More Scripts, Forms, and HTML Email



	Ezine-Tips
	List-News

Got an Ezine Marketing
or Email Newsletter
Question?
AskChrisKnight.com

More Scripts, Forms, and HTML Email
By Brian Alt

Print | Email This | Bookmark | Subscribe | Comments (0)

Last week's article on Scripts and HTML email elicited some interesting feedback from the Ezine-Tips readers. If you missed that article, it is available here.

Here is some of that feedback:

I'm with you on the advice to avoid scripts. I'm sure you'll hear this from other subscribers: I delete all emails on the spot that come to me with a script running. I have my browser and email program set up to tell me when a script will run and I only run them when I know a Web site will not come up without the script. I never let them run in an email.

As you probably know, the new, most threatening viruses can be sent in HTML messages as scripts. There's no way to discern one from the other before it runs and since the malcontents of this world have seen fit to send out attacks that use innocent people's address books, I'm not going to let a script run even when it comes from a friendly source.

Just my two cents to add the conversation.

BTW--Thanks for your very useful tool. I quite often forward your newsletters to my superiors as proof that I am keeping up to date on this subject and that my opinions are well researched. Your ezine helps me and many other Web editors perform their jobs better.

Karen Kneisley
http://www.kovels.com/

Thanks Karen!

I think your experience is typical of most veteran Internet users. Many people (myself included) are wary of scripts and viruses in email, and HTML email makes it even easier to "slip one by the goalie," so to speak.

When dealing with HTML email, it all comes down to trust. If you can't trust the person or organization sending you HTML email, then that party probably has no business sending it. Trust is a difficult thing to gain on the Net, and those ezine publishers who have won the trust of their subscribers should tread carefully so that they retain it.

Another Ezine-Tips reader wrote:

Hello Brian,

I agree that you should keep your HTML as simple as possible for email. After sending an HTML newsletter for over a year and attempting to read them in Eudora and Pegasus Mail, I would go even farther than you.

I've discovered that formatting text in email correctly often requires more code in email than on the Web. For instance, instead of using CENTER or DIV tags, put your text alignment inside your paragraph or heading tag for it to work with more email programs.

I have also consistently had difficulty using forms included with email. If you plan to include CGI scripts or any other complicated programming for your email newsletter, test the results in the most popular email program(s) first and be sure to provide an alternative!

Yours truly,
Dawn Gray
http://www.taxtrimmers.com/

Excellent suggestion, Dawn. When sending HTML email, definitely be sure to test your messages in as many different email programs as you can. You may find that some offer HTML support as sophisticated as modern browsers, while others only interpret the most basic HTML tags correctly.

Actually, if you test your HTML ezine "template" in a variety of email clients and then vary your presentation only slightly in subsequent issues, you should only have to run your HTML ezine through the testing process once. Find a stable, working template, then simply plug in your content every time you publish.

Ezine-Tips for February 06, 2001

Additional Ezine-Tips Articles from the Format Category:

Want to read more expert articles like this?
Subscribe to the free Ezine-Tips newsletter:

More Scripts, Forms, and HTML EmailBy Brian Alt

More Scripts, Forms, and HTML Email
By Brian Alt