Not in the script

Running scripts on your site to add greater functionality can often be a nightmare. Usually because they fall over and it isn’t immediately apparent what the problem is.

Now, here’s a good one. A low tech solution that might just mean you can afford to run one less script for a routine task such as sending out a hard copy brochure.

The underlying code for an email link is mailto:info@exampleco.co.uk 

This where it gets interesting: there are ways and means to not only launch the user’s email programme and add in a pre-set Subject line, but also what appears in the body of the email itself. Big Bro or what?

To fix the Subject line of the email message that opens when the user clicks on your email link, you need to add a bit more code. The email link then becomes
mailto:info@exampleco.co.uk?subject=Web brochure request

(BTW, click on these links as we go along to see for yourself. Just don’t click send – the email will bounce)

So far so good, we’ve now set up the email link in such a way that when it arrives in our inbox we can instantly tell two things. One, that the email is requesting a brochure. And two, that the email has been generated via our web site.

If we really want to get organised, we can now set up an email filter that puts all email containing the Subject line: ‘Web brochure request’ into a specified folder. That way we can tell at a glance when a brochure request arrives without it first getting lost in the crowd that normally populates our inbox. There’s a feature on setting up email rules here

To go that extra mile and give the end user even less keyboard work, we can determine what the email says as well.

The email link now becomes:
mailto:info@exampleco.co.uk?subject=Web brochure request&Body=Please send me your brochure. My full postal address is - 

If low tech keeping it simple appeals, it doesn’t get much better than this.