Meteor Emails

lookback:emails is a Meteor package that makes it easier to build, test and debug rich HTML emails.

Usually, building HTML emails yourself is tedious. On top of that, add the need for data integration and thus a template language (for sending out daily digest emails, for instance). We wanted a way to preview the email in the browser with real data in order to quickly iterate on the design, instead of alternating between code editor and email client.

1. Features
2. Installation
3. Sample app
4. API
5. Usage
   1. Setting up templates
   2. Template paths on deployed instances
   3. Template helpers
   4. Layouts
   5. Plain text version
   6. Previewing and sending
   7. Paths
   8. Sample file structure
   9. Logging
6. Version history
7. Contributing

Features

• Server side rendering with the Meteor SSR package. Use Blaze features and helpers like on the client.
• CSS inlining with Juice. No extra build step.
• SCSS support using node-sass (opt-in).
• Preview and debug emails in development mode in your browser when developing.
• Layouts for re-using markup.
• Auto Plain-text automatically creates a plain text version from your HTML template for lower spam score.

Help is appreciated in order to hammer out potential issues and bugs.

Installation

lookback:emails is available on Atmosphere:

meteor add lookback:emails

Annotated source

A Mailer global will exported on the server.

Notice. If you want SCSS support, be sure to add the [meteor-node-sass](https://github.com/chrisbutler/meteor-node-sass) package to your app:

meteor add chrisbutler:node-sass

lookback:emails will automatically detect node-sass being available, and will be able to compile .scss files.

Sample app

There is a sample application in this repo, in the example directory. Boot it up, and preview an email with:

cd example
meteor
open http://localhost:3000/emails/preview/sample/john

Please inspect the provided sample code for details.

API

Mailer has the following methods:

• Mailer.config(Object). Change default settings:

  Takes a plain object with the following properties:

  {
  from: 'Name <[email protected]>',     // Default 'From:' address. Required.
  replyTo: 'Name <[email protected]>',  // Defaults to `from`.
  routePrefix: 'emails',              // Route prefix.
  baseUrl: process.env.ROOT_URL,      // The base domain to build absolute link URLs from in the emails.
  testEmail: null,                    // Default address to send test emails to.
  logger: console                     // Injected logger (see further below)
  silent: false,                      // If set to `true`, any `Logger.info` calls won't be shown in the console to reduce clutter.
  addRoutes: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development' // Add routes for previewing and sending emails. Defaults to `true` in development.
  language: 'html'                    // The template language to use. Defaults to 'html', but can be anything Meteor SSR supports (like Jade, for instance).
  plainText: true                     // Send plain text version of HTML email as well.
  plainTextOpts: {}                   // Options for `html-to-text` module. See all here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/html-to-text
  }

• Mailer.init(Object). Kick things off with runtime settings!

  Takes a plain object with the following properties:

  {
  templates: {},        // Required. A key-value hash where the keys are the template names. See more below.
  helpers: {},          // Global helpers available for all templates.
  layout: false         // Global layout template.
  }

• Mailer.precompile(template). Precompile a template object and returns a Blaze.Template.

• Mailer.render('templateName', [data]). Render a template with optional data context and return the raw, rendered string.

• Mailer.send(Object). Send an email. Returns true if mail was sent without errors, else false.

  Takes a plain object with the following properties:

  {
  to: 'Name <[email protected]>',           // 'To: ' address. Required.
  subject: 'Subject',                     // Required.
  template: 'templateName',               // Required.
  replyTo: 'Name <[email protected]>',      // Override global 'ReplyTo: ' option.
  from: 'Name <[email protected]>',         // Override global 'From: ' option.
  data: {}                                // Optional. Render your email with a data object.
  }

Usage

Setting up templates

In Mailer.init, you're able to provide a key-value object with template objects. A template is just a plain object with some required keys:

{
  path: 'activity-email.html'
  scss: 'scss/activity-email.scss'

  # Attached template helpers.
  helpers:
    preview: ->
      'This is the first preview line of the email'

    firstName: ->
      @user.name.split(' ')[0]

    teamMembers: ->
      @team.users.map (user) -> Meteor.users.findOne(user)

  # For previewing the email in your browser.
  route:
    path: '/activity/:user'
    data: ->
      user = Meteor.users.findOne(@params.user)
      team = Teams.findOne(_id: { $in: user.teams })

      return {
        user: user
        team: team
      }

}

Remember that the key is the name of the template. We usually structure it like this:

# In server/lib/init.coffee:
this.Templates = {}

# In server/templates/activity-email.coffee:

Templates.activityEmail = {
  path: 'activity-email.html'
  scss: 'activity-email.scss'
  # ... See above.
}

# In server/init.coffee:

Mailer.init(
  templates: Templates
)

<!-- In private/activity-email.html: -->
<h1>Hi {{ firstName }}!</h1>

<ul>
  {{#each teamMembers}}
    <li>{{name}}</li>
  {{/each}}
</ul>

Now you're able to send this email with:

Mailer.send(
  to: '[email protected]'
  subject: 'Team Info!'
  template: 'activityEmail'
  data:
    user: # Some user
    team: # Some team
)

Simple as a pie!

