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.

Alternative Text Generated Automatically: When the option auto-generated alternative text is selected in the panel on the right, then the editor pane shows a readonly preview of the text that was created automatically from the HTML.
Manually Supplied Alternative Text: When the option manually supplied alternative text is selected in the panel on the right, then the text editor for the alternative text of a HTML message is a standard text editor. Use the icons in the editor toolbar for access to various editor functions.

For the full alternative text editor, the panel on the right contains the following sections. For the readonly preview, it contains only some of these sections:

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

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.

Alternative Text

Define if the alternative text for the HTML message shall be created automatically from the HTML content or shall be supplied manually.

When LISTSERV Maestro creates the alternative text automatically, then the generated text is also formatted with additional spacing and special separator lines to mark up certain typical sections of your message, such as:

Top Banner: This section often includes elements such as the view-in-browser link or certain other texts that address for example display problems of the message and how to solve them. To mark a section of your HTML as top banner, add the lsoft-plainTopBanner class to the outermost tag of this section.
Bottom Banner: This section typically includes the unsubscribe link but frequently also general information about your organization such as contact addresses and legal disclaimers. To mark a section of your HTML as bottom banner, add the lsoft-plainBottomBanner class to the outermost tag of this section.
Headings: Headings of four levels are recognized in the HTML, you can either use the standard HTML tags like <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, <H4>, or you can alternatively use the classes lsoft-plainHeading1, lsoft-plainHeading2, lsoft-plainHeading3 or lsoft-plainHeading4 if you code the header section in your HTML with other tags.
Bulleted and Numbered Lists: If your HTML contains the standard <UL> or <OL> tags to render bulleted or numbered lists, then those lists are also included in the plain text alternative using the asterisk (*) as bullets and integral numbers (1..n) for numbered lists.
Images: If an image in your HTML has the alt attribute set, then Maestro by default includes a link to this image in the plain alternative text part and prefixes this link with the value of the alt image attribute. If you do not want this behavior, open the image's properties in the content editor and un-tick the "Include a link to this image in the text alternative" box.
HTML sections without alternative text: To mark a section in your HTML message so that LISTSERV Maestro does not create alternative text for it, use the lsoft-noPlainAltText class in a tag that surrounds this section.

Note: The system templates that are available with Maestro are already augmented with the special attributes described above to designate the given sections and areas.

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.)