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A few months ago I started exploring whether email template creation in EspoCRM could be made easier for non-technical users.
Since then, I've been developing a Visual Email Template Builder extension that allows users to create responsive email templates through a visual interface while generating clean email-compatible HTML behind the scenes.
The goal isn't just to make template creation easier — it's to help users create emails that render reliably across major email clients, including Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail.
Current capabilities include:
📦 CONTENT BLOCKS
- Text (with Markdown editing)
- Heading (H1-H3)
- Button - sizes, styles (rectangle/rounded/pill), full-width, custom colors
- Image - with link, alt text, alignment, filters, fluid-on-mobile
- Table - header / content, per-cell styling (color, alignment, padding), resizable rows and columns
- Menu (navigation bar) block
- Social links block
- Divider (enhanced - color, thickness, spacing)
- Spacer
- HTML (raw) block
- Container and Columns structural blocks
🎨 LAYOUT AND DESIGN
- Columns up to 4, with fixed-px or percentage widths (draggable resize)
- Mobile column stacking (responsive, works across clients)
- Container backgrounds - solid color, opacity, gradients, and background images (cover/contain/custom size, position, repeat, min-height)
- Overlapping blocks (negative-margin layouts for hero/overlay designs)
- Rounded corners (per-corner border radius) and borders
- Brand/accent color that propagates to buttons, links, and avatars
🖼️ IMAGE CONTROLS
- Filters - grayscale, sepia, invert, blur, brightness, contrast, saturate, hue-rotate
- Fluid on mobile - image fills the column on phones, fixed on desktop
- Column-aware width - auto-fits its space, can never overflow, recalculates live as the layout changes
- Media-library integration - "Select Image" picker for both images and background images
✍️ TYPOGRAPHY AND PERSONALIZATION
- Modern font library - Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Poppins, Playfair + system stacks
- Markdown toolbar for rich text
- Merge-tag / placeholder autocomplete for personalization
- Global text color and document color controls, with reset-to-default
🛠️ EDITOR EXPERIENCE
- Undo / redo, fullscreen mode, desktop ↔ mobile preview
- Number-stepper inputs with units across all dimension fields
- JSON structured output
- HTML output
- Polished, unified UI with inline tooltips and guidance
Before preparing the first public release, I'd be interested in hearing from the community:
I've attached a screenshot of the current version and would welcome any feedback or suggestions.
Since then, I've been developing a Visual Email Template Builder extension that allows users to create responsive email templates through a visual interface while generating clean email-compatible HTML behind the scenes.
The goal isn't just to make template creation easier — it's to help users create emails that render reliably across major email clients, including Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail.
Current capabilities include:
📦 CONTENT BLOCKS
- Text (with Markdown editing)
- Heading (H1-H3)
- Button - sizes, styles (rectangle/rounded/pill), full-width, custom colors
- Image - with link, alt text, alignment, filters, fluid-on-mobile
- Table - header / content, per-cell styling (color, alignment, padding), resizable rows and columns
- Menu (navigation bar) block
- Social links block
- Divider (enhanced - color, thickness, spacing)
- Spacer
- HTML (raw) block
- Container and Columns structural blocks
🎨 LAYOUT AND DESIGN
- Columns up to 4, with fixed-px or percentage widths (draggable resize)
- Mobile column stacking (responsive, works across clients)
- Container backgrounds - solid color, opacity, gradients, and background images (cover/contain/custom size, position, repeat, min-height)
- Overlapping blocks (negative-margin layouts for hero/overlay designs)
- Rounded corners (per-corner border radius) and borders
- Brand/accent color that propagates to buttons, links, and avatars
🖼️ IMAGE CONTROLS
- Filters - grayscale, sepia, invert, blur, brightness, contrast, saturate, hue-rotate
- Fluid on mobile - image fills the column on phones, fixed on desktop
- Column-aware width - auto-fits its space, can never overflow, recalculates live as the layout changes
- Media-library integration - "Select Image" picker for both images and background images
✍️ TYPOGRAPHY AND PERSONALIZATION
- Modern font library - Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Poppins, Playfair + system stacks
- Markdown toolbar for rich text
- Merge-tag / placeholder autocomplete for personalization
- Global text color and document color controls, with reset-to-default
🛠️ EDITOR EXPERIENCE
- Undo / redo, fullscreen mode, desktop ↔ mobile preview
- Number-stepper inputs with units across all dimension fields
- JSON structured output
- HTML output
- Polished, unified UI with inline tooltips and guidance
Before preparing the first public release, I'd be interested in hearing from the community:
- Would this be useful in your EspoCRM projects?
- Which feature would be most important to you?
- Would you be interested in early access or beta testing?
I've attached a screenshot of the current version and would welcome any feedback or suggestions.
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