In-app message design with Visual Editor

With the Visual editor, you can drag-drop HTML components as visual components into the design panel and design the template according to your requirements.

The Visual editor provides a lot of advanced features to create a compelling template that you can use in your campaigns and send engaging messages to your customers.

You can also customize the height and width of the template as required.

If you have selected the option to display the message in the mobile inbox, you can update the mobile inbox details from the Inbox tab.

The Visual Editor

The right panel in the Visual Editor has 3 tabs: Content, Rows, and Settings. This panel provides the components that you can drag-drop into the design panel to create the template.

The design panel is where you design your template, add text and images, add personalization, and so on.

Design the structure of the template by adding rows.
Add various components like paragraphs, lists, images, and so on, and configure the individual component settings.
Configure the template settings.
Add the content for the various components. You can include different types of links in the content.
Define custom conditions for rows so that a row is displayed only to users who meet the specified criteria.
Add comments for collaborators or view edit history to check previous changes.

The left panel in the template has 3 tabs that you can use to design the structure of the template.

Rows

Using the different types of rows, you can define the layout of your template.

A single row defines the horizontal layout of that particular area of the template. You can add multiple rows to define the entire layout of the template.

A row can include up to four columns, and it can either be empty or you can add content.

Content

Drag and drop the various content components into the rows that you have added to the template.

When you drag a content component into the required section of the template, it will auto-adjust to the column width.

Whenever you select a content component, the properties for that element are displayed in the Content tab.

Settings

Specify the global style settings for the template.

For example, you can specify the general width of the template, global font, background color, content alignment, and so on.

Design the structure or skeleton of your message by dragging rows into the design panel. Each row represents a horizontal area of your message template. Stack up rows to design the entire structure. Using a row with more than one column allows you to put different content elements side by side.

For example, in the following image you can see 2 rows added to the template. The first row has 2 columns which are stacked on a mobile device.

Add components

The Content tab has various components that you can drag and drop into the rows and columns that you have added to your template. After you add a component, when you select the component in the design panel, the properties for that component are displayed in the Content tab. Some components also have an editor toolbar that you can use to edit the component.

The following components are available for you to use in your templates.

Title	Use the title component to add a heading in your template. You can have H1, H2, and H3 heading levels in the template.
Paragraph	Add the paragraph component to add a rich text to your template. The paragraph block gives you more control over the text format. You can change the font family, font size, font weight, text alignment, text direction, paragraph spacing, and so on from the content properties settings in the Content tab. Additional settings are available in the text editor toolbar. You can also use Liquid merge tags in the text.
List	Add the list component to include ordered and unordered lists in your template. The list block is similar to a paragraph block and additionally supports numbered and bulleted lists.
Image	Add the image component to add images to your template. You can upload images from your computer, import images from a public location on the web (such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and more) or search for free images online. Use the content properties in the Content tab to edit the image, add a URL, apply effects, and so on.
Button	Add the button component if you want your customers to complete an action. A button in your template adds a call to action (CTA) to it. You can modify the button label, padding, border, radius, color, and so on. For example, a button click can launch a web-page or an in-app page.
Divider	Add a divider component if you want a horizontal line break between the components of your template. The divider can be a solid, slashed, or dotted line, or a transparent spacer.
Spacer	Add a spacer component if you want to add some vertical space between two components in your template.
Social	Add the social component to add social media icons that link to your social media profiles. Blueshift provides Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn icons by default. You can add and remove social media icons based on your preference. You can add social media icons of your choice as well. You can provide links to your social media pages in the content tab as you work on the template.
HTML	Add the HTML component to add custom HTML in your template. If you are comfortable with writing HTML, drop the HTML component in the template, select it in the design panel, and add your HTML code in the content tab.
Video	Add the video component to add a video in the email template. Note: You cannot upload a video to Blueshift but you can provide a URL for the video in the content tab. If you provide a YouTube or Vimeo URL, Blueshift can automatically generate a video preview.
Icons	Add the icon component if you want to add icons in your template. Unlike the image component, you can add multiple icons in a single component and choose different icons for different purposes. For example, you can add your company logo and link it to your company's website and add a star icon that links to the reviews page of your website.
Menu	Add the menu component if you want to provide menu items in your template. You can use this component to add clickable text components in your template. For example, you can add a menu at the top of the template that links to different pages of your site.
AI+ Items	Add the AI+ Items component to include recommendations in your template. For more information, see Include recommendations using Visual Studio. Note: If Recommendations are not enabled for your account, you won’t see this component. Contact your account manager to enable recommendations.

