
Transactional HTML Email Templates - twakefield
http://blog.mailgun.com/transactional-html-email-templates/
======
patio11
These are incredible. Thanks.

Elaboration: You can buy email templates on ThemeForest for ~$2 and they'll be
prettier but it is very, very rare that they are actually as thoroughly tested
as these are. Source: The guy who deals with bug reports like "It's unreadable
on [insert a device that neither the designer nor the email sender owned]" way
more often than he'd like to.

Fun story, which I'm telling you because it is a fun story and not because I
want to scare you off using Themeforest designs: I once bought, and promptly
shipped, a transactional email template. It happened to include a reproducible
remote crash against at least three major versions of Outlook. (After finding
this out _the hard way_ , I reported it to Microsoft's security, which looked
into it for a few months before deciding "That sucks but it doesn't look like
remote code execution is actually exploitable so _phew_ dodged a bullet there,
didn't we.")

~~~
bluetidepro
> "You can buy email templates on ThemeForest for ~$2 and they'll be prettier
> but it is very, very rare that they are actually as thoroughly tested as
> these are."

This is an amazing resource, but I don't want you to over generalize the
templates at Themeforest. All the templates on that site clearly say what they
have been tested in, and what clients they work in. (screenshot of the product
detail sidebar:
[http://bluetide.pro/BU4q/1KDfhjBF](http://bluetide.pro/BU4q/1KDfhjBF)). I've
never ever found that info to be wrong when it says they work in the said
applications. I think Themeforest does a great job with their vetting process
to make sure the templates on the site are almost 100% accurate in the info.

(It may be worth reporting to Themeforest that wasn't the case on a template
if you have been burned before.)

~~~
pyre
One thing that it's missing is which _version_ of (e.g.) Outlook it's been
tested in.

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sundance0
These are great, and really simple to use. Already adapted for my latest
project!

Also, if you didn't catch it in there: the [premailer][1] library is awesome,
and helps make email templates more manageable (use CSS/LESS/SCSS styles like
normal, then run your HTML email through premailer before shipping and it'll
inline everything for you). I use the Python library with Django to preflight
emails before sending. Works like a charm!

[1]:
[https://github.com/peterbe/premailer/tree/master](https://github.com/peterbe/premailer/tree/master)

Also available in Ruby, Node, and PHP flavors

~~~
e0
Why is it better to use inline CSS here? Isn't inline CSS usually frowned-
upon?

~~~
ceejayoz
> Isn't inline CSS usually frowned-upon?

Yes, but not in the 1990s, which is the era HTML email finds itself stuck in.

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SuperKlaus
Directly on the heels of "Open Source Email Templates (sendwithus.com)"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154646)

Gotta love competition.

~~~
twakefield
Seems more like complimentary rather than competition. We don't really have a
dog in the fight as to which templates our customers use. Just trying to be
helpful. Maybe we should do a pull request to get these templates on the
sendwithus repo.

~~~
bvanvugt
Absolutely, happy to join forces :) More excellent templates for everyone!

~~~
Killswitch
I love seeing essentially two competitors come together to deliver quality to
their customers and not try to dog at each other.

~~~
fraserharris
SendWithUs (transactional email GUI for marketers) integrates with Mailgun
(email delivery API) and are not competitive by and large.

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lelf
Please don't forget to include text/plain multipart/alternative while you are
at it.

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encoderer
These are great. I've been thinking a lot lately about HTML email vs Text. I
used to snicker at people who wanted plaintext, thinking them luddites. But
I've had some experience on the other side of this lately with our SaaS
startup, Cronitor. I've learned that a plainly worded and concise plaintext
email can be a very powerful tool.

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jimktrains2
For those of you, like me wondering what a transactional email is:
[http://blog.mailchimp.com/what-is-transactional-
email/](http://blog.mailchimp.com/what-is-transactional-email/)

    
    
        > So what is transactional email? Coming from a MailChimp 
        > state of mind, you might simply think of it as "anything 
        > that isn’t bulk". Basically, it is email sent to an
        > individual based on some action. It could be:
        >
        >   * an action they took directly
        >   * an action they were the target of or,
        >   * perhaps even inaction on their part

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mendelk
For those that need more complex designs, there's also responsive email
templates from Zurb[0].

[0] [http://zurb.com/playground/responsive-email-
templates](http://zurb.com/playground/responsive-email-templates)

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michaelmior
Here's an alternative[0] from Sendwithus worth checking out.

[0]
[https://github.com/sendwithus/templates](https://github.com/sendwithus/templates)

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jasonwen
This is really awesome. Just needed this. 3 years ago. Sometimes I really
think why things are so obvious but takes so long before someone realises and
take action.

Thanks a lot for the resource!

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callmeed
These are really great.

If anyone is interested in collaborating, I'm thinking about converting these
(and the SendWithUs ones) into ActionMailer layouts and views for use in Rails
apps.

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pionar
The MIT license worries me. Does that mean, if I use it, I have to embed the
license somewhere in every email, as that's how the MIT license reads to me.

~~~
akerl_
No, the MIT license is not viral, and even if it was, emails created from an
MIT-licensed thing would be no less "derivative" than documents typed inside
OpenOffice.

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ferrantim
Thanks Mailgun! These are really awesome.

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pearknob
A side note: I really love Mailgun as a service :)

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orliesaurus
sweet!

