New Version 2.3 - 14 October 2009
The new version of the assembly as been updated to use the .Net Framework 2.0 and also contains a number of bug fixes.
Now works with SMTP servers that require authentication and supports relative attachments.
The complete C# source code is included under a BSD license.
What Is It?
It's a simple framework written in C# that allow email messages to be composed in a XML file that can then be merged with data at runtime and sent to a recipient.
Put another way, it allows you to create a web application that sends emails without having to hard code the email message in your assembly.
5 Reasons to Use It
- Email messages are created outside your program/assembly in standard XML files.
- Merge data into your email at runtime
- Send the same email to multiple recipients
- Able to send emails as plain or HTML format
- Easy integration with your application
Sample
Here is a really simple example of an email template.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<template:emailTemplate application="example application" version="2.0"
xmlns:user="http://www.bitethebullet.co.uk/EmailProcessor/UserData"
xmlns:template="http://bitethebullet.co.uk/EmailProcessor/Template">
<template:name>User Registered</template:name>
<template:description>Email template used as an example,
sends a welcome email to new registered
users along with there details</template:description>
<template:mailFormat>PlainText</template:mailFormat>
<template:message>
<template:to></template:to>
<template:from>admin@dummysite.com</template:from>
<template:subject>Welcome to dummySite</template:subject>
<template:body><user:userData name="user_name" mandatory="true" />
Thank you for registering with www.dummysite.com, our account
details are shown below
<user:userDataDictionary mandatory="true" name="userAccountDetails">
<user:itemStart></user:itemStart>
<user:itemEnd></user:itemEnd>
<user:itemSeparator>:- </user:itemSeparator>
<user:rowSeparator>/r/n</user:rowSeparator>
</user:userDataDictionary>
Regards
Site Administrator
</template:body>
<template:attachments>
</template:attachments>
</template:message>
</template:emailTemplate>
The template is created in XML and contains markup elements which are replaced with data prior to sending the email.
Sample C# code used to populate the template and send the email is shown below.
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using EmailTemplateProcessor;
namespace Email_Template_Example
{
/// <summary>
/// Example used to send a sample email using email
///template framework
/// </summary>
class Example
{
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//normally the data would come from a database,
//here we will load the
//data into the hashtable ourselves
Hashtable data = new Hashtable();
data.Add("user_name", "John Smith");
//create some sample user account data in a
//hashtable
OrderedDictionary userAccount = new OrderedDictionary();
userAccount.Add("Username", "smithj");
userAccount.Add("Password", "secret");
userAccount.Add("Street", "1 New Town");
userAccount.Add("City", "London");
userAccount.Add("Postcode", "L1 3RG");
//add the userdetails hashtable to data
data.Add("userAccountDetails", userAccount);
//merge the template with the data
EmailTemplate mailTemplate = new EmailTemplate(
System.Environment.CurrentDirectory,
@"\mailTemplate\simpleListTemplate.xml");
mailTemplate.LoadData(data);
//since we are sending this email to one address we
//can use the new property
mailTemplate.ToSingleAddress = ""; //add your address
//here to get this to work
//other wise we could call this method with
//a string array
//holding all the receipt email address
//mailTemplate.To = new string[] {"some@emailaddresshere.info",
// "...", "..."};
//this would come the database in real world
EmailProcessor processor = new EmailProcessor("localhost");
processor.SendEmail(mailTemplate);
}
}
}
The resulting email received by the user.
Download
Download the zip file containing the assembly, source code and documentation here.