Email Template Layouts

Jim Piller asked on September 25, 2019 22:37

Hello,

I have a question regarding email templates and the "builder" such as it is. Can I create a widget that will allow a user to control the layout of the email? For example, having one widget that is one column and another that is two column etc.? I'm struggling with trying to figure out how to do this. I've created some basic email widgets, but I really don't understand how this doesn't already exist. I have already read through the documentation, and I'm not seeing it in there. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think so. Any help is much appreciated.

Recent Answers

Mike Wills answered on September 27, 2019 05:32

Whoa, I realize now that I posted practically the same question. So far, this seems surprising.

https://devnet.kentico.com/questions/email-marketing-widget-with-zone-or-layout

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Jim Piller answered on September 28, 2019 06:18

Hey Mike,

Ya, it's really surprising and disappointing that Kentico doesn't have an email layout builder like every other email platform on the planet. I don't really understand how they can have a page builder for pages and a form builder for forms and no email builder for emails. And don't tell me about the widgets that are click and dragable...I should be able to have an email with a one column header, a two column body and a one column footer.

Hopefully this gets added in a release very soon. We can't be the only two looking for this feature.

Jim P.

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Mike Wills answered on September 30, 2019 06:29

Hi Jim,

We can create email templates with zones setup the way you described. Would zones setup like this meet your needs?

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The challenge we have is the need to give marketers a variety of layout options in one template. For example, one week, they may want to display product widgets in a 3-up layout, with some promotions in a 2-up layout. Another week, they way want to display a full width promotion, with products in a 2-up layout. Layout widgets would be great, but we can also solve this by providing a template with extra widget zones to provide a variety of layout options (this reminds me of Page Layouts in SharePoint :-) ). Here's an example of the zone's we might provide in one template. However, to make this work, we will make sure each section will have a zero height (invisible), if its zones are empty. If you need a lot of layout options, this "zone sandwich" solution might work for you too.

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Thanks,

Mike

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Jim Piller answered on September 30, 2019 15:15

Hey Mike,

Ya we were looking at the same type of solution where the client would have all kinds of layout options and then delete what they don't need. I was more speaking to the idea that the client won't be able to click and drag sections into the email body similar to what we've done w/ the page builder.

If you could offer some guidance on setting up the solution above, that would help me out quite a bit to get me started. This is the first time I'm trying to build customizable email templates in Kentico.

Thanks,

Jim P.

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