Template paths on deployed instances

This package assumes that assets (templates, SCSS, CSS ..) are stored in the private directory. Thanks to that, Meteor won't touch the HTML and CSS, which are non-JS files. Unfortunately, Meteor packages can't access content in private with the Assets.getText() method, so we need the absolute path to the template directory.

However, file paths are screwed up when bundling and deploying Meteor apps. Therefore, when running a deployed instance, this package will try to figure out the absolute path to your bundle (see first ~30 lines in utils.coffee). If that still isn't working for you, fall back to this:

1. For traditional hosts, manually set the BUNDLE_PATH environment variable. For instance /var/www/app/bundle.
2. For deployments on hosts with ephemeral file systems like Modulus, the APP_DIR environment variable should be provided by host. In that case, APP_DIR is used instead.

In development, neither of BUNDLE_PATH and APP_DIR are needed.

Template Helpers

With "helpers", we speak about plain old Blaze template helpers, like in the frontend. They can be used to transform values, fetch more data, etc. Remember that these helpers are on the server, so they've got access to your app's collections, globals, etc.

There are three levels of helpers:

• Built in helpers.
• Global helpers provided by you in Mailer.init().
• Template level helpers provided by you in a template object.

All helpers are run in the current template scope.

The built in helpers are:

# `baseUrl` gives you a full absolute URL from a relative path.
#
#     {{ baseUrl '/some-path' }} => http://root-domain.com/some-path
baseUrl: (path) ->
  Utils.joinUrl(Mailer.settings.baseUrl, path)

# `emailUrlFor` takes an Iron Router or Flow Router route (with optional params) and
# creates an absolute URL.
#
#     {{ emailUrlFor 'myRoute' param='foo' }} => http://root-domain.com/my-route/foo
emailUrlFor: (routeName, params) ->
  # if Iron Router
  if Router?
    Utils.joinUrl Mailer.settings.baseUrl, Router.path.call(Router, routeName, params.hash)

  # if Flow Router
  if FlowRouter?
    baseUrl = Utils.joinUrl Mailer.settings.baseUrl, FlowRouter.path.call(FlowRouter, routeName, params.hash)

Please note that for Flow Router you need to have your routes defined in a place where the server can see them, in order for the emailUrlFor helper to work.

The preview line

The preview line is the first text content of an email, usually visible in many email clients. That can be used to convey more info beyond the subject prop. It's possible to have your preview content in your parent layout but still provide the data from a child template.

Just provide a preview helper function on your template or a preview prop on the data object when using Mailer.render('name', data), and that will be available in the layout context:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
  </head>

  <body>
    {{#if preview}}
      {{preview}}
    {{else}}
      <!-- Fallback -->
    {{/if}}
  </body>
</html>

Layouts

In order for you not to repeat yourself, the package supports layouts. They are plain wrapper around template HTML, so you can keep the same <head> styles, media queries, and more through many email templates.

Layouts are formatted and works like the other template objects, i.e. they support helpers, SCSS/CSS, etc.

Put an html layout file in private and refer to it in Mailer.init():

Mailer.init(
  helpers: TemplateHelpers
  templates: Templates
  layout:
    name: 'emailLayout'
    path: 'email-layout.html'
    scss: 'scss/emails.scss'    # Optional
    css: 'css/emails.css'       # Optional
)

Or for a specific template:

Templates.invitationEmail =
  # .. props
  layout:
    name: 'specialLayout'
    path: 'special-layout.html'
    scss: 'scss/special-emails.scss'    # Optional
    css: 'css/special-emails.css'       # Optional

.. or not at all:

Templates.invitationEmail =
  # .. props
  layout: false

If you want to provide extra CSS to your layout's <head> section from template (perhaps custom media queries for that specific template) you can provide the extraCSS option:

Templates.activityEmail =
  path: '...'
  extraCSS: 'path/to/more.css'

It's you to render the raw CSS in your layout:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />

    <style type="text/css">
      // Blah blah.

      {{{ css }}}
    </style>
  </head>
</html>

Note that the doctype isn't included in these examples. Due to a Blaze thingie, the proper email doctype is prepended during render:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

Plain text version

By default, plain text versions are automatically created from your html template and included in the final email. It's strongly advises to leave this option on, as it greatly reduces your emails' spam score and the chance that your emails will end up in spam folder of users. However, if you want to override this behaviour simply at this to Mailer.config():

Mailer.config(
  # ...
  plainText: false,
  plainTextOpts: {
    // Your options to send to the module, defaults to {}
    ignoreImage: true
  }
)

Consult the html-to-text documentation for available options. See in the example app in this repo for how to disable images in plain text version, for instance.

Previewing and Sending

lookback:emails makes it easier to preview email designs in your browser. And you can even interface with you database collections in order to fill them emails with real data.

