Content Editor

The content editor allows you to edit the message content of your mail job.

The editor consists of the main panel that displays the actual editor and an additional panel with various sections on the right.

In this panel on the right, each section can be opened and closed separately, so that you only need to see the content of those sections that are currently of interest to you. Simply click on a section header to open/close this section.

The editor for a HTML message that is based on a click-and-fill system template is the special click-and-fill editor that is described below.

For a message that is based on the currently selected click-and-fill system template, the panel on the right contains the following sections:

Content Fields

This panel section shows all click-and-fill placeholders in the template. You can select a placeholder for editing by clicking it in the list. The placeholder that is currently selected for editing is highlighted (if any). Mandatory placeholders are marked with bold text and the state icons show which placeholders have been filled out and which not.

Template Colors

This panel section allows you to change the colors that are used by the template. The colors that are currently in use are shown as color patches. Click on a color patch to open a color picker. Then in the color picker, select the new color. Once have found the color you want, click the [Close Color Picker] button to hide the color picker and show the color patches again. If you change your mind while the color picker is open and while you are trying to find a new color, and you want to stick with the previous color without changing it, click the Previous color patch in the color picker before closing it, to reset your color selection to the previous color.

Template Border

This panel section allows you to select the border type for the main content box. You have the choice between a slight 4-pixel wide shade, a single 1-pixel wide line, or no border at all. Simply click one one of the available border types to select it.

Template Default Font

This panel section allows you to select the default font that is to be used by the template. Simply click one of the available fonts to select it. This default is then automatically applied to the template. In the template content, where necessary you can of course always override this default with individual font settings, for example for certain paragraphs or words.

Merge Fields

This panel section shows all available merge fields. Click on a merge field name to insert it into the editor at the current cursor position.

Drop-Ins

This panel section shows all available user-defined and system drop-ins. (Except for the social media sharing system drop-ins, see "Social Media" section below).

Click on a drop-in name to insert it into the editor at the current cursor position. Hover the mouse pointer over a drop-in name to see a short description of what this drop-in will do. See also here.

Unsubscribe Action

This panel specifies the unsubscribe action link (URL) that is used to replace the *UnsubscribeURL system drop-in. This system drop-in is mandatory to be included in the email content of the message. It is replaced with the URL that is specified here.

Click the Change link in the section to edit the action link.

Attachments

This panel section shows all attachments that are part of the message. You can add any number of file attachments to your message, or none at all.

To edit the current attachments, click the Change link in that section. This opens a dialog where you can upload new attachments or download or remove attachments that were added previously.

Hosted Attachments

This panel section shows all hosted attachments that are part of the message. You can add any number of hosted attachments to your message, or none at all.

To add or delete the current hosted attachments, click on Manage the Hosted Attachments in that section. This opens a dialog where you can upload new attachments or download or remove attachment that were added previously.

Or in the list of already added hosted attachments that is shown in the panel section, click on an attachment name to insert a link to this attachment into the editor at the current cursor position.

Landing Pages

This panel section shows all available landing pages. Click on a landing page name to insert a link to this landing page into the editor at the current cursor position.

Social Media

This panel section allows you to integrate social media sharing and publishing into your email. See here for more details.

Social Media Sharing

By embedding the social media sharing icons (or similar links) into your message, you enable the recipients to easily share your message with other people, on various social media.

You can either include the full {{*SocialMedia}} system drop-in or one of the specific ShareURL drop-ins.

Click on a drop-in name to insert it into the editor at the current cursor position. Hover the mouse pointer over a drop-in name to see a short description of what this drop-in will do.

Content Options

On this panel section you can define various options for the content

Images

Define how the images in the HTML content shall be sent with the email content. You have two options:

As URLs: The images are included as URLs that load the images from the Maestro server when the email is viewed, i.e. the images are loaded from the server on-demand by the email client of the recipient.
As Attachments: The images are included in the email itself, as attachments. The email client of the recipient can show the images without the need for an internet connection to access the Maestro server, but the email data that needs to be transferred is considerably larger.

Note, that this choice does not apply to images that are defined with an external image reference URL, i.e. with a URL that points to an image on an external server. These images are always sent with their original external URL.

