ASP.NET 2.0 Cookbook, 2nd Edition

21.7. Sending Mail

Problem

You want the user of your application to be able to send email.

Solution

Create a form to allow the user to enter the email information. When the user submits the form to the server, build a MailMessage object from the email information and then send the email using the SmtpClient class.

In the .aspx file:

1. Create a form to capture the sender’s email address, the recipient’s email address, the subject, and the message.

2. Add a Send button that initiates the sending of the email.

In the code-behind class for the page, use the .NET language of your choice to:

1. Create a MailMessage object, which is used as a container for the mail message, setting the sender email address, recipient email address, subject, and body using the constructor parameters.

2. Create a SmtpClient object setting the email server using the constructor parameter.

3. Call the Send method to perform the send operation.

Examples 21-18, 21-19 through 21-20 show the .aspx file and the VB and C# code-behind files for an application we’ve written to demonstrate this solution. The output of the application is shown in Figure 21-6.

Discussion

Sending email is a common requirement in web applications. In classic ASP, third-party controls are required to send email. In ASP.NET, all of the functionality required to send email is provided and is very easy to use.

Figure 21-6. Send email form output

To send email, ...