custard doughnuts

Gmail's got a new look. Rather than allowing us to keep the old look as an optional theme, it's been forced upon us. I can't complain though, since I get email entirely for free.

Instead, I thought I'd explain some of the reasons I don't like the new look, and do something about it.

If you're any kind of email developer, you'll be aware that Gmail presents some difficulties when building HTML emails. For example, it strips out style tags and has a tendency to remove inline style attributes as well. It's confusing, not in any way documented, and very frustrating.

I spent an afternoon recently trying to get to the bottom of this, and I believe I've found a few new ways to make Gmail behave. Hopefully this will be of use to someone.

In a press conference that stunned the world, custarddoughnuts today announced that the time of building HTML emails "was over" thanks to their new HTML email generating software. Speaking from his underground bunker beneath New Mexico, CEO Lewis Crankled said "Why spend time trying to get your email to look pixel perfect on every email client when you can just generate it in HTML, without even needing images?"

Oh, I do make myself laugh sometimes.

I was recently forced into the world of responsive email building. Having previously done responsive/mobile friendly websites and regular HTML emails, I figured it would be a fairly straightforward blend of the two.

Oh... no no.

The following is a combination of what I've got from other people, what I've learned, what I've figured out for myself. I'm trying to give specific details as many of the guides I came across were a bit high level. Hold on while we get techy.

We have a client that needs to send the same email to a list of different regions around the world, which of course means translating that email. Not only that, but the links in each email need to point to a different site depending on the region, and the local store address for that region needs to be listed, sometimes at the top of the email, sometimes at the bottom, sometimes both... and then there's other things like the Facebook link/logo isn't relevant for China, so that needs to be replaced with Weibo. It's a big job.