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How do I create email with css and images from Rails?

Answer 1

A:

You need to create a MIME mail, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME, for example. Most programming languages have a library of some kind to achieve that.

sirprize 2009-01-23 10:22:39

Answer 2

A:

Read How to Create Great HTML Emails with CSS , it's a good start. All emails need to follow HTML 3.0!

Filip Ekberg 2009-01-23 11:24:11

Answer 3

+4 A:

Assuming you know how to send normal plain-text emails from Rails using ActionMailer, to get HTML emails working you need to set a content type for your email.

For example, your notifer might look like this:

class MyMailer < ActionMailer::Base
  def signup_notification(recipient)
    recipients   recipient.email_address_with_name
    subject      "New account information"
    from         "[email protected]"
    body         :user => recipient
    content_type "text/html"
  end
end

Note the content_type "text/html" line. This tells ActionMailer to send an email with a content type of text/html instead of the default text/plain.

Next you have to make your mailer views output HTML. For example, your view file app/views/my_mailer/signup_notification.erb might look like the following:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"&gt;

<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <style type="text/css" media="screen">
      h3 { color: #f00; }
      ul { list-style: none; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h3>Your account signup details are below</h3>
  <ul>
    <li>Name: <%= @user.name %></li>
    <li>Login: <%= @user.login %></li>
    <li>E-mail: <%= @user.email_address %></li>
  </ul>
</body>
</html>

As you can see the HTML view can include a <style> tag to define basic styles. Not all HTML and CSS is supported, especially across all mail clients, but you should definitely have sufficient formatting control over text styles.

Embedding images is a bit tricker if you plan to display attached emails. If you are simply including emails from external sites, you can use an <img /> tag as you usually would in HTML. However, many mail clients will block these images from being displayed until the user authorises it. If you need to display attached images, the Rails plug-in Inline Attachments might be worth a look.

For more information on Rails mailing support, the ActionMailer documentation is a great resource

bjeanes 2009-01-23 13:38:11

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How do I create email with css and images from Rails?

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