Email Newsletter Compatibility

[Packeranatic]

Hi, I'm Nic, or Pack, or whatever you need to call me by to get my attention. I'll try to add as much information about my situation as possible as my question(s) come in three parts. At a site I administrate at I took it upon myself to start an email newsletter for the site. This turned out to be no easy task, and I turned to some templates I found at mailchimp. Though I've always considered myself quite inexperienced with anything beyond bbcode, I managed to merge two of the templates into one of my liking. Customizing the template was the easy part, now what I'm having problems with is getting browsers and email providers to successfully display the email. The site in question has been around 5 years and has a steady following, so I'd like to please as many people as I can. What is the most efficient way of testing different email providers in different browsers? Surely there's a resource out there that provides such a thing? I've done some limited testing, and here are the "highlights" so far I would like to address. Gmail w/ FireFox:- Background color on gmail is removed.- Most CSS is selectively modified in gmail, such as h1-h4's size and colors and link colors. Gmail w/ Internet Explorer:- Background color on gmail is removed.- Most CSS is selectively modified in gmail, such as h1-h4's size and colors and link colors.- Images are gone, replaced by a symbol similar to a corrupted file icon. Windows Live Mail:- Just a blank email, no text, no nada. Yahoo Mail, AOL, Thunderbird, Windows Live Outlook, and any other email provider:- Need to test How do I go about fixing these problems? The goal is to get it looking like this in email form, minus the surrounding darker grey: http://www.delta-vis...etterdv1.1.html If you would like to view the code (it's quite lengthy), it's here: http://www.delta-vis...letterdv1.1.txt Lastly, I will be sending these newsletters out via the bulk mail tool available to ipb forums and have included some of what I believe might be php options within the html. Will they cooperate and work properly when emailed? Example in my Footer:

<div mc:edit="std_utility">	 <a href="{board_url}?app=core&module=usercp">Unsubscribe from this list</a> | <a href="{board_url}?app=core&module=global&section=lostpass">Lost password recovery</a></div>

I apologize if this is a lot to ask at once, or if I went into unnecessary detail. Thanks in advance.

[Ingolme]

E-mail clients have pretty bad support. Don't put any Javascript on the code and keep the CSS to a minimum. Use HTML attributes to style elements where possible.

[Packeranatic]

I'm assuming that the code I showed at the end must have been javascript for you to suggest no JS? Or are you just giving me a tip? I'm still trying to figure out if that is php or not. I guess this is where my inexperience would come into play; it doesn't help me I suppose if the CSS seems to take up 2/3rds of the code? What style elements should I look to substitute for HTML attributes? And I'd like to make a mention of this again: what is the most efficient way of testing different email providers across different browsers? I feel so needy =/

[Ingolme]

No, there's no Javascript in your code. It's going to be difficult getting an e-mail to work in every e-mail client.The best way to find out if it works is to look for some place online that explains what kind of code different clients will interpret.

[Synook]

Like http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/.

[Packeranatic]

Like http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/.

You sir, are a godsend. I cannot express the full extent of my gratitude, this explains why so many things aren't working.