Connect4

Gnosis
Process Documentation

 

Editing Email Message Templates & Web Pages

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Editing HTML for Email
  3. Configuring Expression Web & Gnosis Pro
    1. Setting up your Preferred HTML Editor in Gnosis Pro
    2. Setting up Expression Web Style-Editing Mode
    3. Opening your Gnosis-enabled Web Site (for editing content templates and/or web site pages)
  4. Loading & Saving Layout Templates to Gnosis
  5. Editing Content Templates
  6. Editing Web Site Pages

 

1. Overview

In addition to HTML web pages on your web site, Gnosis has two primary sets of email templates that define content and layout for email messages sent by the system. 

Layout Templates

Layout templates define the overall visual structure of HTML emails are designed and created on your PC and then uploaded to the database in the communications module within Gnosis Pro.  These layout templates are designed to be used when creating general outgoing communications from within the Gnosis Pro communications module.

Content Templates

Content templates on the other hand are complete HTML messages that are used by your Gnosis system to communicate specific messages (such as lost password information, initial registration welcome message, Issue tracking messages, etc.) to web site guests and persons registered in your Gnosis database. These templates are stored as html files within your Gnosis web site.

This document explains how to edit and maintain these template files.  The instructions here assume that you are using "Expression Web" - Gnosis' recommended HTML editor, however, if you are using Dreamweaver or another web page editing tool, you may generally substitute Expressions Web instructions for the equivalent in your preferred web page editing software.

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2. Editing HTML for Email

HTML email while similar in nature to HTML web pages, have a number of quirks that need to be addressed to ensure maximum deliverability and visual integrity of your email communications. As a result of this, most HTML web page editing software is not well suited to editing HTML for email.

The Dreamweaver/Contribute editors for example, are an excellent set of visual design tools for HTML web pages, however, they do not do a good job of HTML email editing as they make certain assumptions about the final product living on a web site as opposed to living in an email environment.  While you are able to work around these issues if you are an experienced HTML editor, for most casual HTML editors, you are better off selecting a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editor that is HTML email friendly.

At this time, our recommendation for HTML editor for email communications is Microsoft's "Expression Web". As an added bonus, Expression Web is also an excellent HTML editor for general web site editing on your Gnosis-enabled web site.

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3. Configuring Expression Web & Gnosis Pro

The remainder of this article will assume that you will be editing HTML (content and layout) templates with Expression Web. If you do not have a copy of Expression Web, you may download a 60 day trial from Microsoft's web site at http://www.microsoft.com/expression. At the time of writing, the application generally retails for around $280, however, if you have an older copy of Microsoft's FrontPage web page editing program, you may upgrade to Expression Web for about $90.

Once you have installed Expression Web, perform the following to setup your Gnosis system to work with it:

  1. Setting up your Preferred HTML Editor in Gnosis Pro

    Gnosis Pro has a basic inbuilt HTML editor that provides adequate functionality for editing email messages using existing templates, however, if you need to design or edit content or layout templates, you will want to use a more advanced HTML editor such as Expression Web. To do this, you should configure Expression Web (or the editor of your choice) as your preferred HTML editor:
     
    1. Open Gnosis Pro and choose "Settings | Preferences & Settings" on the main menu bar at the top of the application.
       
    2. Choose the "General" section and navigate down to the "External HTML Editor" setting.
       
    3. In the "User" column, click on the ellipses button to open a dialog and paste the location of your Expression Web program.  If you accepted the default installation location when installing Expression Web, that will be:
      1. For Expressions Web V1:
        "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\WebDesigner\EXPRWD.EXE"
      2. for Expressions Web V2:
        C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Web 2\WebDesigner\EXPRWD.EXE.
      3. If you are using a different editor, enter the full path to the program file for your preferred editor.
         
    4. Press the Save & Close button to return to the main Gnosis Pro application.  Now, instead of launching the internal HTML editor, Gnosis Pro will use the editor that you just configured.
       
      Note: You may still use the internal editor by "Shift-Clicking" on any button that launches an HTML editor now that Clicking on the button launches the external editor that you just configured.
       
       
  2. Setting up Expression Web Style Editing Mode

    Inside the Expression Web application its-self, you will need to set the "Style Application" to "Manual Inline Styles" mode to place the application into a mode suitable for editing HTML emails. 

    To do this:
     
    1. Open the Expression Web application.
       
    2. Ensure that the Style Application button bar is visible.
      The Style Application Bar
      If the bar is not visible, Right-Click on the menu bar at the top and place a check mark next to the Style Application item -- the bar will then appear.
       
    3. In the first drop down box, ensure that the Style Application is set to Manual
       
    4. In the second drop down box, ensure that the Target Rule is set to (New Inline Style) and that the Reuse Properties button and Show Overlay button are both depressed as shown in the image above.
       
      Note: when editing web pages (as opposed to HTML email), you will most likely wish to change the Style Application back to Automatic.
       
        
  3. Opening your Gnosis-enabled Web Site (for editing content templates and/or web site pages)

    If you wish to edit your content templates or regular web site pages, you will need to Open your web site within Expression Web. If you do not wish to edit content templates or web site pages at this time, you may skip this section.
     
    1. If you have a local "staging" or "testing" copy of your web site:
      1. On the menu bar at the top of the Expression Web application, choose "File | Open Site" and navigate to the top most folder of your local copy of your web site.
         
