Template development

This section is for template authors: designers, email developers, and anyone building the system that marketers use in the Email Editor.

In Better Email, a strong template does more than look good. It gives marketers the right amount of flexibility, keeps the brand consistent, and makes common workflows fast.

What you will find here

• Template Editor for the current authoring workflow.
• Modules for reusable content building blocks.
• Settings for the groups and inputs that shape the editing experience.
• Repeatable settings for lists like products, articles, links, or FAQs.
• Feeds in settings for feed-backed content.
• Input types for field-level behavior and constraints.
• Betty AI for configuring how Betty uses your design system.

TODO: Add a screenshot of the Template Editor with the module picker, code editor, and right-side tabs highlighted.

Recommended reading order

If you are new to Better Email template building, this order works well:

1. Creating your first template
2. Template Editor
3. Modules
4. Settings
5. Validations
6. Building a design system

Preview-aware rendering with meta.isPreview

Templates can access meta.isPreview during render. This is useful when you want the preview experience to behave differently from the final exported output.

A common example is ESP-specific code that is required in export, but makes the in-product preview hard to read or visually noisy.

For example, you might want:

• clean placeholder or fallback content in preview
• raw ESP code such as AMPscript in the final exported email

That pattern can be handled directly in Liquid:

{% if meta.isPreview %}
  <p>Preview text for the editor</p>
{% else %}
  %%[
    /* AMPscript or other ESP-specific export code */
  ]%%
{% endif %}

Use this when the export logic is technically necessary, but not useful to show in preview.

As a rule of thumb:

• use meta.isPreview to improve clarity in preview
• keep the preview branch visually representative of the final email where possible
• use the export branch for ESP-specific logic that should only appear in the delivered output

The goal

The best Better Email templates are easy to maintain and easy to use. If a marketer can build a polished campaign without touching HTML, the template is doing its job.