Hi

We are just a small company.
I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
very simple
HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of customers.

I have been using Dreamweaver for several years.

- Can anyone suggest a *LOW COST* way to get my staff developing HTML
on a
"WYSIWYG" style editor like Dreamweaver?

"DW CS3" seems like gross over-kill for what we need.

- I am using Dreamweaver 8.
OK, it's a LONG way from perfect but what I like about DW8 is:
a) it is 'well behaved' and doesnt rewrite/re-format code without
asking
b) the WYSISYG seems to work quite well
c) It allows you to reformat HTML when it gets into a mess
d) String-changes are quite powerful

....But DW8 is MUCH more powerful than what we need to write basic HTML
and much too expensive as a result!

Also I dont really understand the adobe website:
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/dreamweaver/
It seems that you HAVE to buy bundles of software now - can that be
true?

If Adobe wont sell us anything cut down then
maybe we could buy an OLD version of DW somewhere?!

- What is the software of choice for low skill level/occ***ional
users?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

On 30 May, 10:34, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
> very simple
> HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of customers.

Then teach them some HTML and have them use a text editor. They'll
also find this to be much quicker to use.

This is useful for HTML web pages.

This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.

DW is not only expensive, it writes bad web pages and it writes
terrible HTML emails (mainly because they're so bloated)


Good books to read would be "Head First HTML" or Lie & Bos' "Cascading
Style Sheets"

> Then teach them some HTML and have them use a text editor. They'll
> also find this to be much quicker to use.

One of our staff has already been coding HTML by hand (using a text
editor)
and it's VERY time consuming. So I have to disagree about speed.
DW is *fairly* well behaved in my experience.
What is deeply unacceptable is what happens when you use Ms Outlook.
(or any other Ms product!)

> This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
> the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.

Forgive my ignorance what is an "RFC" (Remote Function Call?
Reason For Change? Request For Comment? Rugby Football Club...?)

- Can anyone point me to an nice idiot's guide to multipart encoding?
(which I gather is important... but which we have never used and do
not frankly understand what it is!)

> DW is not only expensive,
YES!

> it writes bad web pages and it writes
> terrible HTML emails (mainly because they're so bloated)

I thinks this is only slightly true and sounds biased to me.
Slightly bloated code is not a problem in any case (try seeing what
crud Ms Outlook2003 spits out !!)


> Good books to read would be "Head First HTML" or Lie & Bos' "Cascading
> Style Sheets"

With thanks


Ship
Shiperton Henethe












On May 30, 11:06 am, Andy Dingley <ding...@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> On 30 May, 10:34, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
> > very simple
> > HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of customers.
>
> Then teach them some HTML and have them use a text editor. They'll
> also find this to be much quicker to use.
>
> This is useful for HTML web pages.
>
> This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
> the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.
>
> DW is not only expensive, it writes bad web pages and it writes
> terrible HTML emails (mainly because they're so bloated)
>
> Good books to read would be "Head First HTML" or Lie & Bos' "Cascading
> Style Sheets"

On 30 May, 11:06, Andy Dingley <ding...@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> On 30 May, 10:34, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
> > very simple
> > HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of customers.
>
> Then teach them some HTML and have them use a text editor. They'll
> also find this to be much quicker to use.
>
> This is useful for HTML web pages.
>
> This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
> the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.
>
> DW is not only expensive, it writes bad web pages and it writes
> terrible HTML emails (mainly because they're so bloated)
>
> Good books to read would be "Head First HTML" or Lie & Bos' "Cascading
> Style Sheets"

DW writes bad web pages? I disagree. DW doesnt do anything of the
sort, people who dont know how to USE DW make bad pages. I use
dreamweaver excusivly and I use the code view 90% of the time (i only
use the design view as a quick clue as how things are going). You
shouldnt be so biased, DW is an excellent code editor.

Paul
http://www.paulwattdesigns.com

ship wrote:

> I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
> very simple HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of
> customers.

If they're very simple HTML, then consider installing something like
Markdown or Textile on your server which converts plain text, marked up
with very simple techniques such as *bold*, _italic_ and so on, into HTML.

The unconverted plain text can then be used for the plain text part of a
multipart message.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 95 days, 19:08.]

Non-Intuitive Surnames
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/0...tive-surnames/

On 30 May, 12:26, Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@tobyinkster.co.uk>
wrote:

> If they're very simple HTML, then consider installing something like
> Markdown or Textile on your server which converts plain text, marked up
> with very simple techniques such as *bold*, _italic_ and so on, into HTML.

Do they handle images? That's the only real justification for using
HTML in a marketing email.

