I have to say Constant Contact is pretty selective in which things they are concerned about when it comes to providing the "best experience."   For instance, it seems that no option is provided for overriding the mobile feature that turns dates (and phone numbers, etc.) into links. I know there are a number of people using Constant Contact to send out newsletters, and I would bet that we are not the only CC customer that dates our articles. Those dates really should not become links, sine there is no earthly reason anyone would want to "calendar" them. Again, this is something we could probably deal with by changing the style IF we had access to the html. Someone told me that does offer a way to mute the links, which would at least be a partial solution, if it is not possible to ban them entirely. But unless I am missing something, Constant Contact offers no option like this. ... View more

This is the same canned response Constant Contact has been writing every time another person comments about this feature. I guess at least we can say they are consistent.   Since they are reiterating, I think I will also. We all know that not all email providers handle anchor links properly. So do our subscribers. For those who have providers that handle them right, they will work. For those who don't, they will at least know what is down below in the email that they can scroll to.   Why not respect that they will have half a clue when they see those links, rather than eliminating them for everyone. ... View more

VERY GOOD POINT.   It's just nuts that this discussion has gone on for so long. Constant Contact needs to provide access to the html code. Just throw up a warning notice about how making changes may introduce coding that is not understood by all email clients, if you feel it is necessary. What are you afraid of really? It's not like we can force you to help us if such a problem is encountered. If we introduce new code and then call for help, you can tell us that you can't help in that situation. Period. The support people always told us that anyway if we wanted to make a change to the code. ... View more

By now you must have quite a collection of reasons people need to access the html code, and I doubt that the powers that be at Constant Contact are planning to do anything about it soon. But I had an experience today that showed a whole new level of why it's needed.   I was working on an email and somehow it got three what I will call "phantom" images--that is the images were in the email but not visible to us when working in the editor. They happened to be images we wanted to use, but when we added in the blocks with the images, we then had double images of these three. They were visible when previewing the email but not when working in the editor, so we had no ability to resize, move, link or delete them. If we could have looked into the code, we could likely have found them and removed them, then added them again in the editor, and then hopefully they would have been visible and editable. ... View more

No kidding. This has been going on pretty much since the 3G editor was introduced. I see a lot of CTCT employees saying they "really agree" with the importance of access to html. They need to go to bad for the customers if this is true that they really agree. ... View more

Thanks for coming up with this suggestion. Since this appears not to associate with the comment I was replying to, let me clarify I am expressing appreciation for Susan's suggestion to offer access to "html at your own risk"!   I look forward to hearing the reasoning they have for not doing it, because I really don't believe they are going to. Such simple things that could be done if this were allowed. I don't know what they are so afraid of. As far as I can recall, they never gave advice on editing html code anyway, so why is it such a big deal now?   Even if you want to use their template and replace the generic text with your own, such an obvious need if you are working with templates, you then have to restyle it, you can't just paste in plain text and have it adopt the styles. Maybe it works if you type it in, I think, but who wants to retype a whole thing they have already typed and edited before starting the email design? So frustrating... And if we had the html we could paste it into the code in one simple maneuver. ... View more

I think that pretty much sums it up. My other thought on this is that you would think they would stop offering us the opportunity to "accept" their "solution" as helpful. But every single comment from a Constant Contact employee both offers this and "apologizes" for the inconvenience of not being able to access the code. ... View more

Yes. Those and more reasons. And as someone else said, how many comments do you need to collect about what we are all trying to do that we need html for, before you actually do something about it? ... View more

