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I want to create my own email template without having to use third party software,I would just like to clear up some basics for my self :)
Firstly, do all email templates come down to pretty much being HTML body with inline CSS? Thus sending a templated email with C# would go somthing like:

SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient("smtphost");
MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();
msg.To.Add("toaddress6@place.com");
msg.Subject = "A TEMPLATE";
msg.Body = "<body> This is where the html goes O.o </body>";
msg.From = new MailAddress("fromaddress@anotherplace.com");
msg.IsBodyHtml = true;
smtpClient.Send(msg);

Secondly, sending images with a template I'm assuming they are either added on as an attachment or are linked to via a long address to the image location on the server, similar to a webpage? and displayed in the html.

John Saunders
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Heinrich
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  • 1. Yes inline html and css. 2. Yes attachment or webpage. When you link to a webpage you can usually do something like http://www.mysite.com/image.jpg?email=somemail@s.com, then in your logs you can see who actually opened their email (if they chose to download the images - most programs block those by default) – Prescott May 07 '12 at 03:59
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    you can also send a non html (txt) body message in a email as well. – Zenwalker May 07 '12 at 04:00

2 Answers2

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I haven't tried it before, but take a look at the MailDefinition class.

John Saunders
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Here's some solutions I have ran into while creating email templating systems:

  • There's no built-in templating system built into the framework that I know of. I built a system that worked pretty well in the past. Nowadays I do things simply. I would replace items like {year} with the current year, {year2} for a 2-digit year OR {year:2,} which is more work, but results in any of your variables to have the ability to do an inline SubString() without much work past the initial build. (you could do {var:name:upper}, :lower, :titlecase; you can pass in an object and use simple reflection techniques to read all the public properties and do automatic replacements... the sky is the limit!) The important thing is to give yourself a lot of leeway without violating the YAGNI principle too much. When you're building a system like this...

  • Start with examples of how you want to end up. I ended up writing something like <html><body><h1><font face="arial">Hello, <b>{var:firstname}!</b> It's {hour} {ampm} here...</font></h1> ...</html> which would do the replacements and spit out the final copy. Then, check using a regex that everything was replaced so you're not sending out Hi, null null! It's nice to see you at {hour} {ampm}! and make you the laughing stock of your recipients. Think hard about how you want to be able to insert content. You can do lots of crazy things with your own templating system, good and bad, so TEST TEST TEST. Unit tests are handy for regression testing. Remember, once you go live, you don't want to make mistakes since you're sending them to the customer and there's no way of changing it before the client sees it like you can do with a web site.

  • Most HTML newsletters are in HTML format, use inline-CSS or (gasp!) TABLEs and FONT tags for layout. The reason behind this is because most email HTML rendering engines are stuck in the past. What works with Thunderbird may work somewhat well with Mozilla, but will look like garbage in GMail or Hotmail. My recommendation is to use as little inline CSS as possible, and if you do, test with a few email clients, including web- and non-web-based clients to make sure you get the desired effect in each one. Use TABLEs for layout, no fancy CSS3 stuff. The KISS rule applies here, and yes, it's a blast from the past using the old-style HTML. You may feel like you need to take a shower after writing that horrible code, using tables for layout, etc., but that's what we need to do with what we are given.

Read this too: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/design-perfect-newsletter/

Derreck Dean
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