternCount ( @subbed ; "[" ) = 0 and PatternCount ( @subbed ; "]" ) = 0

; @subbed

; EncodeURL_CF ( @subbed )

) // End Case

) // End Let

[bcooney]

I've certainly learned from this. I was wondering, can I make an inline graphic a clickable link? If so, how?

[Smef]

Same as any other link in HTML. You have to place it within the <a> tag.

[bcooney]

Like this, right?

<a href="http://www.htmlgoodies.com"><img src="map01.gif" align="" width="100" height="30" border="0" alt=""></a>

I'm considering allowing "newsletter" -like html emails from within FM and sending with 360works email. Am I crazy? Let's say the marketing dept provides the html code to my user, and hosts the graphics on the corporate web server, he'd be good to go, yes? Should we consider imbedding the graphics?

Any thoughts on implementing such a robust html email tool (with templates, etc.) are appreciated.

Many thanks,

Barbara

[Smef]

Yes, that looks good, although your source will need to be "cid:myimageid" if you're going to be using inline attachments. If you're using images which are hosted on a website you would just use a regular http:// URL.

One thing to keep in mind if you want to do a newsletter style mailing is that some mail hosts may put restrictions on the number of emails you are allowed to send out. If you're going to be sending hundreds or thousands of emails over a short period of time your mail provider may not be too happy with you. I would recommend checking with them before sending massive amounts of emails, as you may need to have your account set a certain way so you don't get flagged as a spammer.

Other than that, the 360Works email plugin is a great way to do mailings to a client database! We have a number of clients doing a similar thing, and we use it for sending receipts and survey emails out to users who have purchased our plugins.

[bcooney]

These wouldn't be marketing emails, but simply communication to a membership. Each client has their own smtp servers. Talking about 10K maximum per blast.

Actually we're already doing this with a server scripts and looping. However, the email is simply

Inline Graphic (company logo in global container) &

"Dear" & MemberName &

GetasCSS ( formatted fm text field)&

inline graphic (footer graphic)

and perhaps several attachment pdfs

all based on templates that uses merge substitutions.

So, a "newsletter-style" email would be the logical next step in design and capability for the user. However, setting up an interface to allow the user to construct a newsletter email is the challenge, and hosting or embedding the graphics is an issue. We'd prefer it if they don't need to construct the html outside of FM. I'd like to keep the emails in the system rather than export a list and use MailChimp, bcs the email is a record of the contact with the member. For example, it may be a request that they return the equipment that they borrowed (loan system) or submit their recommendation letter (a competition system). We need to know when they were contacted.

Your thoughts?

[Smef]

Filemaker isn't much of an HTML editor. It has the getascss function which you can use to allow your users to type into a text field and then get their formatted text as html you can paste into the body of an email, but that's about it for HTML. I would recommend creating the HTML in Dreamweaver or even Microsoft Word and then pasting the HTML into a text field once you're ready. If you want the users to customize a section of it directly in filemaker it you can break up the HTML into multiple parts so that your body is $htmltop & $usermiddle & $htmlbottom where the users only have to worry about text in text field rather than writing full HTML.