Grunt Email Design Workflow

by github.com/leemunroe

Changelog

v0.2.0 - 24/01/2024

• update packages and dependencies for current node versions: nvm not needed
• remove obsolete tasks and packages

Purpose

Designing and testing emails is a pain. HTML tables, inline CSS, various devices and clients to test, and varying support for the latest web standards.

This Grunt task helps simplify things.

1. Compiles your SCSS to CSS
2. Builds your HTML email templates
3. Inlines your CSS

Requirements

You may already have these installed on your system. If not, you'll have to install them.

• Node.js - Install Node.js
• Grunt-cli and Grunt (npm install grunt-cli -g)

Getting started

If you haven't used Grunt before check out Chris Coyier's post on getting started with Grunt.

1. Setup

Clone this repo, cd to the directory, run npm install to install the necessary packages.

cd grunt-email-workflow
npm install

The very first installation may take a while. Please wait patiently until completion.

2. Run Grunt

Run grunt build and check out your /dist folder to see your compiled and inlined email templates. Run grunt serve, a new live-reload browser tab will open. Happy coding :)

3. Create secrets.json

If you're using Mailgun and/or Amazon S3 create a secrets.json file in your project root as outlined below under "Sensitive Information".

If you don't use or need these services it's ok to skip this step.

Sensitive information

We encourage you not to store sensitive data in your git repository. If you must, please look into git-encrypt or some other method of encrypting your configuration secrets.

1. Create a file secrets.json in your project root.
2. Paste the following sample code in secrets.json and enter the appropriate credentials for the services you want to connect with.

{
  "mailgun": {
    "api_key": "YOUR MG PRIVATE API KEY",
    "domain": "YOURDOMAIN.COM",
    "sender": "E.G. POSTMASTER@YOURDOMAIN.COM",
    "recipient": "WHO YOU WANT TO SEND THE EMAIL TO"
  },
  "s3": {
    "key": "AMAZON S3 KEY",
    "secret": "AMAZON S3 SECRET",
    "region": "AMAZON S3 REGION",
    "bucketname": "AMAZON S3 BUCKET NAME",
    "bucketdir": "AMAZON S3 BUCKET SUBDIRECTORY (optional)",
    "bucketuri": "AMAZON S3 PATH (ex: https://s3.amazonaws.com/)"
  }
}

After this you should be good to go. Run grunt build and your email templates should appear automagically in a /dist folder.

How it works

CSS

This project uses SCSS. You don't need to touch the .css files, these are compiled automatically.

For changes to CSS, modify the .scss files.

Media queries and responsive styles are in a separate style sheet so that they don't get inlined. Note that only a few clients support media queries e.g. iOS Mail app.

Email templates and content

Handlebars and Assemble are used for templating.

/layouts contains the standard header/footer HTML wrapper markup. You most likely will only need one layout template, but you can have as many as you like.

/emails is where your email content will go. To start you off I've included example transactional emails based on my simple HTML email template.

/data contains optional .yml or .json data files that can be used in your templates. It's a good way to store commonly used strings and variables. See /data/default.yml and /partials/follow_lee.hbs for an example.

/partials contains optional .hbs files that can be thought of like includes. To use a partial, for example /partials/follow_lee.hbs you would use the following code in your emails template:

{{> follow_lee }}

/partials/components contains optional .hbs files that can help generate your markup. Each component will typically have a corresponding Sass file in src/css/sass/<component_name>.scss. To use a component, for example /partials/components/button.hbs you would use the following code in your emails template. (note: You can use single -or- double quotes for attributes)

{{> button type="primary" align="center" url="LINK GOES HERE" title="ANCHOR TEXT GOES HERE" }}

Generate your email templates

In terminal, run grunt build. This will:

• Compile your SCSS to CSS
• Generate your email layout and content
• Inline your CSS

See the output HTML in the dist folder. Open them and preview it the browser.

Alternatively run grunt serve. This will check for any changes you make to your .scss and .hbs templates, automatically run the tasks, and serve you a preview in the browser on http://localhost:4000. Saves you having to run grunt every time you make a change.

Browser-based previews

In terminal, run grunt serve.

• This will run the default tasks grunt + the watch task will be initiated
• A preview UI will automagically open on http://localhost:4000 and you can review your templates
• Go about your business editing templates and see your template changes live-reload
• NOTE: The express server stops working when the watch task is not running

Sample email templates

I've added a few templates here to help you get started.

• Simple transactional email template
• Branded email via CDN
• Email with components

More resources

• For more transactional email templates check out HTML Email templates
• Things I've learned about sending email
• Things I've learned about building email templates
• Things I've learned about responsive email
• Prefer Gulp? Daryll Doyle has created a Gulp email creator