Nowadays, web masters prefer to receive information from their users or customers through a contact or feedback form placed on the website. ASP.NET 2.0 provides a simplified approach to achieve the task as compared to ASP.NET 1.1. In this part of the series, we will examine how to send e-mails in plain text and HTML formats using Visual Basic 2005.
Let us start our discussion by creating a simple user interface as shown below
Figure 1
The code to create the above WebForm is given below
<form id="Form1" runat="server">
<div align="left">
<table border="0" width="544">
<tr>
<td valign="top"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Name</font></td>
<td height="24" valign="top"> <asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="25px" Width="370px" ID="txtName"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID = "reqName" ControlToValidate = "txtName" Runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "*"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><font size="2" face="Verdana">Address</font></td>
<td height="24" valign="top">
<asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="25px" Width="370px" ID="txtAddress"></asp:TextBox> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><font face="Verdana" size="2">From</font></td>
<td height="24" valign="top"> <asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="22px" Width="368px" ID="txtFrom"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID = "reqFrom1" ControlToValidate = "txtFrom" runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "*" ></asp:RequiredFieldValidator>
<asp:RegularExpressionValidator ID = "regFrom2" ControlToValidate = "txtFrom" runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "Invalid Email" ValidationExpression="\w+([-+.]\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*"></asp:RegularExpressionValidator>
<br></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><font face="Verdana" size="2">To</font></td>
<td height="24" valign="top">
<asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="22px" Width="368px" ID="txtTo"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID = "reqTo1" ControlToValidate = "txtTo" runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "*" ></asp:RequiredFieldValidator>
<asp:RegularExpressionValidator ID = "reqTo2" ControlToValidate = "txtTo" runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "Invalid Email" ValidationExpression="\w+([-+.]\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*"></asp:RegularExpressionValidator>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Comments</font></td>
<td height="112" valign="top"><asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="110px" TextMode="MultiLine" Width="368px" ID="txtComments"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID = "reqComments" ControlToValidate = "txtComments" Runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "*"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" valign="top" height="30">
<p align="center">
<asp:Button Runat = server ID = btnSubmit OnClick = btnSubmit_Click Text = "Submit"></asp:Button>
<input id="Reset1" type = "reset" runat = "server" value = "Clear"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><br>
<!-- Insert content here -->
</p>
</form>
As you can see we have applied validation controls to prevent input errors. The next process is to provide the required code for sending an e-mail upon submission of the form. We will analyze each process in a series of steps for better understanding.
Step 1: Importing Namespace
<%@ Page Language="VB" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Net.Mail" %>
Step 2: Creating objects of SmtpClient and MailMessage classes
Dim smtpClient As New SmtpClient()
Dim objMail As New MailMessage()
Step 3: Creating and Specifying From, To Addresses
'From Address will be assigned from the e-mail specified in the From TextField
Dim objMail_fromaddress As New MailAddress(txtFrom.Text)
You can also give the code given below
Dim objMail_fromaddress As New MailAddress(txtFrom.Text, "Learnxpress Support")
The above code inserts the text Learnxpress Support instead of the From e-mail address.
'To Address will be assigned from the e-mail specified in the To TextField
Dim objMail_toaddress As New MailAddress(txtTo.Text)
'Assigning From and To addresses to the MailMessage class
objMail.From = objMail_fromaddress
'To address should be specified as an collection.
objMail.To.Add(objMail_toaddress)
Step 4: Creating the Subject and Message Body Text Format
objMail.Subject = "E-mail Example - Visual Basic - Text"
objMail.Body = "Name: " &txtName.Text &vbCrLf & _
"Address: " &txtAddress.Text &vbCrLf & _
"Comments: " &txtComments.Text
Step 5: Specifying the HTML Header
objMail.IsBodyHtml = True
Step 6: Creating the Subject and Message Body HTML Format
objMail.Subject = "E-mail Example - HTML Format - Visual Basic"
objMail.Body = "<html><head><title>Sending E-mails with ASP.NET 2.0 using Visual Basic</title></head><body>" & _
"<p>Name : " &txtName.Text + "</p>" & _
"<p>Address : " &txtAddress.Text + "</p>" & _
"<p>Comments : " &txtComments.Text + "</p>" & _
"</body></html>"
Step 7: Specifying Mail Priority
objMail.Priority = MailPriority.High
Step 8: Enabling SMTP Authentication
Sometimes, you will need to provide the code for SMTP authentication to send e-mails. The required code snippet is given below.
smtpClient.Host = "mail.domain.com"
smtpClient.Credentials = New System.Net.NetworkCredential("username@domain.com","Password")
Note: domain should be substituted with your real domain name such as c-sharpcorner, learnxpress.
Step 9: Handling Exceptions and Delivering E-mails
try
smtpClient.Send(objMail)
Response.Redirect("http://www.c-sharpcorner.com")
catch exc as Exception
Response.Write("Send failure: " + exc.ToString())
End Try
In the above code, we have specified that the page should be redirected to c-sharpcorner website after the successful submission of the form. You can also create a separate page called thankyou.aspx and redirect users to the page so that users will know that the mail has been successfully delivered. Once you understood the basics of System.Net.Mail namespace then it is very easy to write the code. Moreover, we now have a simplified coding mechanism as compared to ASP.NET 1.1.
You can download the complete source code of our sample application and customize it as per your requirements.