It's also possible to send emails to yourself or others for review in a real mail client.

Noticed the route property on the template? It uses meteorhacks:picker server side routes under the hood.

The route property expects a path property and an optional data function providing the data context (an object). The function has access to the parameters of the route.

Three routes will be added:

/emails/preview/<routeName>   # Preview as HTML
/emails/text/<routeName>      # Preview as plain text
/emails/send/<routeName>      # Send the email to an address

The /emails root prefix is configurable in config in the routePrefix key.

The route names will be on the format

[preview|send]Name

So for a template named newsletterEmail, the route names will be

previewNewsletterEmail
textNewsletterEmail
sendNewsletterEmail

Note that the template name has a capitalized first character when generating the route name. This, along with the full path, will be logged in your app console at startup.

Note: Due to security concerns, previewing and sending emails through these routes are restrained to work in development mode per default, i.e. if

process.NODE_ENV === 'development'

This can be manually configured with the addRoutes boolean setting, when calling Mailer.config().

The email template will compile, build SCSS, inline CSS, and render the resulting HTML for you on each refresh.

The send route can take an optional ?to URL query parameter which sets the receiving mail address, unless set in Mailer.config().

Summarized route configure sample:

Mailer.config(
  addRoutes: true                 # Always add routes, even in production.
  routePrefix: 'newsletters'      # Will show '/newsletters/preview .. ' instead of '/emails/preview ..'.
  testEmail: '[email protected]'    # Default receiving email for emails sent with the '/emails/send' route.
)

Paths

Paths to HTML templates and SCSS/CSS can be a bit tricky when deploying your app, since Meteor is shuffling around the files when building the app bundle.

Meteor doesn't touch files in the private directory (docs). There we'll put our resources, and will thus be the root relative path when referring to HTML and CSS from template objects (see above).

When deployed, we must set the BUNDLE_PATH environment variable which refers to the directory where your app bundle lives in order to sniff out the absolute paths to the resources. We hope this will get easier in the future.

Sample file structure

Since it's tricky to get an overview sometimes:

private/
  |- activity-email/
    |- activity-email.html
    |- activity-email.scss
  |- layout.html
  |- layout.scss
server/
  |- lib/
    |- init.coffee               # Setup namespaces: Templates, Helpers.
  |-  template-helpers.coffee   # Setup global TemplateHelpers.
  |- templates/
    |- activity-email/
      |- _helpers.coffee        # Attach activity email specific helpers to Helpers.ActivityEmail
      |- activity-email.coffee  # Define Templates.activityEmail. Include helpers.
    |- # .. more template dirs.
  |- init.coffee                # Init Mailer with Templates and TemplateHelpers

Logging

It's nice to know what happens. The default console is used for logging, but you can inject your own logger in Mailer.init():

Mailer.init(
  logger: myLogger
)

and that will be used. The logger must support these methods:

• info
• warn
• error

Why not try meteor-logger? :)

Version history

• 0.7.0 - Replaced Iron Router dependency with meteorhacks:picker, which means you can now use this package with Flow Router as well.
• 0.6.2 - Support passing options to html-to-text module in Mailer.config().
• 0.6.1- Fix critical runtime crash when sending emails.
• 0.6.0 - Automatically create and include plain text email version from your HTML templates, using html-to-text.
• 0.5.1 - Remove need for setting the BUNDLE_PATH environment variable (#39).
• 0.5.0 - Remove node-sass as hard dependency. SCSS support is now opt-in, by adding chrisbutler:node-sass to your app (#35).
• 0.4.6 - Fix paths on Windows in development mode.
• 0.4.5
  • CSS and SCSS is now compiled and inlined at runtime, in order to inline CSS for the rendered content. If CSS only was inlined at compile time, the dynamic content wouldn't get any styling.
  • Because of the above, we received a small performance boost due to removal of excessive SCSS inlining and inlining.
• 0.4.4 - Fix not using local template layout option.
• 0.4.3 - Fix build issues by using externally packaged node-sass for Meteor.
• 0.4.2
  • Update node-sass to 3.2.0.
  • Fix issue with using layout: false (from #11).
• 0.4.1 - Add silent option to Mailer.config(). If set to true, any Logger.info calls won't be shown in the console to reduce clutter.
• 0.4.0
  • Add support for rendering Jade templates with the Meteor SSR package.
  • Don't append Email to the Iron Router route names.
  • Capitalize template name in route names (sample becomes previewSample).
  • Better logging when adding routes.
• 0.3.5 - Expose addRoutes setting. Enables manual control of adding preview and send routes.
• 0.3.4 - Skipped.
• 0.3.3 - Add disabled flag to settings, for completely disabling sending of actual emails.
• 0.3.2 - Add Windows arch support for Meteor 1.1 RC
• 0.3.1 - Don't expose MailerClass's internal init method.
• 0.3.0 - Initial publish.

Contributing

PRs and help is welcomed.

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Made by Lookback