Send a table in an email.

Thu Sep 9 10:35:05 EDT 2021

Ben,

That's perfect, and kind of what I'd said in one of my previous, although
not as succinctly or as well explained. Thanks for this as a way of
confirming an idea. (I tend to use {{table}} as my replacement strings. It
goes back to my coding back in the 80s/90s)

I've put the projects to one side as it was only a 'could you just' request
from one of the team and only helps us view it a bit easier. I have bigger
fish to fry at the moment. But I'll revisit the thread when I've done it
and post the 'solution' for others to use.

Thanks again.

Sean
*Pi Digital *

On Thu, 9 Sept 2021 at 14:23, Ben Rubinstein via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Hi Sean,
>
> Not to wind you up with yet another 'helpful' suggestion... but here's
> what I
> would do, if I've understood you correctly.
>
> I think you're formatting a nice message in a field using LC styling; then
> using the Mime Encoder feature to format it to include in an email. But
> when
> you try to put a table in the field, it doesn't come out nicely.
>
> My suggestion would to be do that, but where you want the table in the
> field,
> just put "***TABLE***" or similar.
>
> Then do the minimal work to generate the table in HTML format, and insert
> in
> the result of the mime encoder, so you end up doing something like
>
>         put mimeEncodeFieldAsMIMEMultipartDocument(pField) into
> tMessageBody
>         replace "***TABLE***" with tHTMLtable in tMessageBody
>
> Let the MIME encoder do all the dirty work it does on the messy stuff. Do
> the
> straightforward rendering of a table in HTML yourself. Combine the two.
>
> My 2c. Apologies if this a lecture on sucking eggs.
>
> Ben
>
>
> On 09/09/2021 09:35, Pi Digital via use-livecode wrote:
> > Hehe. Full of ‘solutions’ :)
> >
> > It’s because we need to see it as a table in an email :D
> > That’s the point of the question.
> >
> > Here’s my full process if it helps you understand.
> >
> > I (that is to say, a server I code and manage) process around 100-120
> emails a day from the mobile (cell phone) carriers O2 and EE. They all get
> done at about 5am every day at including weekends. Some have call data in
> them and some do not. Some have broken csv’s in them. Myself and others in
> the team need to quickly know when it breaks so we can look into it.
> >
> > So, to be absolutely sure, we email ourselves every morning a list of
> which emails have been processed for all of the clients (4 so far). It has
> the details of the email UID, the customer name, the client(or Dealer as we
> call them) name, the date range, the account number, number of Kb, and a
> bunch of other relevant data to us. This list has grown. Each line has a of
> course a different length and does not format out like the table it is put
> into in LC.
> >
> > The purpose of the email is a forceful reminder to us to check. The
> subject let’s us know immediately if there may be issues by telling us how
> many got processed and how many had data and how many are potentially
> broken. These can only be indicators. We find ourselves in the rubbish
> position of checking it over by eye.
> >
> > We ‘could’ have it sent to a database, or show up in an app or all
> manner of other methods but by far and away the simplest way for us to
> daily get this reminder is by a simple email with a heading and a list.
> Email is a system with a long track record of ‘working’. The fact that
> email still exists is testament to this. A quick scan over this daily doc
> helps us quickly see which ones we’ve already checked, what potential
> issues there are and, more importantly for me, if the remote server had
> completely fallen over. No need to open any links or other software to view
> quickly a stream of data. It’s easier to recall and delete than our mySQL
> database. Email is just there, always.
> >
> > So, the ability to quickly convert our little table from a text field on
> the server into the body of an email is what I’m looking to do. I had
> expected the mime field encoder to do this but it seems it’s only very
> simple in its view of a field.
> >
> > The data returned from ‘the htmlText of field’ is so long and convoluted
> and also does not contain either the correct formatting or table info
> suitable for email.
> >
> > So, it looks like if I have to do it I will have to code a whole html
> method for expressing it as a table in an email body that email will accept
> and display as expected. That’s why I had ‘hoped’ that the MIME encoder
> already did it for us. Alas, negatory!
> >
> > I didn’t want to have to have put all this into an email when asking the
> question and ‘hoped’ that a simple question would suffice to get a simple
> answer (which MarkW was gracious to provide from the most qualified
> position I know).
> >
> > But, seriously, thank you for your interest and attempts to offer useful
> suggestions. Sometimes what sounds like a simple answer actually just
> overcomplicates the ‘end user experience’. Something we as software
> engineers should be ever aware of ;)
> >
> > Thanks again
> >
> > Sean
> > Pi Digital
> >
> >
> >> On 9 Sep 2021, at 05:29, Rick Harrison via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Sean,
> >>
> >> Why don’t you just email them a spreadsheet or a .csv file,
> >> let them open it. and they can copy and paste whatever they want
> >> into their own spreadsheet ?
> >>
> >> Rick
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Sep 8, 2021, at 10:43 PM, Pi Digital via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Rick
> >>>
> >>> Because, as stated before, you can’t select the text and paste it into
> a spreadsheet.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks though.
> >>>
> >>> Sean
> >>
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