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I just started a job where I will be writing HTML emails. I want to give the gift of convenience to future team members who might share the task of writing HTML emails that render correctly across every major email client, even MS Outlook 2016 for desktop.

I know about MailChimp. Our team currently uses InfusionSoft for marketing emails. I have used Litmus.com's editor and Emailonacid.com's editor. I tried RED by CoffeeCup. Those, combined with Google Developer tools in Chome, cover almost all the software features I'm looking for, except a few. I continue to look around because I want something more, especially when it comes to emails built for MS Outlook on desktop. Android Studio inspired the features I want.

Core, must-have features:

  • red squiggly underlines on pieces of code that aren't supported in Outlook
  • tooltips appear when I hover over pieces of code that have red squigglies and give me advice about what is wrong with the code and what could fix it.

Would be nice features:

  • Toggle between 'email client modes'. When I want to see if the code has any errors in Outlook, I toggle to Outlook, and the red squigglies and tooltips are specific to Outlook. When I toggle to Gmail, those become specific to Gmail.
  • Updateable tooltips, or updateable 'email client modes'. That way as things change, if another version of Outlook comes out, we update the Outlook mode, or we can add another mode for the new Outlook version.
  • Built in CSS inlining tool. That way I can write clean CSS in a file or many files, at least to begin with. Then I can inline with the push of a button when I go to test it. It would be super cool if I could choose to inline styles explicitly to children that would have inherited it.

Just want it, don't know why features:

  • Built in CSS un-inlining tool to take the CSS back out of the style attributes and into a .css file.

I have been researching and creating docs that have information on which code is/isn't supported in Outlook. I would be able to create the tooltips myself if necessary. I largely want these features because, wouldn't this be ideal for passing on documentation to my team? They would have specific guidance in the exact context it belongs.

Current software search: Like I said, most of the tools I have used are just fine for what I need, especially when combined with each other. But they fall short in the features listed above. My search is currently split into 3 paths.

  1. Search for an editor that has all the features I want. LiveEditor, Litmus.com, and Emailonacid.com were the closest. But I haven't found the one editor to rule them all.
  2. Look through extensible editors (emacs, Atom, IntelliJ, VisualStudio, Sublime, etc.) searching for plugins that would give me all the features I want. IntelliJ with this Aspose plugin looked like a possibility, but I don't really understand it yet, and I haven't committed to buying IntelliJ just to try that.
  3. Look into building my own extensions, probably for Atom, to create all the features I want. Atom looks like it would have the least amount of barriers.

So whether your answer falls into any of those 3 categories, I would accept it.

1 Answer 1

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Editors CudaText/ SynWrite have base for it, for addon. Addon must have

  • lexer, modified HTML lexer, which finds inccorrect HTML parts and makes them red or red-underlines. SynWrite has lexer tutorials docs (4 files) about it.

  • plugin for SynLint (Synwrite)/ CudaLint (CudaText). Ie linter. This linter must place bookmarks on bad lines. It can add bookmarks with tooltips - for icons in left side gutter. Plugin in Python.

Lexer + linter can do it.

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