Working on improvements to email newsletters in Micro.blog. I’d like to split out the editing of queued newsletters to instead have a separate per-newsletter “intro” text, with the rest of the email not editable. Does that cause a problem for anyone? Will allow more flexibility in other ways.

@manton FWIW, I do sometimes remove posts that strike me as irrelevant or no longer of interest. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but I do like having that option.

@manton I noticed if I edited the posts it didn't show up in the newsletter. Then I discovered you could edit the newsletter. So how do you make changes in the posts, that will go in the newsletter, if you want to edit the content?

@ayjay Interesting, thanks. Maybe there should be a way to specifically remove posts by toggling them off in the newsletter.

@manton here another suggestion: display some kind of visual cue (icon of a letter?) on the profile page for those with a newsletter enabled with a link to the subscription.

@manton would be cool to be able to preview at any time (on demand) what the newsletter will look like before it gets generated and sent.

@manton if I catch it, I sometimes have to edit posts that have short codes which have not expanded.

@jsonbecker I’d like to come up with a solution for that. Not sure how yet, but will think about it.

@numericcitizen Good idea. 👍

@manton I for one love the fact that I dont have to think about it at all. just packages everything by itself and off it goes - automation at its best. I would however like a little bit of control over the design (so header), but also know that email design is not a goos thing to get into…forget about css. Just some minor tweaks.

@manton Recently I’ve been editing the email so that it includes my email address for replies, whereas the blog post contains a link to my Contact page instead. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, as I could put the email address in the intro.

I usually find some errors in the blog post after I’ve posted it. Am I right in thinking that in future I’ll be able to edit the post in the 30 minutes after posting and have the edits carry through to the email? If so, great, thanks.

@artkavanagh Yes, that’s right. Nothing set in stone yet, though. Want to make sure it works for everyone.

@manton I find sometimes I have to edit individual posts because they are not displaying correctly in email. For example, quotes never seem to work for me, so I use a different way to display them. I’d hate to loose the ability to make those tweaks.

@manton Another question. If there is no content for a newsletter, or I delete all content at the editing stage, does that mean that nothing is sent out?

@crossingthethreshold What kind of problems do you have with quotes?

@crossingthethreshold Yes, if there is nothing to send it should just mark it as done but not actually send anything.

@artkavanagh The new system will allow full editing of the template, so you can change the footer to include other contact info. No need to use the intro for that unless you want to.

@manton I definitely take out some non-relevant posts or add the ‘more’ tag to some very long posts

@pratik Do you ever use the special <!--more--> comment to be explicit about where a summary should end? And if not, would you if that worked in newsletters?

@manton I do use the ‘more’ tag but it doesn’t work in the newsletter. But if it did, that would work for me. Coz I don’t use it on all macro posts

@manton The Markdown for quoting text just displays as in line text. A long time ago I borrowed some CSS for formatting newsletters that @amit shared. I wonder if that is causing it, but don’t know enough CSS to diagnose the problem.

@manton That’s perfect. Thanks again, Manton.

@manton one quick question: when is the newsletter supposed to be sent when it is configured as a monthly newsletter?

@numericcitizen It should be on the 1st of the month, 9am in your local time zone. Let me know if that's not what you're seeing.

@manton got it this morning, I was too quick to conclude to a possible problem