eMerge Template ABC/Legacy 7
 
 

Introduction

 
eMerge Template for Clarion 5-7 ABC/Legacy. Template letting your customers compose "no frills" emails and then merge them with data and email.
The picture on the right side gives some idea how template works. Download demo of template for closer look.
 
eMerge template is a simple and yet powerful tool to free you customers of repetitive work 
of composing similar emails. It's exactly like simple mail merging. The only difference - you
customers can email letters after merging rather than mail or print them.
Download the fully-functional demo to see it yourself.
 
Advantages of using template:
  • As all mail-merging templates this one will relief your customers of,
    boring repetitive work of composing similar letters for emailing
  • This templates relies on standard Window program mailto, so it will work
    virtually with any email program
  • As to technical side, eMerge as all our templates is a white box template
    (no extra DLLs to ship)
  • Compatible with Clarion 5 - Clarion 7 ABC/Legacy
  • It does not need or do any changes to either Clarion native
    or 3d party templates. The same story with all our templates!

Installation

Run the installation wizard. It will guide you through a few simple steps. That is it.
IMPORTANT: If you are using Clarion 5-6, after selecting Clarion5-Clarion6 directory wizard
will offer you to install it into C:\Clarion5-6\Clarion7 or C:\C55\Clarion7 directory respectively.
So do not forget to get rid of last \Clarion7. But even if you do - it is not a problem.
Just uninstall template and run installation once again.
To start using template you have to manually register it.
Open Clarion (no application must be opened).
Go to menu Tools (Setup) -> (Edit) Template Registry -> Register. 
Select two new template emerge.tpl and then hit Open button.
You can find it in C:\Program Files\SoftVelocity\Clarion7\accessory\template\win
for Clarion 7 and in C:\Clarion*\Template - for all others.
View animated reminder on how to do that - Registering Template
(built with our JAVA Animated Help Builder).
 

Using Template

   
Successful using of this template requires some basic knowledge of how
Clarion processes data file records. So we would not recommend it for beginners.
Follow these simple steps to get template working:
STEP 1
First of all you will need a file to store your email letters. You can use your own file.
If you haven't got any - try ours. You should import it into your dictionary. Just open
the dictionary and do File/Import Text. Find TXD file eLetter.txd in your 
Clarion*/Examples/eMerge/Demo directory and hit Open button.
Or C:\Program Files\SoftVelocity\Clarion7\Lessons\eMerge\Demo in C7.
Easy, isn't it?
STEP 2
Open you application and insert Global extension eMerge. All file declarations
should be generated whether in your only EXE if it's not multi-dll application
or in your main DLL containing all file declarations otherwise. So corresponding
Generate all file declarations checkbox must be checked.
STEP 3
Now you will need some form to edit those letters. You can easily
generate it for that new file in your dictionary we've just added.
Or if you like ours from Demo example you can use them. Just open
your application and do  File/Import Text and import Style2.txa or any other.
Open property of each combo for Mailto, Subject and Body fields (if you are building
your own form you should add those controls first) and from
Define files to Use button specify which files of  your dictionary
should be used as source of mail-merge tokens. Optionally you can skip some fields.
We cannot do it for you because we do not know your data structure :-(
IMPORTANT: You can use as tokens either Clarion field name or field description.
First is less user friendly because template will  use Clarion fields themselves.
So your customers will have to get used to see something like: ((--CUS:Name--))
in their letters. Second way is much better, but it requires some efforts from you. 
Because nobody, but you should revise those files in your dictionary and add
corresponding descriptions for each field you are going to use as tokens.
It can be anything you like. As long as those descriptions are unique - template
will work fine. So you customers instead of ugly token ((--CUS:Name--)) will see
beautiful ((--Customer Name--)). Make sure all pictures for those fields are
correct. Template will format those fields with pictures from your dictionary
so if your dictionary has say @n12 for a date - users will see LONG number 
rather than date :-(
If you've imported our form you already have browse for email letters.
Otherwise you should generate it with the browse template and add
Merge and Email button control.
STEP 4
Call just created browse from any window. So your customers will
normally select customer from a browse, hit email button. Select
letter which they want to send and hit Send button.
Template will merge letters with current values from record buffer.
It means that if you want to merge 
data for currently selected in a browse customer 
you should make sure the customer record is fetched OK.
No doubt you know that, but just in case we will remind you that
you should have those fields being merged in Browse List Box or in the
Hot Keys. In ABC it doesn't hurt to call BRWx.UpdateViewRecord()
method to make sure that all Hot Keys are synchronized with the
currently selected record.
IMPORTANT: eMerge template uses mailto window program. Unfortunately
each email program has internal restriction on the total length of command
which mailto can process. In OE 5.5 and 6.0 this limit is 2028 characters.
So template allows users to change this value which can be found
experimentally. If letter is larger than that limit users will have option
to preview email and do something about it. That's why this template
should be used for composing relatively short messages. Anyway
nobody reads long emails these days ...
We installed example into your Clarion (Clarion5, C55, Clarion6) Examples\eMerge\Demo
 Or C:\Program Files\SoftVelocity\Clarion7\Lessons\eMerge\Demo  in C7.
So for various settings you can investigate the source.
 

Copyright (C) 2007 Vivid Help Systems Pty Ltd

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