Quick Question re: EMAIL_STYLESHEET in functions_email.php

[Tick]

Hello all,

In the course of wanting to add some custom content to my newsletter template, I found the following line in functions_email.php:

    //  if ($block['EMAIL_STYLESHEET']=='')       $block['EMAIL_STYLESHEET']       = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\n", "\r"), "",@file_get_contents(DIR_FS_EMAIL_TEMPLATES.'stylesheet.css'));

The idea of a common stylesheet across all email templates is appealing because I invariably for get to change one of the template files when updating the style. So my question is: why is this commented out? Was it found not to work, or is it just not tested enough to make it into the 1.3.8a release?

Thanks!

[DrByte]

The feature wasn't fully implemented in 1.3.x.
However, in the upcoming 2.0 it's fully integrated and easy to share a common stylesheet between all email templates.

[Tick]

The feature wasn't fully implemented in 1.3.x.
However, in the upcoming 2.0 it's fully integrated and easy to share a common stylesheet between all email templates.

Fantastic! Thanks!

[torvista]

Using a common css file for all the emails can be done by simply
a) uncommenting out that line
b) creating a stylesheet.css file in /emails that contains all the selectors used by all the emails
c) putting

<style type="text/css">
<!--
$EMAIL_STYLESHEET
-->
</style>

in the head element of the emails.

I did that and was thinking how clever I was but after researching more into html emails and how to build them, I concluded that it was actually a waste of time due to the shockingly-bad css support of the most popular email clients at this moment in time.
It seems nested tables and manually-coded inline css is the only option if you want Outlook, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail users to see a similarly formatted email.

There is a tool for converting html and css styles into inline css, premailer.dialect.ca
but Outlook 2007 still managed to mangle the formatting.
Tables rool!

[Tick]

I also had to go back to tables. After some tinkering I managed to get the stylesheet set up in such a way that (most) mail clients didn't mangle the formatting. However, the deal-breaker was that many providers -- including Yahoo! -- were classifying my messages as spam because of all the div's. Once I went back to tables and trimmed down the stylesheet, my messages started getting through again.

So much for trying to do it "the right way."