On May 30, 12:45 pm, p...@paulwatt.info wrote:
> On 30 May, 11:06, Andy Dingley <ding...@codesmiths.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 30 May, 10:34, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I have potentially two members of staff that I need to get to write
> > > very simple
> > > HTML emails for sending to our (quite large) list of customers.
>
> > Then teach them some HTML and have them use a text editor. They'll
> > also find this to be much quicker to use.
>
> > This is useful for HTML web pages.
>
> > This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
> > the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.
>
> > DW is not only expensive, it writes bad web pages and it writes
> > terrible HTML emails (mainly because they're so bloated)
>
> > Good books to read would be "Head First HTML" or Lie & Bos' "Cascading
> > Style Sheets"
>
> DW writes bad web pages? I disagree. DW doesnt do anything of the
> sort, people who dont know how to USE DW make bad pages. I use
> dreamweaver excusivly and I use the code view 90% of the time (i only
> use the design view as a quick clue as how things are going). You
> shouldnt be so biased, DW is an excellent code editor.
>
> Paulhttp://www.paulwattdesigns.com

I agree. Bad work person blaming their tools...

We use DW a LOT in our production and we have 100% validating,
crossbrowser code on all our sites. Problem with a program as simple
to use but powerful as DW is that it makes it easy to make a horrible
mess of things if you don't know what you are doing. Nobody should go
bear DW unless they know HTML & CSS very well to start off with. Bit
like giving someone a copy of PhotoShop if they have never used a
computer graphics program before. More likely to end up with a
complete mess as a result.

On 30 May, 11:45, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:

> One of our staff has already been coding HTML by hand (using a text
> editor) and it's VERY time consuming.

Then they should code simpler HTML. If the markup is simplified to the
bare semantics of your email, you can boilerplate the beginnings of
the new message, and you've a simple embedded CSS that handles the
rest of the formatting, then this really is (as it should be) a quick
hand-coding exercise.

Toby has mentioned some text -> HTML tools. If these "work" (which I'd
regard as meaning that they have a reasonable boilerplate / template
facility and some decent image handling) then they'd also be a
convenient way to do things. Otherwise any decent editor can convert
double linebreaks to <p>...</p> etc.

If "fluid design" and avoiding rigid pixel-sized page layouts is a
good idea for "web HTML", then it's vital for "email HTML". This is a
field where you really don't have control over browser windows etc. A
WYSIWYG editor spewing out table-based markup is just the thing you
don't want to be using here.

> > This is _crucial_ for HTML email. For that matter, so is understanding
> > the email RFCs and how to do multipart encoding propertly.
>
> Forgive my ignorance what is an "RFC"

It means "RFC" (the expansion is irrelevant). They're the things
that define the internet protocols, such as email. There are many web
repositories of them, such as http://www.faqs.org/rfc-pop1.html

Some are very commonly used, which includes 821, 822, 1521, 1522, 2046
(the numbers, from memory, of the email relevant ones) You should scan
through all of these, reading one or two of them more carefully. I
think 1521 / 1522 are the relevant ones for your encoding of the same
email message on two formats. They're sometimes updated, which is why
2822 has now superceded 822, but they do try to keep the numbers
sensible.

To be honest, I very rarely use the things these days so I'm probably
well rusty on the exact numbers. However they're well indexed and
cross-referenced, so I'm sure you'll find what's necessary.

> - Can anyone point me to an nice idiot's guide to multipart encoding?

Hopefully someone (maybe Google) has one, but like I say, I'm rusty on
email these days.


> I thinks this is only slightly true and sounds biased to me.

You're welcome to think that. OTOH, I'm not the one sending out
bloated emails that can't be read on mobile devices.

On 30 May, 13:38, Andy Dingley <ding...@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> On 30 May, 11:45, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > One of our staff has already been coding HTML by hand (using a text
> > editor) and it's VERY time consuming.
>
> Then they should code simpler HTML. If the markup is simplified to the
> bare semantics of your email, you can boilerplate the beginnings of
> the new message, and you've a simple embedded CSS that handles the
> rest of the formatting, then this really is (as it should be) a quick
> hand-coding exercise.

1. DW doesn't do bad code - it produces code that can be cleaned up /
optimised etc.. it does it fast and easily ... I produce bad code,
with DWs help!

2. As a cheap / Free alternative to DW I would suggest you actually
look at Microsoft - they had a free bit of software that seemed quite
good, and able to do a reasonable job ( I forgot the name) not sure
its still free, it was during beta at least)

3. Handcoding is something all web developers should learn, as tools
(not even DW) struggle with the finesse of streamlining code to look
and do exactly what you want (without resorting to layout tables
etc... )

4. Response rates on well presented HTML emails can be substantially
higher than in plain text - DEPENDING on what you are selling of
course - if its something that an image sells... its more effective.
This is based on a few large email sends. Personally, I get about two
or three emails from shops I had previoulsy been customers of - and I
prefer them in HTML.


HTH's

Gerry White

http://www.FinanceExtra.net

Andy Dingley wrote:
> Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@tobyinkster.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> If they're very simple HTML, then consider installing something like
>> Markdown or Textile on your server which converts plain text, marked up
>> with very simple techniques such as *bold*, _italic_ and so on, into HTML.
>
> Do they handle images?

Yes, they each do.

> That's the only real justification for using HTML in a marketing email.

I would think that another justification for using HTML in email is much
the same as the justification for using it on the web: it is an open
format, capable of expressing lightweight semantics.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 95 days, 22:34.]

Non-Intuitive Surnames
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/0...tive-surnames/