MailView -- Visual email testing
Preview plain text and html mail templates in your browser without redelivering it every time you make a change.
Rails 4.1
NOTE: MailView is part of Rails 4.1+. No need for the plugin anymore!
- 4.1.0 API docs: http://api.rubyonrails.org/v4.1.0/classes/ActionMailer/Base.html#class-ActionMailer::Base-label-Previewing+emails
- Release notes: http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/4_1_release_notes.html#action-mailer-previews
- Pull request: https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/13332/files
Install
Add the gem to your Gemfile:
gem 'mail_view', :git => 'https://github.com/basecamp/mail_view.git'
# or
gem "mail_view", "~> 2.0.4"
And run bundle install.
Usage
Since most emails do something interesting with database data, you'll need to write some scenarios to load messages with fake data. Its similar to writing mailer unit tests but you see a visual representation of the output instead.
# app/mailers/mail_preview.rb or lib/mail_preview.rb
class MailPreview < MailView
# Pull data from existing fixtures
def invitation
account = Account.first
inviter, invitee = account.users[0, 2]
Notifier.invitation(inviter, invitee)
end
# Factory-like pattern
def welcome
user = User.create!
mail = Notifier.welcome(user)
user.destroy
mail
end
# Stub-like
def forgot_password
user = Struct.new(:email, :name).new('name@example.com', 'Jill Smith')
mail = UserMailer.forgot_password(user)
end
end
Methods must return a Mail or TMail object. Using ActionMailer, call Notifier.create_action_name(args) to return a compatible TMail object. Now on ActionMailer 3.x, Notifier.action_name(args) will return a Mail object.
Routing
A mini router middleware is bundled for Rails 2.x support.
# config/environments/development.rb
config.middleware.use MailView::Mapper, [MailPreview]
For Rails³ you can map the app inline in your routes config.
# config/routes.rb
if Rails.env.development?
mount MailPreview => 'mail_view'
end
Now just load up http://localhost:3000/mail_view.
Interface
