As most of you have noticed, we launched an HTML version of Kibbles & Bytes last week. We introduced this in response to the overwhelming percentage of you who voted for HTML in our February ’08 survey to Kibbles & Bytes readers. It allows us to add color, photos and style to the newsletter, while making it easier to read and keeping the Small Dog “feel.”
And, as Don mentioned above, we have noted your feedback; thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think! There are going to be some changes to future issues—some pre-planned and some based on your responses. I’ve noted some common concerns and suggestions that we’ve received, with further acknowledgement and explanation:
- “Why is it so small on my iPhone?”
Unfortunately, Apple Mail for the iPhone is the limitation here. It is not coded to understand the zoom/width settings needed to view the newsletter in a larger size.
The remedy: Click on the “View in web browser” link at the top of the email and Safari will display this in a more viewable way. You will be able to turn iPhone/touch sideways and view horizontally, as well as scroll to enlarge text.
- “It would be great if the image at the top was a link.”
We agree! We are working on making this happen, and we should see it in the next version of Kibbles & bytes.
- “The links are hard to see.”
One of the great things about HTML is that links don’t have to be spelled out in order to access them, but we acknowledge that sometimes they can be embedded within text, and possibly hard to see. We have used the color scheme of our website as a template for the link colors (blue), but sometimes email clients (often webmail) override those settings, making them a different color. With this in mind, we will try to make the links as visible as possible in the future. This includes the links in the footer, which we have altered to make them more visible. They now match our footer on Smalldog.com with blue links that turn orange when hovered over.
- “What are those weird characters when I look at the text-only version?”
This is a good question. We’ll spare you the boring details of why this happens, though, and promise to keep those annoying symbols out of the text as best can can! (Feel free to email me if you’re curious!)
I would also like to note that we understand that there are some of you out there who do not want HTML newsletters altogether. We currently are unable to offer two separate email lists (one HTML and one plain text), so we have included the link to get plain text at the top of each newsletter. The images are not embedded, keeping the file size smaller, but if this is still too much for slow-loading email clients, the other alternative is to view the plain text emails in our online archive.
The Kibbles & Bytes archives can currently be found here.
(The link is subject to change pending further development, at which point we will feature the new link in future Kibbles & Bytes issues.)
We thank you for your feedback again, and hope you enjoy the newest version of Kibbles & Bytes!
To offer your feedback, either reply to this message or email subscriptions@smalldog.com.