So where are all the inquiring minds now, Huh?

You see what happens you post good information and nobody answere or even says thanks. Well Ryan thanks man I appreciate it.

Also watch in a week someone is going to ask how this is done, watch.


'Adventure, Excitement, A Jedi craves not these things.'
'Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they.'

Hey ryan, you would be proud of me, last nite I decided to try and insert some hidden html code into a web blog page i have to play music in the background when the user opens the page....and it worked...only took me like 5 minutes to find the code online, im learning all sorts of new stuff....like what src means duh...source....this isnt that hard once you get the hang of it!! anyways you inspired me to learn more....maybe I will be able to ask you more questions if I get the nerve to get gutsier.

Cool. I just hope you didn't make the music start without the user starting it. That is very annoying to low bandwidth people (like me).



C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN DOS RUN

yes i did actually....sorry but everyone does it on myspace.com now if you can show me how to make one of those little player icons to start and stop, or if you know somewhere with the code then I would love to put that in there.

www.hypergurl.com/music.html That explains it well. Just remember the autostart='false'.



C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN DOS RUN

Ryan, you're just full of usefull info. You're going to make a great employee for someone someday. What state do you live in again?
Thanks for always helping out man!!

I live in West Virginia. I am an employee right now, just not for anything computer related. I hope to own my business one day.



C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN DOS RUN

I've been looking for something like this for a little while now. I don't know why it took me so long. Thanks!

myspace.com, LOL. I'm on there, too.


Support Music and Arts Education
www.dafenix.org

awesome post man! thanks alot!

I'm not sure how accurate that guide is. I know HTML e-mail is stuck in 1999 due to the slow progress in HTML/CSS support by e-mail clients (particularly Gmail), but there are still more technical & design considerations specific to HTML e-mails that extend beyond just "create a web page using WYSIWYG editor and insert into Outlook Express".

For example:

• you need to make sure that your HTML template uses minimal CSS, which has to be all inline;
• don't use CSS shorthand;
• the tables need to have their widths specified in the TDs, not just the TABLE element;
• ensure that background images (embedded using tables, not DIVs) are not critical to your design--i.e. use a background color that can be substituted for the BG image;
• related to the above, make sure you use proper ALT text for all images;
• make sure that your core layout doesn't exceed 600 pixels wide;
• your layout container / wrapper table should not exceed 98% wide;
• treat your wrapper table as you would the BODY tag, since webmail clients will disable the BODY tag;
• but most importantly, you need to actually test your template on the e-mail clients (both desktop and webmail) you're targeting; also keep in mind that more and more people are using mobile devices to read their emails.

It's usually a good idea to use an email marketing service like Campaign Monitor or MailChimp. Otherwise, you will have a hard time sending out large volumes of emails without being blacklisted. Most of them will also help you troubleshoot reasons you're being caught in spam filters (or check your content before it's sent out). They also offer well designed and thoroughly tested templates, as well as do some basic conversions on your own custom templates to make them email safe, though that still doesn't preclude the need to test manually.

Useful resources:
http://dennisdeacon.wordpress.com/20...est-practices/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/design-guidelines/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
http://articles.sitepoint.com/articl...il-newsletters

Considering the post is from 2004 maybe it's due for an update?

To be honest, depressingly little has changed in HTML email in those 6 or so years. The only major difference is that you need to worry far more about webmail clients than you used to. The guide still describes a simple method that will sorta work, and all the stuff that Resilien describes was important then and is now if you want to do it right.

I'd strongly recommend Mailchimp as both a great resource and a great service if you're considering doing HTML email campaigns. They have tons of really useful information on both creating an HTML email and also things like how to build your list without breaking any laws. Plus some templates that have been tested against most of the major mail clients.

They're also an email delivery service. I've tried their free service, and if you're list is small, and you don't mind having a "Powered by Mailchimp" logo at the bottom, it's really good. Makes life much easier. If your list is larger, or you don't want the logo, then their prices seem pretty reasonable to me, though I've never actually tried for their paid service.

The email delivery services (there are plenty of others) in general are a pretty good idea, as the other major difference since 2004 is that these days, it's much, much easier to get labelled as a spammer, and they have a bunch of infrastructure to help ensure that emails actually end up in the customer's inbox and not in the spam folder (or just dropped by a mail server somewhere).

Still, even if you're not interested in an email delivery service, there's a lot of good information on that site.