See here for a more in-depth explanation of the differences between linked images (="as URL") and inline images (="as attachment"), which also explains the main advantages and disadvantages of each type.

Language

Define the character encoding to be used to encode the email message.

If Maestro is being used in a single language environment, either with plain English or with one of the common (West) European languages, then the safest choice is always the ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) encoding. It contains all 26 common characters (both in upper and lower case), numerals 0 - 9, all the common punctuation characters and the more common special characters such as '@', '+', '*', and others. In addition, it contains many of the uncommon characters required for most West European languages, such as 'ö', 'å', 'ç' and others.
See here for more information.

Drop-In Tags

Define the drop-in opening and closing tags.
See here for more information.

Automatic CSS Inlining

Define if automatic CSS inlining shall be applied to the HTML content of the mail job. The CSS inlining will be applied just before delivery of the job.

If the mail job's content is based on a template, then this setting is defined by the template and cannot be changed here. In this case, the CSS inlining (if enabled) will be applied to the HTML code of both the template and the user supplied editable blocks.

Automatic Email Format

Define if the full HTML message, including the plain text alternative, shall be sent to all recipients, or if the email format for each individual recipient shall be defined automatically, based on a certain condition.

If the condition is true for a recipient, then this recipient will receive the full HTML message, including the plain text alternative. If it is false, then the recipient will receive a plain text message instead, that contains only the text alternative.

This can, for example, be used to let recipients choose the type of email they prefer (HTML or plain text).
The condition must be specified in the standard LISTSERV condition syntax, similar to what is used in a LISTSERV conditional block of the type ".BB ... .EB". See the LISTSERV documentation if more information is required.

Preferably, the condition should also contain at least one merge field from the recipient data so that the condition is a variable condition whose true/false result varies from recipient to recipient. Otherwise, the condition would evaluate to the same true/false result for all recipients; all of them receiving the same content type anyway, defeating the purpose of having a condition in the first place.

Example:

Assume that the recipient data contains a merge field named MAIL_TYPE and that a value of "html" in that field means that the recipient has opted to receive HTML email. If any other value is found, then the recipient wants to receive only plain text email. The condition you specify would be the following:

&MAIL_TYPE = html

(This setting is only available for HTML content with a plain text alternative.)

Click-and-Fill Editor

To fill out the editable content fields of a click-and-fill template, move the mouse pointer over the editor area. As soon as the mouse is moved over an editable field, the field will be highlighted. Just click on the highlighted field to fill it out or edit its current content.

You can also click the field in the Content Fields section of the panel on the right. You can use this as an alternative method to select a field for editing, in addition to simply clicking on a field in the content editor, as described above. In some cases, this makes it easier to select a field for editing, especially if the field does not have a clickable representation in the editor.

The Content Fields section is also useful to get an overview about which fields you have already filled out and which not . In addition, the dialog displays information about if a field is used in the HTML part of the message, or the text part, or in both, or if a field is a mandatory field, which means that you must supply a non-empty value for this field. For an optional field on the other hand, you may chose to leave the field empty. However, you will have to do so actively (by editing the field but leaving its value empty) in order for the field to be marked as complete. That way, even optional fields that you want to leave empty require your attention at least once, where you actively decide to leave them empty, which makes sure that you do not leave an optional field empty by accident.

Any fields that are still undefined are shown in the editor with a suitable "Lorem Ipsum" dummy text as a stand-in for the yet to be defined actual value so that the preview is more meaningful to you.

The message cannot be delivered until all fields have been filled out. If there are still fields which need your attention and which you can not find in the content preview, remember to check both the HTML and the text parts of the message.

When editing a field value, your options depend on the type of the field, as explained below.

Single Value Content Field

You can enter only one value for a single value field. This value will be used to fill out the field. If the same field appears in different locations of the template (or for example both in the HTML part and the text part), then all occurrences of the field will be filled out with the same value.

In the edit dialog for the field, simply fill out the desired content and click [Close Field].

