Newsberry

New Editor: Create beautiful campaigns without the effort

Posted in Templates on Apr 22, 2010 by Natalie Nagele

We know you’ve waited a long time, and we appreciate your patience. We’ve launched the new customer HTML editor which we are sure you will love (we sure do). Here’s a quick overview of how it works and what you can expect. Detailed help articles coming soon.

Editing a new Newsberry template

When you go to create a new template, you will notice that we have separated your own custom templates from our templates (now called the Template Gallery). This way, you can now filter through our templates based on various layouts.

To edit one of our templates, just go to the Template Gallery and select the one you want and the new editor will open. What you will see is a template full of editable regions. We’ve basically separated all of the places you can edit into their own sections. This way, you can make all the changes you need without messing up the HTML. Start making your changes by editing each section at a time. You can add images, documents and text to each section separately. We’ll do all the proper formatting for you.

We can also now generate the Text Version of your template (click Text at the top). This was a highly requested feature, so now you have no excuse to send out your email without a version for your subscribers who don’t read emails in HTML.

You will also notice that adding default tags is much easier with the new editor. Now you can just select the Unsubscribe, Subscribe, etc tag from a list and we’ll put it in for you. You still have to insert your own custom tags, we are working to add these in a future release.

Existing Templates

Unfortunately, it was not possible for us to convert existing templates to use the new editor. So, we have left the option to use the old editor for those who are in the midst of creating a campaign, or those who want to reuse a previously sent draft. You will notice the layout of the page is different, but the tools for editing (WYSIWYG) are still the same. We will, in the future, remove the old editor completely, so we highly encourage you to start editing your campaigns using the new, custom editor.

Custom Template

We are currently working on a markup to allow you to create a custom HTML template that can be edited using the new editor. This way, if you have a designer who wants to create a template for you to edit, they will use a special markup in their HTML that will talk nicely with the editor. Until then, you can still add custom HTML and use the old editor to make changes. Expect this capability in the very near future.

Images

We are happy to report that when you upload an image in the new editor, we will do all of the resizing for you so your image fits perfectly within the design. No need to resize anything on your end.

However, for those customers wishing to reuse an image they have uploaded before, there is currently no elegant way to do this. Since the new editor is completely custom, it does not use the same Image Manager where you have stored your previous files. Therefore, you cannot access them while editing, all images are uploaded from your computer. We are working on a custom add-on to make this work. In the meantime, there is a workaround.

To access the image manager you can open or create a custom template. Here you will be able to access the old WYSIWYG editor and open the Image Manager. Just download any images you need to your computer and them upload them again when you are editing in the new editor. We know this isn’t ideal, and we are working to get you a better solution.

Support

This release has taken longer than expected as we wanted to test, and test and test again. If you notice any bugs or issues, please submit a ticket. Also, if you have any feedback or suggestions, please let us know. We hope this solves a big headache for you when you are working on your marketing campaigns.