Hi

I'm starting to use RED Personal OS X for real, building responsive email code to use with our own mailing system (bit like Survey Monkey). I'm used to using Responsive Layout Maker in my work and I'm now finding them both really useful tools.

However, I'm having problems with where in RED one can set:

a - The overall link colour ("a") for the project

b - The hover colour ("a:hover") overall and/or for specific classes of links

I also downloaded a trial copy of RED for Business, but couldn't find these things there either.

I also have some feedback to give you about how both versions work with images for people like me - if you're interested in that, can you please tell me who should I address that to?

Best regards

Mike Laye

That's great to hear Mike!


For (a) what you can do is:

- For text link elements, set the "Apply styles to" drop down on the design pane to "all link elements"
- For inline links, creating the link in edit mode, then choose any color (or any other text formatting) and give it a class name like for example 'p-link' in the input box on left of the editing toolbar. Now for any subsequent link simply add the URL, then type the class name in the box and the link will have the same appearance.

On (b):
Email clients are not browsers and most do not support hover (especially not on mobile / touch screen), that is why this control is not available in RED. (It is in responsive site designer for example though)


Will leaving that feedback in the 'suggestion for responsive email designer' forum thread work for you?

Hope this helps!

Hi Bob

That's all good advice - although I would still like to be able to add hover states for those users who click to view the mailing in their browser. Just saying ...

Also, could you please let me know on these two further points:

1 - For some reason I now can't remember, I have a copy of something called "Responsive Email Designer" v1.0 Build 648, as well as my "Responsive Email Designer Personal" v1.2 Build 950, both for OS X. I think that may be because I was an early adopter of RED? Can you clarify that for me, please?

2 - I can see from the trial version of RED Business that it gives more control - along RLM/RSD lines. I'm not sure how useful that might be, bearing in mind the constraints of most email clients, but can you give me a good upgrade deal on it? I promise to give you some good feedback ...!!

Thanks for your help so far.

Best regards

Mike Laye

Sounds like you just have 2 versions installed. You can just drag both to the trash and download the latest version. That will fix you up.

As to deals, we are always offering discount in our newsletters. Stay subscribed so that you can take advantage of them as they are made available.

Hi Scott

Is there a regular upgrade price? Or do I just need to wait for an offer in the newsletters?

Best regards

Open a support ticket Mike and we can go over your upgrade options.

You mean the web version right? At this moment RED does not generate one, but it's on the list to do that plus make a text version. No ETA right now though...

Having now put RED through its paces on some real work, I think there are a few issues caused by some confusion as to its targeted user-base.

I'm a professional web developer and have found the RLM/RSD line really useful. Despite some (inevitable) frustrations at not being able to delve in and fix the underlying code within the software (so you have to keep repeating any required tweaks as you go back and forth during testing) , the way you can visualise and control appearance across different screen sizes is priceless.

Now we're looking to extend responsive design into the email marketing design services we offer our clients. We use our own bulk email system for sending (like a home-grown MailChimp), so the mail-out facilities in RED are irrelevant to us. That includes the image hosting, as these will all be replaced by our own system's images for sending.

We've been designing the mailings using "Local Image", which works very well - especially as we can add the local image folder into the RED Project structure. However, we've found that we can't then export the HTML, ready for our bulk mail system, without turning all the images into "Online Images". Worse, as our bulk mail system's image upload comes *after* adding the page code & text, these are not available to us as we work and test. Plus, we can't export without saving!

So, the process becomes:

- Design the email in RED, using Local Images
- When ready for testing, turn all images to Online Images (using gash URLs)
- Save the project
- Export the code
- Import to bulk mailer system
- Send test emails

If we now need to go back into RED to do some tweaks, we have to go back through all the images, re-linking them to the Local Images so we can visualise the email correctly. Before we can export again, we have to repeat the above process to take them all out. That's very frustrating indeed.

I appreciate that you are also aiming this product at those who want a quick and simple way of creating short-run marketing emails and that your hosted images service is pretty useful to them - as well as providing you with an extra income stream for doing so. But, if you are really serious about also getting RED taken up by professional developers, you need to find a way for us to work more easily with the product. This could be as simple as allowing Export with Local Images in place and an option to use placeholder text ("IMAGE 3 GOES HERE") in the code in place of any images.

We are considering upgrading to RED Business for the more refined control it offers, but are reluctant to do so when there seems to be this confusion between audiences. Especially as there also seems to be a veiled warning that those without a paid hosting account (which we don't need, as I've explained) may receive a second-class service (see attached screen-grab).

I look forward to your response on these points.