      2. Press "Open" to open the local copy of your web site
         
    2. If you edit your web pages directly on your public web site:
      1. On the menu bar at the top of the Expression Web application, choose "File | Open Site".
         
      2. In the Site Name box at the foot of the Open Site dialog, enter the ftp address of your public gnosis-enabled web site (Note: ftp:// is similar to the http:// that you see in front of web page addresses, except, ftp is a connection method that lets you send pages in both directions whereas http is really only for downloading pages to look at).  The ftp address of your public web site will be something like ftp://www.MyWebsite.com.
         
      3. Press "Open" to make an ftp connection to your public web site. Expression Web will display the following dialog box...

         Remote Web Site Editing Warning
        You should accept the default "Edit Live Web Site Now" to open your public web site.
         
      4. Request for your Username and PasswordNext, Expression Web asks you for the web site ftp user name and password. 

        Here you will want to provide the Web Master FTP Username and Password  which should be available from your system administrator and was provided as part of your "Gnosis Getting Started Guide" in your initial subscription package. Note, your system may have a number of different ftp usernames and passwords, be sure to select the Web Master one.



         
      5. Expression Web should now open your public web site.  If it does not, recheck your ftp address, username and password for errors.
         

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4. Loading & Saving Layout Templates to Gnosis

Layout Templates start out as standard HTML files on your local PC. You create Layout Templates using Expression Web (or any other web page editor such as dreamweaver) by either starting with an existing template and modifying it, or, starting with a blank page. If you are starting from an existing template, make sure that it was created for email use, not for web page use - web page templates are a very different beast to email templates (see the article on Communicating With Email for additional information)
 
  1. To edit or clone an existing template, If the template that you wish to edit is already loaded in your Gnosis database templates area, you will need to save a copy on your local hard drive:
     
    1. Open Gnosis Pro and navigate to the communications center.
       
    2. Select a communications category (any one that has email as a method will do) and press the New Item button to create a new item in that category (you'll need to give it a name and press save).
       
    3. Switch to the Email Message tab and press the Choose Template button to open the template management dialog.
       
    4. Choose the template that you wish to save and press the Select button.
       
    5. Press the Edit Message button to load the template into Expression Web (Note: This assumes that you have already completed the step to configure Expression Web as your preferred HTML email editor in Gnosis Pro).
       
    6. You may now edit your template in Expression Web -- See Communicating With Email for additional very important information on formatting HTML for email messages.
       
    7. When you are done, choose File | Save As... to choose a location to save your new template file. You will use this file to upload your new layout template to Gnosis.
       
  2. To edit or clone an existing template, If the template that you wish to edit is already located on your PC or a disk area to which you have access, simply select File | Open... to open the template directly in Expression Web.
     
  3. To upload your new template once it is saved on your local hard drive, go to the Communications Center main page in Gnosis Pro and click on the "Manage HTML Templates" button, then:
     
    1. The Add New Template - Properties DialogIn the Template Dialog, press the Add New Template button and select the new template file that you saved in Expression Web.
       
    2. Give the new template a name, category and description and press the OK button - The new template will be immediately saved to your database and available to all users.

       

 

5. Editing Content Templates

This section assumed that you have already configured your Expression Web or other HTML editor to access your Gnosis-enabled web site per the instructions above.

Content templates are all located in the /Connect4/Resources/Messages folder of your web site.  Navigate to that folder using the folder list in Expression Web and double-click on the item that you wish to edit.

Your gnosis system comes pre-loaded with a number of different sample templates for various purposes and you will fund a number of sub-folders within the messages folder that contain different sets of templates you may use for customizing your content messages,

To use one or more of the sets of templates in sub-directories in the messages folder, you will need to copy them directly to the root of the messages folder.

Each content template contains two files, one HTML file (ending in htm) and one plain text version (ending in txt). when you customize a content template, you should remember to customize both versions as they are always both sent whenever the content template is used by the system.  To prevent one type from being sent, simply delete it from the root of the messages folder.

Each content template uses special data fields that are used just like mail merge fields and are substituted with data from the database. These special fields are enclosed in chevrons like this: 

Account for : «PFirstName» «PLastName»
Email address : «EEmailAddress»

You may completely change the format and layout of content templates, however, be careful to preserve the special data fields that you want to appear in your message -- they must appear exactly as shown in the original templates without any additional spaces or formatting added to them.  Basically, the content between the chevrons must remain unchanged whereas content outside the chevrons may be changed in any way.

If you do not want a particular field to be included in a template, you may delete it.

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6. Editing Web Site Pages

All of your public web site pages are contained in the /Site directory in a standard Gnosis-enabled web site.  If your web site existed before implementing Gnosis, you may also find web pages in the root directory of your site.

We recommend that you use Expression Web to edit and create new web pages on your site.  If you are creating pages to include Gnosis database enabled content, you should use the "Gnosis Page" template that was supplied as part of your initial web site implementation. Pages that host Gnosis database components must end in ".aspx".

To place Gnosis database components on a web page, simply drag the required component from the /Connect4/Controls or /Connect4/Plugins directory to the page in the location that you desire, then, set any required properties on the dragged control.

For a tutorial and reference on building web pages using Gnosis components, see the Gnosis Web Master's Getting Started Guide.

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