[5.2] Feat: Introduce Mail Template Layout

[LadySolveig]

Pull Request for Issue #39492 .

Summary of Changes

--The functionality for displaying the logo and sending it as an inline attachment depends on this fix #43828-- merged
--Depends on #43842 -- merged

Add support for mail template layouts as a parent wrapper around the existing mail templates.

• ✅ A new default responsive mail template layout file mailtemplate.php for rendering mail content with sitename in footer and optional logo.
• ✅ A new form field MailtemplateLayoutField to list available mail template layouts (overrides) from (frontend) templates.
• ✅ Updates to MailTemplate class to handle layout data and render email content using the specified layout.
• ✅ Configuration options in config.xml to enable/disable HTML layout and select a mail template layout globally.
• ✅ Form updates in template.xml to include options for disabling HTML layout and selecting a mail template layout individual for each template.
• ✅ Adjustments in TemplateModel to remove HTML layout fields when the mail style is set to plaintext.

Testing Instructions

Global Configuration -> Mail Templates

Set Mail Format--> HTML

Setup global Mail Templates configration for Mail Template Layouts as follows:

Scenario 1

Per Template Settings are disabled in the Global Configuration:

Go to System--> Mail Templates--> open Global Configuration: Test Mail
No additonal options in template edit view and the global settings are used.

Go to System --> Global Configuration--> Tab: Server

Scroll to the bottom and send out test mail

Your Test Mail should look similar like this

Scenario 2

Per Template Settings are enabled in the Global Configuration:

• additonal options in template edit view with default settings to use the global options

Send the test mail again - the mail should look the same as in the previous step.

Scenario 3

Go to System--> Mail Templates--> open Global Configuration: Test Mail

Your Test Mail should look similar like this

Scenario 4

Go to System--> Site Templates--> open your Template --> Tab: Create Overrides and add override jooml->mail

Open file html --> joomla --> mail --> mailtemplate.php

and add this text

This is a test for template overrides

Go to System--> Mail Templates--> open Global Configuration: Test Mail

Set Logo File --> enables

Choose your layout override

Your Test Mail should look similar like this

Scenario 5

Go to System--> Mail Templates--> open Global Configuration: Test Mail

Choose Layout --> Use Global

Go to System--> Global Configuration--> Mail Templates

Choose your layout override

Your Test Mail should look like in the step before

Scenario 6

Go to System--> Global Configuration--> Mail Templates

Your Test Mail should look similar like this

Scenario 7

Go to System--> Global Configuration--> Mail Templates

Choose your layout override

Go to System--> Site Templates--> open your Template

Open file html --> joomla --> mail --> mailtemplate.php

and add this text

{METHOD}

Your Test Mail should look similar like this

Actual result BEFORE applying this Pull Request

Expected result AFTER applying this Pull Request

Link to documentations

Please select:

• Documentation link for docs.joomla.org:

• No documentation changes for docs.joomla.org needed

• Pull Request link for manual.joomla.org:

• No documentation changes for manual.joomla.org needed

[brianteeman]

Can I suggest changing this

to

[LadySolveig]

@brianteeman if you want to change it by review in the language files I can commit directly :)

[brianteeman]

I am really happy to see this. It's the missing link to truly make branded html mails.

Basic functionality all works great.

[brianteeman]

When per template email setting is set to NO then I would not expect to see the layout options per email - is that an error/bug

When per template email setting is set to YES I have the option to enable the layout and select a layout but I cannot select an image - is that an error/bug or by design. I am hoping its an error/bug as I would use log as an image header

[Fedik]

Thanks @LadySolveig . That it is very good feature.

Some thoughts for future.
What also would be cool, is to have an API to add inline images more freely, before layout rendering (or within the layout).
Kind of:

$mailTemplate->embedImages([
  'header-image' => 'path/to/image.jpg', 
  'logo-image' => 'path/to/logo.jpg'
]);

// Then in layout:
<img src="cid:header-image" alt="inline image"/>
<img src="cid:logo-image" alt="logo image"/>

But I not sure how to correctly interconnect it.

Do not code it here, just ideas for future. 😉

[coolcat-creations]

how about solving the image "issue" like that, that the image must be always in a path with the template name? I totally see the need for different logos on several sites.

[bembelimen]

Why then not just making a PR when this is merged?

[coolcat-creations]

Why then not just making a PR when this is merged?

That would be fine too — otherwise the feature is lost in discussion.

[brianteeman]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 1e2cb33

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[chmst]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 1e2cb33

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[chmst]

RTC

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[exlemor]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 1e2cb33

I was able to test this successfully.

As discussed with Martina, I should note that Scenarios 1-5, I had my Mailer set to PHP Mail and they worked fine, Scenario 6 gave an Could not instantiate mail function but when I switched the mailer to Sendmail that scenario worked. Scenario 7 worked on PHP Mail.

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[HLeithner]

question in general, why do we need a layout.php file and not use the mail template component it self and save the base html layout in the database so people can adapt it easily at the place where all other mail layouts are stored?

[Fedik]

save the base html layout in the database so people can adapt it easily

No please, it is like saving index.php of the main template in database.
It will be huge and unpractical.

[HLeithner]

save the base html layout in the database so people can adapt it easily

No please, it is like saving index.php of the main template in database. It will be huge and unpractical.

tbh, we need to be more user friendly for end users and they are unable (or don't want to) to touch php documents.
In the provided layout is nothing fancy that needs php.

[Fedik]

This kind of thing is for "advanced user", it is not average HTML that can be edited in TinyMCE.
However the layout can be provided as part of the site template (by template developers), and it can be edited as any other template file.

[LadySolveig]

@HLeithner Is that what you mean by user friendly if I have to remember to adapt several templates (for each language one) individually in backend just because I want to change a mail from address for a single use case (MailTemplate), for example? ;)

[HLeithner]

yeah don't care anyway please just fix the broken database query thanks

[brianteeman]

I suspect most people will just be happy to have real html emails with the default layout - I know I am

[HLeithner]

thx

[Hackwar]

I'm merging this even though since this was set to RTC, additional changes were made. However those changes were basically codestyle fixes and have been reviewed by me.

Thank you for your contribution @LadySolveig! This will be a great feature.