Chapter 9 Email Question

Pdesignz · July 15th, 2012, 03:13 AM

Hi Imar, I just completed chapter 9 on sending email in your Beginning Asp.Net 4.0 book focused on VB. I have set it up and was able to receive the message via gmail with no problems or issues. I had a couple of questions for you...

1. Is it possible to have the answers that are received in the email that are received to be lined up, not sure if we can insert a table or how to have the answers line up.

2. Currently we have the from email address hard coded into the ContactForm.ascx code behind, is it possible that rather to have the from address be hard coded, could we use the data that is input into the email field in the ContactForm. This way when you reply to the message you are replying to the sender of the email message and not to the static email address that is coded in the code behind file.

I also wanted to verify that the web.config file is not able to be downloaded or the source be viewed in the browser or are we going to be able to have this data encrypted before we deploy the web site files to a live server.

Thank You

Imar · July 16th, 2012, 04:52 AM

Hi there,

1) Yes, you can. You can use HTML in the mail template so you could create a table with the labels in one column and the values in another. Then set IsBodyHtml to true on the MailMessage object.In your mail template, only include HTML you would normally put within the body tags. E.g. you can omit elements like <head> and <body>.

2) Yes, you could set the From address based on a text field. E.g.

myMessage.From = new MailAddress(FromAddress.Text);

where FromAddress is a text box that holds an e-mail address. However, this may cause problems if the FromAddress is not correct. Instead you could the ReplyToList property instead as described here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...plytolist.aspx

3) You can't download web.config files as by default IIS / ASP.NET blocks you from doing so. Try this to see what I mean: http://imar.spaanjaars.com/web.config

Hope this helps,

Imar

Pdesignz · July 16th, 2012, 05:17 AM

Imar, thanks for the reply! Where would I put the reply address or code that you previously mentioned.
myMessage.From = new MailAddress(FromAddress.Text); would this go in the ContactForm.ascx.vb and would it replace the current code of
myMessage.From = New MailAddress("[email protected]", "Sender Name").

As you recommend not inserting the email from the form into the from address field as you said that the email address that is inputted, may not always be correct. Instead you recommend using the ReplyToList and I took a look at the page that you recommended, but I did not really understand. Could you explain in more detail or provide an example how I would use this with the existing contact form that is in your book. I did go ahead and test your web.config link I received a 404 page error, so I see what you mean. Also are the validation controls and validation summary enough these days to block spam from spamming your form or would you recommend using a captcha service like google's recaptcha or other alternative??

Thank you

Imar · July 16th, 2012, 05:22 AM

Yes, it would replace that line if you want to change the From address.

For the ReplyToList, leave the From address as it is now, and just add to the reply list like this:

myMessage.ReplyToList.Add(new MailAddress(FromAddress.Text));

Validation controls don't block spam; they just make sure the submitted content matches what you expect. A Captcha or similar technique might indeed be a good idea.

Hope this helps,

Imar

Pdesignz · July 16th, 2012, 05:34 AM

Imar,

for this would I use
myMessage.ReplyToList.Add(new MailAddress(FromAddress.Text));
or would I use
myMessage.ReplyToList.Add(new MailAddress(EmailAddress.Text));
as I do not see FromAddress.text in the codebehind file.

Thanks

Imar · July 16th, 2012, 09:51 AM

As hinted in my previous post, "FromAddress is a text box that holds an e-mail address". I just used that as an example. If your text box is called EmailAddres, you should indeed use that.

Cheers,

Imar

okason · July 23rd, 2012, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pdesignz

Hi Imar, I just completed chapter 9 on sending email in your Beginning Asp.Net 4.0 book focused on VB. I have set it up and was able to receive the message via gmail with no problems or issues. I had a couple of questions for you...

Hello Pdesign, you mentioned that you were able to recieve the email you sent via gmail, did you sent this through the VS Dev web server or are you using a live hosting account. I am using the built in Dev server and I am getting "The SMTP server requires a secure connection" error. I am sure I am using the correct gmail login creditials and I have specified port 587 and 465 and neither worked?

Thanks

okason · July 23rd, 2012, 11:43 PM

Never mind, I got it to work, for reason the enableSSL was set to false. Moving on.

Pdesignz · July 25th, 2012, 05:50 PM

Hi Imar, I missed part of your previous reply...

When I go to add go to add a table in the mail template, would I need to code this as it says that there are no useable controls for a txt file. Also shen you mention the MailMessage object is that in the ContactForm.ascx file or would that be in the ContactForm,ascx.vb file? I looked in the code behind and am not sure where I would add the IsBodyHtml to true...

thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imar

Hi there,

1) Yes, you can. You can use HTML in the mail template so you could create a table with the labels in one column and the values in another. Then set IsBodyHtml to true on the MailMessage object.In your mail template, only include HTML you would normally put within the body tags. E.g. you can omit elements like <head> and <body>.

2) Yes, you could set the From address based on a text field. E.g.

myMessage.From = new MailAddress(FromAddress.Text);

where FromAddress is a text box that holds an e-mail address. However, this may cause problems if the FromAddress is not correct. Instead you could the ReplyToList property instead as described here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...plytolist.aspx

3) You can't download web.config files as by default IIS / ASP.NET blocks you from doing so. Try this to see what I mean: http://imar.spaanjaars.com/web.config

Hope this helps,

Imar

July 26th, 2012, 12:58 AM

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