Kinky

Inky email templating language for Kirby CMS.

Converts simple HTML tags into the complex table required for emails. Oh là là!

Table of Contents

• TL;DR
• How it Works
• Requirements
• Installation
• Usage
  • transformTemplate
  • email
• Cookbook

TL;DR

Building HTML emails is painful.

You're stuck using archaic table-based layouts, and you constantly have to fight against inconsistent rendering across outdated email clients (like Outlook). Modern web standards? Mostly ignored.

To make life easier, this plugin was created so you can write cleaner code and still get reliable results across all major email clients.

How it Works

This plugin streamlines HTML email development by integrating a transpiler and inliner workflow built around Inky.

It uses a transpiler that converts Inky's custom components into table-based HTML, ensuring compatibility with legacy email clients.

After that, it passes the output through a CSS inliner that merges both Inky's default styles and any custom CSS into inline styles.

The result is clean, reliable HTML emails that render consistently across major clients like Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail — without giving up modern development convenience.

Example

Simple usage of Inky base components (it is recommended to include the body class to enable responsive columns):

<!-- templates/emails/email.html.php -->

<wrapper class="body">
    <container>
        <row>
            <columns>Kinky</columns>
            <columns>Oh là là</columns>
        </row>
    </container>
</wrapper>

Transformed HTML (clean example without the whole document and CSS inlining):

<table class="body wrapper" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="wrapper-inner">
            <table align="center" class="container">
                <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td>
                        <table class="row">
                            <tbody>
                            <tr>
                                <th class="small-12 large-6 first columns">
                                    <table>
                                        <tr>
                                            <th>Kinky</th>
                                        </tr>
                                    </table>
                                </th>
                                <th class="small-12 large-6 last columns">
                                    <table>
                                        <tr>
                                            <th>Oh là là</th>
                                        </tr>
                                    </table>
                                </th>
                            </tr>
                            </tbody>
                        </table>
                    </td>
                </tr>
                </tbody>
            </table>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or higher;
• PHP dom extension;
• Kirby CMS 4.0 or higher.

Installation

Install the plugin via Composer:

composer require programmatordev/kinky

Usage

A global kinky() function is available to create and send emails.

transformTemplate

kinky()->transformTemplate(string $template, array $data = []): string

Returns the final transformed HTML from the given $template. Take into account that email templates must be located in the /site/templates/emails/ directory.

Note

Check the documentation regarding how emails work in Kirby.

You can pass data into the template using the $data parameter.

This method can be useful to help creating and previewing email templates:

// templates/default.php

// template will be located at /site/templates/emails/notification.html.php
<?= kinky()->transformTemplate('notification', [
    'name' => 'Kinky',
    'text' => 'Oh là là'
]); ?>

email

use Kirby\Email\Email;

kinky()->email(mixed $preset = [], array $props = []): Email

This method is basically a wrapper around the existing kirby()->email() method, so it works the same way. The only difference is that it transpiles and inlines the Inky components and CSS for you.

// note that the "template" property is required
kinky()->email([
    'template' => 'notification', // required
    'from' => '[email protected]',
    'to' => '[email protected]',
    'subject' => 'Kinky Plugin',
    'data' => [
        'name' => 'Kinky',
        'text' => 'Oh là là'
    ]
]);

It is basically the sames as doing the following:

kirby()->email([
    'from' => '[email protected]',
    'to' => '[email protected]',
    'subject' => 'Kinky Plugin',
    'body' => [
        'html' => kinky()->transformTemplate('notification', [
            'name' => 'Kinky',
            'text' => 'Oh là là'
        ])
    ]
]);

Note

Check the documentation regarding how emails work in Kirby.

Cookbook

Custom CSS

To use your own custom CSS, you can just include a <style> element in the template and all selectors will be inlined for you.

Template:

<style>
    p {
        background-color: #000000;
        color: #ffffff;
        font-size: 32px;
    }
    
    .small {
        font-size: 16px;
    }
</style>

<wrapper class="body">
    <p class="text">Kinky <span class="small">Oh là là!</span></p>
</wrapper>

Result:

<table class="body wrapper" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="wrapper-inner">
            <p style="background-color: #000000; color: #ffffff; font-size: 32px;">
                Kinky <span class="small" style="font-size: 16px;">Oh là là</span>
            </p>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the authors of these libraries that make this plugin possible:

• https://github.com/lorenzo/pinky
• https://github.com/tijsverkoyen/CssToInlineStyles

Contributing

Any form of contribution to improve this library (including requests) will be welcome and appreciated. Make sure to open a pull request or issue.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license. Please see the LICENSE file distributed with this source code for further information regarding copyright and licensing.