Email Data Template

Introduction

EmailData Template for Clarion 5-10... ABC/Legacy. This is a template which gives you full control over email subject, body, and attachments. It can be used for composing complex emails similar to Clarion reports. No email settings are required from end-users.

The picture on the right gives you some idea of how the template works, but you'd be better off to download our 'Try Before Buy' version of the template. Please do not try to move the cursor over the image! Have a quick look at a few emails.
EmailData Template allows you to populate the Address, Subject, Body, and Attachments
of your emails directly from your Clarion fields. Be aware that you should use only plain Clarion
syntax. No exclamation marks in front of variables, whatsoever.
This makes it a very intuitive and powerful tool when it comes to composing report-like emails.
Like our previous EmailReport template this one is designed to work in conjunction with Outlook
Express which these days is a part of Windows OS. So every Windows user has it.
And what is even more important - the majority of people know how to use it, how to
insert a picture, how to add new attachments etc. because they use this program every day
and they trust it. So the question is: Why remove it from them? Let your customers use their
favourite program for sending Clarion data as well! So all of them can say: "Yes,
I did send this booking confirmation, here it is in my Sent Items folder!".
Users can still employ any emailing program they like for their everyday emailing,
but for sending Clarion reports EmailData template will automatically invoke Outlook Express.
And if they prefer to have their sent emails in another email program, they can
from time to time import them from Outlook Express.
And last, but not least - now you can send any audio files supported by HTML
(*.wav, *.mid, *.ram, *.ra, *.aif, *.au) and play them as many times as you wish.
 
Advantages of using the template:
  • It's no secret that the bulk of a Clarion job usually involves customizing reports.
    Here the story is absolutely the same - once you give this email "report" to customers,
    you always will have somebody who is ready to pay for its modification...
  • Most of your customers will use their favourite email program for sending emails,
    so they needn't get used to a new emailing program or a Clarion window
    simulating New message window of an emailing program
  • As with any other email program, Outlook Express will put sent reports into Sent Items folder so
    the user will automatically have a log of all sent reports in the form they are used to.
  • To make emails more attractive you can define any background colour you like
  • As to technical side, EmailData - as is the case with all our templates - is a white box template
    (all code is available, no extra DLLs to ship)
  • Compatible with Clarion 5-10... ABC/Legacy
  • It does not make any changes to either Clarion native
    or 3rd party templates. Like all other templates of ours!

  • Automatic embedding of all local images (they are sent with email)

  • Support for CC and BCC email addressing

  • Network friendliness - it can be run by many network users simultaneously

New features

  • Option to define email priorities (High, Low, Normal)

  • Option to call emailing not only from button, but also
    from any embed point with new embed template

  • new internal help

  • New extension to email Clarion reports in PDF both with 
    and without report preview (c6 only)
  • New extension to email wPDFControl PDF by KlariSoft
  • Ability to attach files with wild card: *.doc  *.do? etc.

 
Installation
 
Run the installation wizard. It will guide you through a few simple steps. That is it.
IMPORTANT: If you are using Clarion 5-6, after selecting Clarion5-Clarion6 directory wizard
will offer to install it into C:\Clarion5(6)\Clarion8 or C:\C55\Clarion8 directory respectively. 
So don't forget to get rid of last \Clarion8. But even if you do - no problem.
Just uninstall the template and re-run the installation.
To start using the template you'll need to manually register it.
Here's how: Open Clarion (no application must be open). 
Go to menu Tools (Setup) -> (Edit) Template Registry -> Register. 
Select new template emaildata.tpl and then hit Open button
You can find it in Clarion7(8,9,10...)\accessory\template\win
for Clarion >= 7 and in Clarion*\Template - for all others.
View our animated reminder on how to do this - Registering Template
(built with our JAVA Animated Help Builder).

Using Template

 
Using the EmailData template is intuitive and self-explanatory.
First of all you need to install the global EmailData extension template into your
application Global area (no matter DLL it is or EXE).
You have the option to define one email background colour here for all procedures.
Later you can override it for any button you like (see picture below).
These are all settings you have to define in local extension.
Pay special attention to EmailTo. You can either hardcode them or build
as a combination of your fields. Just follow the simple specification below and
standard Clarion syntax. For your convenience we've put the Example textbox
(not used by template) with a few standard Email address prototypes. So you can copy
and paste any of the examples and just replace our field names with yours.
It goes without saying that CC and BCC prompts follow the same rule as
does EmailTo.
Both EmailTo and Subject fields should be valid Clarion strings. Use lookup
buttons to find and append any field from your Application as you would for formulae.
TIP: If you fetch fields don't forget to hit the Tab key to accept the whole string before
clicking the OK button or Clarion can lose the latest appended material :-(
For attachments you can use variables, hard-coded strings or build them like we did
on the second Tab. Building the message body is even easier - just compose each line of
the body line by line following standard Clarion string syntax (see the picture
and our 2 example application (ABC/Legacy) for further reference).
We have installed this example into your Clarion*\Examples\eData directory 
Or Clarion7(8,9,10...)\Lessons\eData in Clarion 7-10....
So for various settings you can investigate the source.
You needn't be concerned with the 2 new features - image embedding and network
friendliness. They work automatically. When embedding images the template
follows a simple logic - if you put a local image into the email HTML it means
you want it to be embedded. Indeed, it will not be available for viewing
by email recipients anyway and they'll see just empty rectangles instead.
This is the last thing you want to happen to your customers!
Email SV Report PDF Extension
This is a new extension specially designed to dramatically simplify
exploiting the new C6 feature - Output report into PDF.
To enable emailing of PDFs, you have to first insert global EmailData 
extension in the Global area and then insert another global extension - 
Email SV Report PDF Global.
You will see the new Tab General in all application reports. The template generates a
global variable (GLED:Mode) associated with the only prompt on this Tab.
It is the main switch to enable/disable PDF emailing.
You can use either numbers or pre-defined equates. We've put them on the last tab
so you can copy and paste them into your code from there:

