eMerge Template
 
 

Introduction

 
eMerge Template for Clarion 5-10... ABC/Legacy. This template allows your customers to compose "no frills" emails and then merge them with data and email.
The picture on the right  illustrates how the template works. Download a demo of the template a for closer look.
 
The eMerge template is a simple and yet powerful tool to free your customers of the repetitive work 
of composing similar emails. It's exactly like simple mail merging. The only difference is that your
customers can email letters after merging rather than mailing or printing them.
Download the fully-functional demo to see it in action.
 
Advantages of using template:
  • As all mail-merging templates this one will relieve your customers of
    boring repetitive work of composing similar letters for emailing
  • This templates relies on the standard Windows program mailto, so it will work
    with most email programs
  • As to the technical side, like all our templates eMerge is a white box template
    (no extra DLLs to ship)
  • Compatible with Clarion 5-10... ABC/Legacy
  • It doesn't make any changes to either Clarion native
    or 3rd party templates. The same story with all of our templates!

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 remove the last \Clarion8. But even if you do - no problem.
Just uninstall the template and re-run the installation.
To start using the template you need to manually register it.
Open Clarion (no application must be opened).
Go to menu Tools (Setup) -> (Edit) Template Registry -> Register. 
Select two new templates emerge.tpl and then hit Open button.
You can find this in Clarion7(8,9,10...)\accessory\template\win
for Clarion >= 7 and in Clarion*\Template - for all others.
View the animated reminder of how to do this - Registering Template
(built with our JAVA Animated Help Builder).
 

Using Template

   
Successful usage of this template requires some basic knowledge of how
Clarion processes data file records. So we would not recommend it for beginners.
Follow these simple steps to get the template working:
STEP 1
First of all you will need a file to store your email letters. You can use your own file.
If you haven't one - try ours. You need to import it into your dictionary. Just open
the dictionary and do File/Import Text. Find TXD file eLetter.txd in your 
Clarion*\Examples\eMerge/Demo directory and hit Open button.
Or Clarion7(8,9,10...)\Lessons\eMerge\Demo in Clarion 7-10....
Easy, isn't it?
STEP 2
Open your application and insert Global extension eMerge. All file declarations
should be generated either in your EXE, if it's not multi-dll application,
or otherwise in your main DLL containing all file declarations. So the corresponding
Generate all file declarations checkbox must be checked.
STEP 3
Now you will need some forms to edit those letters. You can easily
generate them from the new file we've just added in your dictionary .
Or if you like ours from the Demo example use these. Just open
your application and do  File/Import Text and import Style2.txa or any other.
Open property of each combo for Mailto, Subject and Body fields (if you are building
your own form you should add those controls first) and from
Define files to Use button specify which files of  your dictionary
should be used as the source of mail-merge tokens. You have the option to skip some fields.
We cannot do it for you because we don't know your particular data structure :-(
IMPORTANT: You can use as tokens either the Clarion field name or field description.
The first is less user-friendly because the template will use the Clarion fields themselves.
So your customers will see something like this: ((--CUS:Name--))
in their letters. The second way is preferable, but it requires a little effort. 
You need to revise those files in your dictionary and add
corresponding descriptions for each of the fields you are going to use as tokens.
It can be anything you like, so long as those descriptions are unique the template
will function properly. So your customers won't see this: ((--CUS:Name--)) but this:
 ((--Customer Name--)). Ensure all pictures for those fields are
correct. The template will format those fields with pictures from your dictionary
so if your dictionary has, for instance, @n12 for a date - users will see LONG number 
rather than date :-(
If you've imported our form you already have the browse for email letters.
Otherwise you should generate it with the browse template and add
Merge and Email button control.
STEP 4
Call just created browse from any window. So your customers will
normally select customer from a browse, hit email button. Select
letter which they want to send and hit Send button.
The emplate will merge letters with current values from record buffer.
If you want to merge 
data for currently selected in a browse customer 
you should ensure the customer record is fetched OK.
No doubt you already know, but just as a reminder,
remember to have those fields being merged in Browse List Box or in the
Hot Keys. In ABC it doesn't hurt to call BRWx.UpdateViewRecord()
method to ensure all Hot Keys are synchronized with the
currently selected record.
IMPORTANT: eMerge template uses the mailto windows program. Unfortunately
each email program has internal restrictions on the total length of command
which mailto can process. In OE 5.5 and 6.0 this limit is 2028 characters.
So the template allows users to change this value which can be found
experimentally. If a letter is larger than that limit users will have the option
to preview the email and do something about it. That's why this template
should be used for composing relatively short messages. Luckily
nobody reads long emails these days ...
We've installed an example into your Clarion (Clarion5, C55, Clarion6) Examples\eMerge\Demo
 Or Clarion7(8,9,10...)\Lessons\eMerge\Demo  in Clarion 7-10....
So for various settings you can investigate the source.
 

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