How to edit the html from ASP in a better way?

Question

Hello I have an ASP script that I need to edit. Actually I need to restyle the email that it sends, so I need to edit the HTML from it.

The problem is the html (from the asp file) has on every row

HTML = HTML & ="

in it (plus some other changes). I need to take the HTML code from that ASP, get rid of the beginning html = html part, edit the double "" and convert them to a single " (I need to do that one by one, because the variables also have quotes in them).

Than, I restyle the page with HTML and after that I need to convert it back so I can integrate it in ASP (basically introduce the double '"' again and stuff).

Yeah, I could edit the HTML from the ASP directly, but I don't know how it might look, because I can't run the script (it needs other files from the server, which I don't have access to).

The question:

Is there a better way of doing this?

Some way of previewing what I'm doing in ASP directly. Or maybe a tool that let's me move from ASP HTML to HTML and back faster.

I sure know that what I'm doing right now is quite dumb, so there must be a better way.

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

2

You could create a html template file with some placeholders in it, read it in, replace the placeholders and then use it in your email. Saves you having to keep messing about building up the html using variables. This previous answer has some more details about a possible solution (with code examples).

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

1
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answered Mar 14 '16 at 17:40

Steve Holland

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Very true, that is what I'm doing in most cases. Easy, simple, and clean. – Shadow The GPT Wizard Mar 15 '16 at 07:50
1

@ShadowWizard Always been a big fan of this approach, works really well for e-mail templates as well. – user692942 Mar 15 '16 at 09:59

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

As @steve-holland mentions creating a template is a great way to avoid all the annoying HTML strings in the code and makes changing layouts a breeze.

I've worked on HTML templating scripts myself in the past, usually I build a Scripting.Dictionary that contains the key value pairs I will be replacing inside the template.

Function getHTMLTemplate(url, params)
  Dim stream, keys, html, idx

  Set stream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
  With stream
    .Type = adTypeText
    .Charset = "utf-8"
    Call .Open()
    Call .LoadFromFile(url)
    html = .ReadText(adReadAll)
    Call .Close()
  End With
  Set stream = Nothing

  keys = o_params.Keys
  For idx = 0 To UBound(keys, 1)
    html = Replace(html, keys(idx), params.Item(keys(idx)))
  Next
  Set keys = Nothing
  Set params = Nothing

  getHTMLTemplate = html
End Function

Usage:

Dim params, html
Set params = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
With params
  .Add("[html_title]", "Title Here")
  .Add("[html_logo]", "/images/logo.gif")
  '... and so on
End With

html = getHTMLTemplate(Server.MapPath("/templates/main.htm"), params)

Call Response.Write(html)

Example main.htm structure:

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>[html_title]</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/styles/main.css" />
  </head>

  <body>
    <div class="header">
      <img src="[html_logo]" alt="Company Name" />
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

Why use a ADODB.Stream instead of the Scripting.FileSystemObject?;

You can control the Charset being returned and even convert from one to another if you need to.
If the template is particular large, you can stream the content in using the Read() method with a specific buffer size to improve the performance of the read.

How to edit the html from ASP in a better way?

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