For many years Constant Contact provided multiple templates with anchor links at the top, and seemed to promote this as a good solution for newsletters, as KathleenM539 outlines. Suddenly it is seen as a problem because not all email clients handle it the same way. But this is true of MANY things that have not been eliminated--for instance I have receltnly encounted an issue where the stacking Constant Contact has implemented for mobile devices works differently in different programs, and I understand they have decided not to be concerned about that.   So why not allow anchor links for this purpose? I think CC customers, and their subscribers, will understand that in cases where the anchors don't work they need to scroll down. This is not rocket science, and there are good reasons to make anchor links available for those subscribers whose email clients process them correctly.   Of course we want to drive more visitors to our website, but since we are presenting many topics in one newsletter, we want them to first find the link they actually want within our newsletter, read the teaser, and decide to click through because it interests them! ... View more

There are limits on how many tests can be sent, so we have had problems trying in various email clients. Is there any plan to extend this? I don't know what the limits are but we have run up against them at various times. ... View more

I couldn't believe they removed anchor links from the 3rd gen editor. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they removed so many features that previously existed.   I read that the reason is that shorter emails are better, and in a shorter email you wouldn't need an anchor.   Has Constant Contact never heard of a newsletter? It's different from a marketing email that has a more single-minded action that it hopes subscribers will take. In newsletters you present multiple topics (articles), and anchor links help the reader move to the sections they are interested in.   If we could edit the html we could add our own anchor links, but alas that has been taken away as well.   I wonder what type of focus group CC used to evaluate what to keep and what to get rid of. ... View more

I suspect if we want control over the archive copy of our email, we would need to host it on our websites, instead of CC's. An added advantage would be adding in your site's header and navigation so it would be another way to draw people to the site. ... View more

In regard to the comment from SarahD637 it's interesting that the moderator thinks it necessary to block the name of the CC competitor that offers the composite photo gallery option. What is the purpose of this? ... View more

Agree with ROM_elizabeth, there is way too much space between photo and caption when you use a text block under the photo. And also if you adjust the type size the line height doesn't adjust accordingly.   Allowing access to the html would at least solve the line height problem. Not sure if it would solve the space between blocks problem but you need to provide a way this can be done by the user when needed. THanks. ... View more

I found where Constant Contact says it can be done with the multi column blocks, but even there, you want to be able to adjust the size AND the line-height, but that option has also been removed (line height). When you just change the size then you have wide spacing between the lines. Why would you do that???   I was not a fan of the old caption feature either, which didn't allow for punctuation like commas, parentheses, etc. but at least you could adjust the size adequately. If you are not allowing access to the html to set the line height, then the interface should adjust the line-height to go with the change in size. ... View more

I have complained quite a lot about features that are discontinued including the lack of "forward to a friend", html editor, tables and colored background inserted blocks, so just gelt I had to mention a new feature I just discovered in the 3rd gen editor that I love.   This is the feature that allows you to schedule a resend to subscribers who did not open the first email, and to change the subject line of it right there. This is a truly useful addition. At least I think it is; we will see how it goes in terms of increasing opens.   How to do it is here: https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/22442-automatically-resend-an-email-to-contacts-who-did-not-open?lang=en_US ... View more

I think CC is collecting a list of things people want to do in html, I came across another one today, which is to enter a non breaking space (&nbsp . There are times you really want to keep two words together without using a hard return, which will be handled differently on different devices, browsers, monitors, etc. ... View more

This is one thing that could be "fixed" by having access to the html text, since you have not designed the interface to allow this type of paste requested by BrynC6. With access to the html code, at least you would be able to pick up the formatting in the template. ... View more

Maybe there could be a really noticeable emoji along with the word TEST in the subject line. Mailchimp puts the word TEST in brackets but frankly it is still not all that noticeable. ... View more

Ayva, you have really nailed it with your comment that "had to stop caring" applies to way too many things about CC these days. I don't know what thing will finally push me over the edge--may be when they eliminate phone support completely. I hate that they even eliminated it on the weekend but have gotten through it with difficulty. That phone support is one of the big things that distinguishes CC from others, imho.   But on the language issue, they redeisgned the whole interface, I don't see why they couldn't have built in a checkbox to pick the language you want the account info to appear in. Seems so obvious since they already have the options, to just let the account select it right from the start and have it apply to a particular email. @AbbyR8   ... View more