0 - GLEQ:Email            !Email PDF
1 - GLEQ:Print             !Print as ordinary report
It works in very much the same way as Clarion Global request. So if you say:
GLED:Mode = GLEQ:Email; YourReport() !report will be emailed;
GLED:Mode = 0; YourReport() !report will be emailed.
If you want to disable emailing, you need to prime this variable to 1:
GLED:Mode = GLEQ:Print; YourReport() or GLED:Mode = 1; YourReport() -
report will be printed (emailing is disabled).
All other Tabs are absolutely the same as in button and embed templates.
So use them the same way.
You can find an example in this directory: Clarion*\Examples\eData\c6
All other email prompts are absolutely the same as when you use the
template to compose ordinary emails.
As to Report to PDF Clarion template itself, there is only one restriction.
You can use EmailData in conjunction with Output Name Type Variable or
Fixed, but not Runtime.
You can have a quick look at email generated by this extension.
Email wPDFControl PDF Extension
This is another extension specially designed to allow you to email reports in PDF
created with wPDFControl PDF by KlariSoft (not included!). 
To enable this feature you have to first insert the global EmailData extension
in the Global area and then insert procedure extension - 
Email wPDFControl PDF by KlariSoft in all reports to be emailed.
You will see the new Tab General. The template generates a global variable
(GLED:Mode) associated with the only prompt on this Tab.
It is the main switch to enable/disable PDF emailing.
You can use either numbers or pre-defined equates. We've put them on the last tab
so you can copy and paste them into your code from there:

0 - GLEQ:Email            !Email PDF
1 - GLEQ:Print             !Print as ordinary report
It works in very much the same way as Clarion Global request. So if you say:
GLED:Mode = GLEQ:Email; YourReport() !report will be emailed;
GLED:Mode = 0; YourReport() !report will be emailed.
If you want to disable emailing, you need to prime this variable to 1:
GLED:Mode = GLEQ:Print; YourReport() or GLED:Mode = 1; YourReport() -
report will be printed (emailing is disabled).
All other Tabs are absolutely the same as in button and embed templates.
So use them the same way.
You can find an example in this directory: Clarion*\Examples\eData\wPDFControl
On details of wPDFControl usage please visit KlariSoft site: www.klarisoft.com
or just download free fully functional demo of wPDFControl.
Move cursor on top of a Tab to open!
 
Advanced usage
 
Although the word "advanced" sounds slightly scary, the only thing you have to know to be
on top of "advanced" design is how to build a Clarion queue.
Both attachments and email body lines are stored in 2 global queues (GL:AttachmentQue
and GL:BodyQue correspondingly). So for all emails you just use the template settings
which will populate the queues for you. But if you don't want to bother, you
can simply directly populate those queues from the only embed point we created for you -
EmailData After filling queues - which you can find among the button embeds. Just
remember, that each queue node represents one line in the body of a message.
You can use HTML tags as well. (Tag usually starts with something
like <font> and ends with </font>. It can be <img> and </img> etc.)
If you like doing things in hard way you can consult HTML
and MIME documentation. For everyone else, here is a simple tip:
Use your Outlook Express for visual design. Just create a new
message with it, insert images, text with any font you like etc. and then
Save it As a EML file. Done! Now you can open this file with any text editor
(say Notepad) and copy and paste HTML tags one by one. Just remember
that each tag should occupy one line in the body queue.
This restriction comes from the way we've built the message body, not from HTML syntax.
To make life easier we've put a new-line tag after each line of HTML
So if you try to split a tag on more than one line - this tag will get broken
by the new-line tag inserted by template.
For your convenience we've provided a few of the most common tags. You can copy
and paste them directly into your template settings. (Do not forget change our
image/text with yours :-)

Web Image (published on the net)

Local Image (from user hard-drive)

YOUR TEXT

Any words (from top of your head)
 
And the last thing to bear in mind: If you want to show web images, remember 
they should be published somewhere on the Net and referenced from there.
You can even use your web space which everybody has from their internet-provider.
Usually something horrible like http://fastnet.com.au/~alexanderg. Not to worry -
nobody will see that web address anyway! We put all possible scenarios into the
example shipped with the template (Clarion5, C55 or Clarion6)\Examples\eData), so you
can borrow code from there. Just have a look, it's not rocket science!
Users Tips (you are welcome to send your tips to this area!)
1. Latest WinXP issue. If you see email preview without Send button
    it means you should apply MS patch for OE. The simplest way to
    do it is to use Adobe version of it: adobeforums.com. To avoid
    registration you can log in as guest.
    Alternatively you can download original MS patch here: microsoft.com
    but it is much harder to use it.
2. WinXP issue II - No Send Button on new email. You are welcome to download 
    a program of ours (Clarion 6 code is included) to reset respective registry setting.

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