ARTICLE

Sending E-mails with ASP.NET 2.0 using Visual Basic

Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy in Articles | ASP.NET using VB.NET on May 21, 2007

In this article, Anand examines how to send e-mails using ASP.NET 2.0 in both text and HTML formats using Visual Basic with the help of an example.

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Source_Code.zip

Reader Level: Beginner

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

<tr>

<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>

<asp:TextBox runat="server" Height="25px" Width="370px" ID="txtAddress"></asp:TextBox> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<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>

</tr>

<tr>

<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>

<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID = "reqComments" ControlToValidate = "txtComments" Runat = "server" ErrorMessage = "*"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<asp:Button Runat = server ID = btnSubmit OnClick = btnSubmit_Click Text = "Submit"></asp:Button>

</tr>

</table>

</div>

<p><br>

</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.