In this post I would like to share the idea of overriding default email templates in a programmatic way and on per design basis. So, you can copy email templates from app/locale/en_US/template/email to app/design/frontend/<yourInterface>/default/locale/en_US/template/email and modify them as you like.
NOTE: I’ll use naming from some real project, i.e. you most likely will need to change TJU_ prefix and tjuInterface to the name of your design package. This has been tested with magento 1.3.1 and might not work(or to be different) for others versions.
Step 1. Override Translate model
Translate model “responsible” for the path to email templates, see getTemplateFile method in app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Translate.php. We will be creating 3 files to extend it’s default functionality:
app/code/local/TJU/Core/Model/Translate.php;app/code/local/TJU/Core/etc/config.xml;app/etc/modules/TJU_All.xml.
1.1 Create Translate model class in app/code/local/TJU/Core/Model/Translate.php.
1.2 Configure magento to use your class instead of default one. Create app/code/local/TJU/Core/etc/config.xml.
1.3 Enable our module. Create app/etc/modules/TJU_All.xml.
1.4 Clear cache, just rm -rf var/* for now ;)
Step 2. Modify email templates
Now copy email templates from app/locale/en_US/template/email to app/design/frontend/tjuInterface/default/locale/en_US/template/email and modify them as you like.
I also found nice script which helps to override all dummy data at once, take a look, pls. For some reason it did not work out of box for me, with magento 1.3.1, so I made some adjustments, see below.
Create email.sh file and make it executable.
Thanks.