path: root/help/C/mail-composer-message-templates.page

<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
type="topic" id="mail-composer-message-templates">

  <info>
 <desc>Message templates to reuse in the composer.</desc>

 <link type="guide" xref="index#mail-composing-advanced" />

 <revision pkgversion="2.32.2" version="0.1" date="2011-07-21" status="stub"/>
 <credit type="author">
   <name>Andre Klapper</name>
   <email>ak-47@gmx.net</email>
 </credit>
 <credit type="author">
   <name>Novell, Inc</name> <!-- Content partially from http://library.gnome.org/users/evolution/2.32/b1dlaazl.html.en -->
 </credit>
 <license>
   <p>Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0</p>
 </license> 

  </info>

<title>Message Templates</title>
<p>A message template is a standard message that you can use at any time to send mail with the same pattern.</p>
<p>To enable the Message Template Plugin, click <guiseq><gui>Edit</gui><gui>Plugins</gui></guiseq> and enable <gui>Templates</gui>.</p>

<!-- TODO: Check correctness of all these steps in 3.1. --> 
<!-- TODO:POST-3-2: Split this into subpages maybe, and turn this into a guide page! -->

<section id="create">
<title>Creating a Message Template from an existing Message</title>
<steps>
  <item><p>Select the message.</p></item>
  <item><p>Right-click the message and choose <gui>Move to folder</gui> or <gui>Copy to folder</gui>.</p></item>
  <item><p>Select the <gui>Templates</gui> folder under <gui>On This Computer</gui>.</p></item>
</steps>
<p>You can also edit an existing message and save it as a template:</p>
<steps>
  <item><p>Open the message and click <gui>Reply</gui>.</p></item>
  <item><p>Edit the message body or the addresses according to your requirements.</p></item>
  <item><p>Select <guiseq><gui>File</gui><gui>Save as Template</gui></guiseq>.</p></item>
 </steps>
</section>

<section id="save">
 <title>Saving a New Message as a Template</title>
 <steps>
  <item>
<p>Click <gui>New</gui> and enter in the composer window what you need for the template.</p>
  </item>
  <item>
<p>Select <guiseq><gui>File</gui><gui>Save as Template</gui></guiseq>.</p>
  </item>
 </steps>
</section>

<section id="reply">
 <title>Using a Message Template as a Reply</title>
 <steps>
  <item>
<p>Right-click the message you are replying to, then click <gui>Templates</gui>.</p>
<p>This option lists all the message templates in the <gui>Templates</gui> folder.</p>
  </item>
  <item>
<p>Select the message template of your choice. Make changes if required in the email composer window that will open.</p>
  </item>
  <item>
<p>Click <gui>Send</gui>.</p>
<p>When you select a message template for replying, the subject of the reply is preserved.</p>
  </item>
 </steps>
</section>

<section id="configure">    
<title>Configuring Message Templates</title>
<steps>
<item><p>Select <guiseq><gui>Edit</gui><gui>Plugins</gui></guiseq>.</p></item>
<item><p>Click <gui>Templates</gui>.</p></item>
<item><p>Click the <gui>Configuration</gui> tab.</p></item>
<item><p>You can add, edit or remove the key-value pairs. You can specify any number of key-value pairs.</p></item>
</steps>
 <p>In any template, the occurrence of every $key is replaced by the value it has in the configuration. For example, if you set the key to Manager and the value to Harry, any occurrence of $Manager is replaced by Harry in the message.</p>
 <p>Assume that you have 1000 message templates with your current manager's name in them. When the current manager is replaced by a new one, it is not easy for you to manually replace the manager's name in all the 1000 messages. If the messages have a $Manager key value, you can reset the value in the Configuration tab of this plugin.</p>
 <p>By default, the entire environment variables are used as a key-value pair. An occurrence of $env_variable is replaced by the value it carries. For example, an occurrence of $PATH in your template is replaced by its value when the template is used.</p>
 <p>The replacement process uses the following order of precedence:</p>
 <steps>
  <item>
<p>$key is replaced by the value set for it in the Configuration tab of the Templates plugin.</p>
  </item>
  <item>
<p>If the key is not found, it is then replaced with the value of its environment variable.</p>
  </item>
  <item>
<p>If key is neither a configuration option nor an environment variable, no changes are made.</p>
  </item>
 </steps>
</section>

</page>