A field may have any of the following types:

Plain Text: The text that you type will be interpreted as plain text without any HTML code. If the placeholder is used in the HTML part of the message and the text you type contains any special HTML characters, then those will be HTML-escaped before replacement.
HTML Source Code: The text that you type will be interpreted as HTML code and may contain special HTML tags that are handled depending on the context:

If the field appears in the HTML part of the message, then the HTML code appears unescaped and will therefore be interpreted as normal HTML. This allows you to include HTML formatting code in the field value (e.g. for attributes like underline, bold, color, font, etc.), but it also requires you to remember to manually escape any HTML-sensitive characters that are not be supposed to be interpreted as HTML code.

If such a field is used in the plain text part of the message, then the HTML code that you enter will automatically be converted to plain text (see below).

If the field appears both in the HTML and the plain text part of the message, then each of the above applies for each respective part, i.e. in the HTML part the field's value will be interpreted as HTML, in the plain text part it will automatically be converted to plain text.

Therefore, it is safe to use simple formatting tags (like <b> or <u> for bold or underlined style) so that in the HTML part some special formatting will be applied, even if the same field appears in the plain text part because there these tags will automatically be removed.
However, you should avoid complicated HTML code in such fields, as the rules by which the HTML code is converted into plain text are rather simple: Any HTML entities (for example like "&" or """) will be resolved into the correct replacement character. Any paragraph and linebreak tags (<p>, <br> and similar) will be converted to normal linebreaks. Any occurrences of ordered or unordered lists with list entries (<ol>, <ul> and <li>) will be converted into simple ordered/unordered lists. All other HTML tags will simply be removed. If in doubt, make sure to check the plain text tab after supplying the HTML field value to see how your input was converted into plain text and that it appears in an acceptable fashion.
Image: Fields of this type appear only in the HTML part of a message. The value for such a field will be a URL that points to an image that is supposed to appear in the message.

Additionally, also depending on the field definition, an input field for the Title attribute may be available. Usually the value of this field is used to supply the "title" and/or "alt" attribute of the <img> tag that renders the image that is defined by the image field. In these cases, the "title" text will be displayed if the image is not available (and also for accessibility purposes) and may also become visible as a little tool-tip popup that appears when the mouse pointer hovers over the image. This may vary, however, depending on the field definition. If the "title" input field is available, then enter a meaningful "title" value for the image that you provide.

Multi Value Content Field

If a field is a multi value field, then you can enter several values for the field. The values you supply will be combined and used to fill out the field in a format defined by the template. If the same field appears in different locations of the template (or for example both in the HTML part and the text part), then all occurrences of the field will be filled out with the same values.

In the edit dialog for the multi value field, each value instance is displayed as a separate box. Click on a value of the field to edit it. To add a new value to the list, click the Add Field Value link at the bottom. To reorder the existing field values or to delete a value, use the little icons at the right of the value boxes. When you have completed filling out all field values, click [Close Field].

Multi value fields can be of the same Plain Text, HTML Source Code or Image types as described above, and all values of a multi value field are of the same type.

Grouped Multi Value Content Fields

The template may combine several multi value fields together into a group. If this is the case, then if you select one of the fields in the group for editing, you actually select the whole group.

In the edit dialog for a group of multi value fields, each group instance is displayed as a separate box, similar to the field value box for a normal multi value field (see above). For a group of multi value fields however, this group instance box contains not only a single field, but contains a value for each of the fields in the group.

For example, such a group may consist of three multi value fields: One for the article header, one for the article body, and one for the article image. So each instance of this group creates a new article, with a title, body and image. And when you edit an instance of this group, then the group instance box contains the values of all three fields that are combined to form the article: The header, body and image.

The values of the fields in all group instances will be used to fill out the fields in a format that is defined by the template. If the same fields appear in different locations of the template (or for example both in the HTML part and the text part), then all occurrences of the fields will be filled out with the same values.

In the edit dialog, simply click on any of the field values in any of the group instance boxes to edit this field value. To add a new group instance to the list, click the Add Value Group link at the bottom. To reorder the existing group instances or to delete an instance, use the little icons at the right of the instance boxes. When you have completed filling out the group instances, click [Close Field Group].