e-mail / thunderbird

[Larry Ternowski]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Jeff, I have been doing the create pdf and email it out process as you suggested in your last post.

I did find that Alpha will do some of the report mailing directly with Thunderbird but not all and not always.

Larry

[ChrisHawkes]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Jeff

Would this function be of any use - No extensive error checking or testing, but should work with Thunderbird 2. Thunderbird 3 can use absolute filenames, so the filename change can probably be taken out.

 
'Date Created: 23-Apr-2009 12:42:24 AM
'Last Updated: 23-Apr-2009 01:18:23 AM
'Created By  : Chris Hawkes
'Updated By  : Chris Hawkes
FUNCTION TBird2_Email AS L (th_eml_to="" AS C, th_eml_cc="" AS C, th_eml_subject="" AS C, th_eml_message="" AS C,th_eml_file="" AS C )
 'TBird2_Email(Send To Address, CC Address, Subject, Message, Filename)
 DIM th_attach AS C
 DIM th_commandline AS C
 DIM th_program AS C
 th_program="c:\program files\mozilla thunderbird\thunderbird" 'Thunderbord Program Location - No Need For .exe
 IF alltrim(th_eml_file)<>"" 'Check To See IF Filename Is Blank
  IF file.exists(th_eml_file) 'Check To See IF The File Exists
   
   'Attachment Filename Must Be In This Format - [URL]file:///fullpath/filename[/URL] So Convert Filename Here
   th_attach="[URL="file:///%22+stritran(th_eml_file,%22//%22,%22/"]file:///"+stritran(th_eml_file,"\\","/[/URL]")
   'Load Thunderbird Compose With Attachment Command
   'If Thunderbird Is Located In A Different Folder Then The Following Line Needs To Reflect This
   th_commandline=th_program+" -compose to="+th_eml_to+chr(44)+"cc="+th_eml_cc+chr(44)+"subject="+th_eml_subject+chr(44)+"body="+th_eml_message+chr(44)+"attachment="+th_attach
  ELSE
   ui_msg_box("Error","The File Specified Does Not Exist",UI_OK)
  END IF
 ELSE
  'Load Thunderbird Compose Without Attachment Command
  'If Thunderbird Is Located In A Different Folder Then The Following Line Needs To Reflect This
  th_commandline=th_program+" -compose to="+th_eml_to+chr(44)+"cc="+th_eml_cc+chr(44)+"subject="+th_eml_subject+chr(44)+"body="+th_eml_message
 END IF
 sys_shell(th_commandline)
 
END FUNCTION

I've attached the function as an import text file.

Chris

[jeffemery]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Thank you, Chris. I'll try your function and let you know how I make out.

Jeff

[jeffemery]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Chris -

I tried your function and it worked perfectly for us. Thank you very much.

Jeff

[ChrisHawkes]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Jeff

Thanks for letting us know. I can confirm that Thunderbird 3 beta 2 can accept the conventional filename for attachments. When TB3 Beta 3 is ready, I'll check Alpha's 'email_client_external'

Chris

[brainwater]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

After reading thru this thread and trying some of the work around's including the one from Chris, I informed my client who only uses Thunderbird that they would have to manually attach their reports since this seems to be a Thunderbird problem.
That worked until I met with them again and they asked why we couldn't automatically add the attachment when the email is created (using email_client_external()) when if they use the "File Send As" drop down in the report toolbar it does successfully attach the file, unfortunately there is no way to create the rest of the email using this method.

Since I had no answer for that, I'll ask here, Why can it be attached one way and not the other ? I agree that it is basically a Thundirbird problem, but obviously Alpha has figured out how to do it one way but not using email_client_external() I also looked at it some more and found that sometimes file.send() sometimes can attach, but not always

Like my client, I would think that if it can be done sometimes, it should work from other methods

I have enough trouble solving problems I create for my self without having to answer questions like this from upset clients

[CALocklin]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

Did you see this thread - particularly messages 17 (which refers to another "Chris" thread) and 18 which shows (a) how I determined if Thunderbird was being used and (b) my function for sending e-mail through Thunderbird WITH 'automated' attachments.

Unfortunately, I never found a way to make any of the built-in A5 functions work with Thunderbird so, building on what Chris had already done, I built my own function with a few improvements. (I don't remember what they were but one was the use of URLEncode so special characters wouldn't cause problems. I think the ability to have multiple 'automatic' attachments was also one of the improvements.)

If you have some users with Thunderbird and others using something else, you will need an IF statement to determine what they are using before deciding whether to use an A5 function or the T'Bird function.

[Raymond Lyons]

Re: e-mail / thunderbird

... I built my own function with a few improvements....

Great, but it just goes to show that if Alpha gave a damn about this problem it could have been fixed years ago when it was first reported as a serious problem. As commonly used as Thunderbird is, there is simply no excuse for Alpha not to have a built-in solution to the problem in all its email functions.

Raymond Lyons