Hi everyone,

I'm sorry if this sounds naive but I'm having trouble with properly formatting the various text and HTML emails sent to customers. Although I have managed to do the HTML order confirmation layout to my entire satisfaction, the text version is still a bit crude.

Today, I tried to format the HTML email sent when the order status is updated. Although the layout is now fine, I found an additional issue which I'll try to explain below.

I edited the file public_html/email/email_template_order_status.html and its contents are now slightly amended for a better-looking layout as follows:

HTML Code:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=$CHARSET" />
<base href="$BASE_HREF" />

<style type="text/css">
body {background-color:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
a:link {color:#0066cc;}
a:hover {background-color:#eeeecc; color:#0066cc;}
a:visited {color:#0066cc;}
.holder {background-color:#f9f9f9; border:1px solid #9a9a9a; border-bottom:0; font-size:9px; text-align:left; width:550px;}
.header {font-size:10px; padding:0px; width:550px;}
.content {font-size:10px; padding:5px; width:550px;}
.footer {font-size:9px; margin-top:5px; text-align:center; width:550px;}
.disclaimer {background-color:#f9f9f9; border-top:1px solid #9a9a9a; border-bottom:1px solid #9a9a9a; font-size:9px; padding:5px; width:550px;}
.disclaimer1 {color:#666666; padding:5px;}
.disclaimer1 a:link {color:#666666;}
.disclaimer1 a:visited {color:#666666;}
.disclaimer2 {color:#666666; padding:5px;}
.copyright {color:#666666;border:0px solid #9a9a9a;}
.copyright a:link {color:#666666;}
.copyright a:visited {color:#666666;}</style>

</head>

<body>
<div class="holder">

  <!-- Header Section -->
  <div class="header">
  <img src="email/header.jpg" alt="Athens Collectibles" />
  </div>


  <!-- Content Section -->
  <div class="content">
    <div><b>Customer:</b> $EMAIL_CUSTOMERS_NAME<br> 
      <br /></div> 
    <div><b>$EMAIL_TEXT_ORDER_NUMBER<br>
      <br>
      </b></div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_INVOICE_URL<br>
      <br>
    </div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_DATE_ORDERED<br>
      <br>
    </div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_STATUS_COMMENTS
      <br>
    </div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_STATUS_UPDATED</div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_STATUS_LABEL<br>
      <br>
    </div>
    <div>$EMAIL_TEXT_STATUS_PLEASE_REPLY<br>
      <br>
    </div>
    <div>With our best regards<br>
      $EMAIL_STORE_NAME</div>
  </div>

<div class="disclaimer">
  <div class="disclaimer1">
    $EMAIL_DISCLAIMER</div>
  <div class="disclaimer2">
    $EMAIL_SPAM_DISCLAIMER</div>
</div>
</div>

  <!-- Footer Section -->
  <div class="footer">
    <div class="copyright">$EMAIL_FOOTER_COPYRIGHT</div>
  </div>

</body>
</html>
All is working fine but the copyright link at the bottom points to /admin/index.php (!) instead of to my home page.

Another anomaly: I thought that the contents of text emails are pulled from the /includes/languages/english/my_template/email_extras.php but this doesn't seem to be the case. I have made some small amendments to this file which appear in the order confirmation text email but not in the order status text email which seems to read from the corresponding file in the /admin folder.

Is there an explanation of what's going on or what I could be doing wrong? I think that the whole issue of formatting emails is quite complex -perhaps more than necessary- and the Wiki article is not very informative: it makes things even more complex by pointing to another file (includes/classes/order.php) as an example of formatting the order confirmation email. But, a) this is not an easy file for non programmers to edit and b) there don't seem to be similar files for other email templates.

Any help or pointing me to the right direction will be much appreciated and will be useful in formatting more templates. Thank you in advance and kind regards.

George

Site: http://athenscollectibles.info
Zen Cart version: 1.3.9h