For example, here is the same template in which we added 2 rows, but with components added to the rows.

The following example shows the component properties and the editor toolbar for a paragraph component.

The following example shows the component properties for an image component.

Template settings

From the Settings tab, you can configure settings that apply to the entire message. These global settings are overridden by settings that you apply to individual components when you edit them.

Content area width	The width for the content area. This is set to 500px which provides enough space to design your message for mobile devices.
Content area alignment	Set the content as left aligned or center aligned.
Background color	This is the default background color for the message. You can override it at the row, column, and content block level by setting the properties for these components.
Content area background color	The default background color for the overall content area, which is the area for which you set the width above.
Default font	The default font family for all the content components. You can override it at the row, column, and content block level by setting the properties in the editor toolbar.
Link color	The default link color for all the links in the message. You can override it at the row, column, and content block level by setting the properties for the component in the Content tab.

Conditional display of rows

The Display Condition feature lets you to define a custom condition for a row so that the row is displayed only to users who meet the specified criteria. In this way, you can use a single template to target multiple audiences.

Use Liquid syntax and personalization attributes to define the condition.
Add the Liquid expression for the condition in the Before field.
Add {% endif %} in the After field.

For example, you can use conditional display of rows to implement localization.

In the following example, in a sales promotion template, two rows are added to the template with gender specific content and a display condition is set such that row 1 is displayed for female users (condition = {% if user.gender == "female" %}) and row 2 is displayed for male users (condition = {% if user.gender == "male" %}).

Comments for collaboration

When you select a component or a row, use the Show comments button to view comments that were previously added and to add your comments to the template.

When you click on the Show comments button in the Content tab, all comments are displayed. You can add new comments or resolve existing comments. This can be useful in cases where your team is working on a template and would like to discuss their designs and decisions.

Edit history

Based on the edits that you make to the message template, the Blueshift platform provides an edit history.

You can undo or redo your changes as you update the template. You can undo or redo up to 15 latest changes. To roll back your template to a point that's older than 15 last changes, click the history timeline button. The history timeline button provides changes that are older than the last 15 ones.

For each event in the timeline you can see the following information:

An icon to identify the type of content that was changed (such as an image or text).
A description of the change.
The time of the change.

When you select an edit in the timeline, the content or row that is tied to the edit is highlighted.

Note: This history is only available while you are editing the template. If you close the template and reopen it, the edit history is empty.

Define clicks and dismiss actions

You can use the URL blueshift://req-push-permission to launch the Blueshift SDK’s push permission request workflow.

You can use the blueshift://dismiss URL to define a custom dismiss action for an in-app message. A user click action to dismiss the message is tracked separately from other click actions.

The following default dismiss actions rendered by the SDK are also tracked as dismiss actions:

Clicking the default close button on modals, HTML, and Visual Editor Templates.
Swiping to dismiss slide-in banners.
Tapping outside to dismiss slide-in banners.
Clicking the back button to dismiss the message (for Android devices).
When URL = empty/NULL.

Note: If an action is not defined as a dismiss action, the user click for that action is tracked as a click in the Campaign Metrics.

Add mobile inbox message details

If you have selected the option to display the message in the mobile inbox, go to the Content > Inbox tab.

Add the title for the message, a short description, and an image. In the preview tab, you can see how the message will appear to a customer in their inbox. You can also include deep links in the short description. Although there is no character limit for the message title or short description, we recommend that the message size be such that the customer should not have to scroll to read the message.

Note: Customers will see the messages in their inbox until the message expires.

Trigger in-app push permission request workflow

To get explicit consent from users to receive push notifications from your app before you send push notifications to them, you can launch the Blueshift SDK’s push permission request workflow by using the blueshift://req-push-permission deep link in your in-app message.

Note: To use this deep link, your app must use Blueshift's iOS SDK version 2.2.6 and above or Blueshift's Android SDK version 3.3.0 and above.

In your in-app template, set the context for sending the push notifications.

For the “Allow” button, use the URL blueshift://req-push-permission to launch the Blueshift SDK’s push permission request workflow.
For the “Deny” button, use the URL blueshift://dismiss. This will help you to track the number of users who opted out of receiving push notifications.

When a user clicks on an in-app notification button to "Allow" push notifications, a push permission dialog is displayed and the user can grant the permission. If the user had already granted push permission, the dialog is not displayed.

If the user clicks on an in-app notification button to "Deny" push notifications permission or if push notifications are disabled, then a dialog is displayed with a message asking the user to go to the app settings to enable push notifications.