Hi Susanne,
thanks for asking something I can answer :)
I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of form letters: "Dear _Name_,
In regard to your communication on _Day_ about _Topic_, we'd like to
tell you ..." Well, you get the idea. Templates are basically form
letters. And you're already using them, even if you don't realize it.
Every time you reply to someone, The Bat! knows to put the date and
text of the original message into the reply. It even starts the
message out by saying "Hello _Name_". The reason it knows to do this
is because you have a Reply template with macros that tell TB to put
that information into every reply you type. You can see the basic
account templates you use every day by going to the Account /
Properties / Templates window (click on the + next to the Templates
folder to see your Reply, Forward, etc. templates). The "macros" are
the commands that tell TB exactly what information you want in your
templates (such as the name of the recipient, the version of TB!
you're using, a random quote (known in TB! as a Cookie) and much much
more).
Aside from the account templates, you can configure templates that are
suited to specific occasions, called Quick Templates. These may be
configured under the Options/Quick Templates menu. Let's say you're a
building administrator and you handle room assignments. Using a
template, you could create a form letter that says "Dear _Name_, Thank
you for your room request for... You have been assigned to..." and
everything would be prepared for you to just fill in the missing info.
Much easier than typing out the whole message every time from scratch!
So far we've seen two kinds of templates: your basic account-specific
templates and Quick Templates. There is one more kind: templates
linked to specific contacts in your address book.
Contact-specific templates may be modified by going into your address
book, right-clicking on a contact, and opening the Contact's
Properties. See the New Message, Reply, Forward tabs? By modifying
these templates, you can modify how your emails will look for specific
people. For example, I find it more practical to include the original
message text in most of my replies, and I have my account reply
template set accordingly. But I have some contacts who read their mail
frequently and who hate to see excerpts from our communication in
every mail. For these people, I make sure that their personal reply
template does not include %QUOTE or any other macro that automatically
pastes in the text of our previous communication. It saves me time &
trouble every time I reply to these people.
There are many more complex things you can do with templates. Since
you're already using them, why not take a look at the Account
templates, play with the macros a little, and see what you like?
Hope this helps!
P.S. If you want to see an example of a templated email that more
closely resembles a form letter, go to the Help menu and select
Feedback/Bug Report. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the preformatted
Bug Report is a templated email.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
View the TBUDL archive at http://tbudl.thebat.dutaint.com
To send a message to the list moderation team double click here:
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To Unsubscribe from TBUDL, double click here and send the message:
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--------------------------------------------------------------
You are subscribed as : [email protected]
