MindComet

Gmail Themes Causing Rendering Issues

With the release of the 30 or so Gmail themes this week, comes some predictable rendering issues.  Now, with the implementation of these themes, it’s even MORE important to style all of your emails using inline, longhand CSS.  The most obvious issues come with the attributes of backgrounds, text and links.

According to The Retail Email Blog, “approximately 40% of all retailers have the potential to be significantly affected by this rendering problem”. Click here for an example of the rendering issues that may persist.

You should have been doing it to begin with, but make sure to ALWAYS define background, text and link attributes independently—colors and otherwise.

If you see any other issues related to the Gmail themes pop up, comment below.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 25, 2008

Lotus Notes on Your iPhone

As it has the reputation of being the WORST email client for rendering HTML, it is nothing less than shocking that reports are coming in that Lotus Notes will be releasing an application for the iPhone.  The only question I have is WHY?

I’m a bit confused on why IBM would be putting any effort into a project such as this since the iPhone comes with Apple Mail by default.  To their credit though, they will be using their Domino Web Access version affectionately called “Ultralite”.  Their old and nasty framework of POP/IMAP will be omitted (thank god).

Their site claims that “Lotus Notes data will combine with the flexibility and connectivity of the Apple iPhone. To be built on the time tested IBM Lotus Domino Web Access infrastructure, users will be able to quickly access email, calendars, and contacts through the rich Apple iPhone user experience.“

I’m interested in seeing how things pan out with this.  Here are some screenshots of what the Lotus iPhone Mail App will look like:

I need to get an iPhone ASAP to start testing on this when it is released.

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Posted by MindComet on Aug. 13, 2008

Body Background Images In Outlook ‘07

We all know that background images don’t display with Outlook 2007—which consequently sent designing HTML emails back 5 years or so.  Well low and behold, that’s not the case anymore.

The incredibly talented and resourceful blokes at Campaign Monitor recently stumbled upon a bit of CSS that can remedy one instance of blocked background images; specifically for the body.  The effective CSS is below:

background-image: url(‘http://www.abcwidgets.com/bg.jpg’);
background-repeat: repeat-y no-repeat;
background-position: top center;
background-color: #d9c092;

The key to the code above that seems to please Outlook 2007 is the ‘repeat’ property. Evidently with BOTH repeat-y and no-repeat, the background image shows up.

Try it for yourself and comment below!

But until somebody stumbles upon a way to make background images display in divs or tables, you can find me in the corner resenting Microsoft.

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Posted by MindComet on Jul. 08, 2008

DPI Settings With Outlook 2007

The geniuses over at Bronto have uncovered yet another flaw with the always problematic Outlook 2007.  By testing to different computers using Outlook ‘07 at the their office, there were always glaring inconsistencies with two specific machines.  Yet, the two computers that always had issues would always break in their own special ways.

Through diligent research, it was determined that the two computers had separate DPI (dots per inch) settings.  The default DPI setting on Windows machines is 96.  One of the computers was set to 120 DPI (the large setting) and 82 DPI (a custom setting).  The former would blow out the images, causing breaks and the latter would shrink the images also causing rendering flaws.

Basically, only Outlook 2007 (and not any other desktop email client such as Thunderbird) will break any email with a setting other than the standard DPI setting of 96.

This doesn’t sit well with me considering that no matter how meticulous you are when testing emails it still might end up broken when it reaches some users’ inboxes.  The only remedy that comes to mind is to spread the word and awareness through Email Standards Project.  If there’s enough outcry from the community maybe, just maybe, developers will wise-up and listen.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 05, 2008

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Back in July, Ben Chesnut over at MailChimp wrote an excellent article on deliverability and rendering.  He states that emails are more or less “just miniature web pages” and I couldn’t agree with him more.  Any web designer new to the email design-game should not hesitate to read this.  Here are a few bullet points to sum up the article:

• Not designing for the preview pane is stupid.
• Assuming the images will display on all clients is stupid.
• Using images to communicate your message is stupid.
• Not testing your email in different email clients is stupid.
• Not including an unsubscribe link, a physical address and privacy policy in your footer is stupid.
• Including Javascript and Flash in your email is stupid.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 05, 2007