We’ve been able to attach text and HTML content to messages with {emayili}. But something that I’ve really been wanting to do is render Markdown directly into an email.
In version 0.4.19 I’ve added the ability to directly render Plain Markdown into a message. That version is not on CRAN, so you’ll need to install from GitHub.
remotes::install_github("datawookie/emayili", ref = "v0.4.19")
Load the package and check the version.
library(emayili)
packageVersion("emayili")
[1] '0.4.19'
The new render() method will handle Plain Markdown either as a character vector or from a file.
Markdown String
Let’s start with Markdown in a character vector.
email <- envelope() %>%
render("[This](https://www.google.com) is a link.")
What’s the raw email document look like?
print(email, TRUE)
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2021 03:42:18 GMT
X-Mailer: {emayili}-0.4.19
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="28353539f2a233f353c181725361818"
--28353539f2a233f353c181725361818
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<p><a href=3D"https://www.google.com">This</a> is a link.</p>
--28353539f2a233f353c181725361818--
The Markdown has been translated into HTML and inserted as a text/html MIME element.
Markdown in a File
You’re more likely to have your Markdown in a file. Suppose that the file message.md contains the following:
[This](https://www.google.com) is a link.
- One
- Two
- Three
The render() function will identify its argument as a file path and render the contents of the file.
email <- envelope() %>%
render("message.md")
And this is what the resulting MIME message looks like:
print(email, TRUE)
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2021 03:42:18 GMT
X-Mailer: {emayili}-0.4.19
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="14133862a830263231d26271f2230"
--14133862a830263231d26271f2230
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<p><a href=3D"https://www.google.com">This</a> is a link.</p>
<ul>
<li>One</li>
<li>Two</li>
<li>Three</li>
</ul>
<p><img src=3D"https://cran.r-project.org/Rlogo.svg" alt=3D"" /></p>
--14133862a830263231d26271f2230--
This new feature partially scratches a persistent itch. But I’ll only be satisfied when I can render R Markdown straight into an email. Stay tuned next week.