I am baffled by what people are saying here, about how they have to edit the html. I would be happy if CC would even let us get to the html, which has been outlawed in the 3rd gen editor.   Maybe I could live with it, if pasting text into the wysiwyg worked properly but it really doesn't.   And I'm not sure really what is the purpose of bringing it up in this forum, since all we get is "that's a good idea, we'll put in a request for you" when it has pretty clearly already been decided not to allow certain features for fear of "breaking" the mobile accessibility.   Does anyone know if ANY of the things people have raised about features lost in the 3rd generation editor have been restored by Constant Contact??? ... View more

I have kind of lost track of how many times I have seen this response "the html feature is a great idea"--and yet as far as I can tell when inquiring further it seems clear that Constant Contact has no intention of restoring this feature. Could the Constant Contact employees who are saying this please tell their company that they think it's a great idea? Because apparently they are not speaking for Constant Contact when they say that!   I came across another reason for needing it last night. I realize there is some thought that these drag-and-drop copy blocks are a great idea and really help people with design but there are huge problems with them. 1. you can't set the default styles for the copy blocks 2. Even if you want to use the default styles, if you try to paste copy (stripped of its coding via a text program like notepad), the text when pasted does not hold the default style that has been brought in. So you are forced to either retype text that already exists (for instance on your website) or paste it in and then restyle each individual piece of it. (WIth access to the html, at least you could switch to the html view and paste your text between the codes.) 3. You can't put a border around a block, though you CAN give it a colored background. Why did anyone think only one way of creating a "box" in your layout was sufficient? WIth html, you could switch to code view and add the style for your border if you wanted one. (I "get" that it is hard to create ready-made options for every need, but that's why we should be able to add styles in the code. I heard that the concern is that people will use coding that is not mobile friendly. Why don't you let people decide which is more important to them? We are capable or searching the web to find out whether something we are doing will work on a mobile device!) 4. I think there was a 4,5, and 6 but I have forgotten what they are at the moment. Oh, yeah, one was to be able to add space less than a full line height between paragraphs. ... View more

What is the status of this request? It seems like a no-brainer. Since you offer these drag and drop segments with two or three items, a vertical rule is in some cases essential, and since you are not allowing access to html at this time, it must be built into your drag and drop options! You seem to assume that every segment will always have a photo and text, which helps to define those segments as elements, but in cases where there are two text segments next to each other a vertical rule will really help the design. It would also be good if it were possible to select different background colors for these two column segments sitting side by side (and allowing space between, so you could have colored blocks.   Also, I was excited to see there is a 5 column block, which was not there previously when I worked with the 3G editor, but why have you skipped over 4 columns? It would really be helpful to be able to choose between 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 column blocks.   ... View more

I am seeing a similar problem with survey results. The numbers are small, but only one is showing, even though there have been results previously and I have saved the reports.   Is there any way to get someone to look at this on the weekend? ... View more

My point, however, was that even in the 2nd generation editor with the html coding window, I was never able to get an em dash to display. I would put the code in but it didn't work. Any of the various html codes avaialble for em dashes.   If someone did make it work in the 2nd gen editor I'd love to know how, as I have continued to use it for some of our work. ... View more

What html work-around? I have yet to hear of one. None of the html codes for em dash that I am aware of will work in CC even if you DO go into the code window (which they aren't gonna let us do any more anyway). ... View more

I have been asked to indicate if any of the answers are "accepted solutions". I guess in one sense I could say that telling me the feature is GONE in the 3rd generation is an answer, but an accepted solution? Not really. All email service providers I know of provide a forwarding feature in one form or another. What I have liked about the one in constant contact is that it actually forwards the email, rather than a link to it.   I understand that you find it is rarely used, but the lack of providing a forwarding option just makes it look like we don't care whether our subscribers become "popularizers" of our campaigns. Everyone knows this is a standard feature of emails. ... View more