Recently I had a request about sending an iCalendar (Meeting Request) object, as the email body itself, rather than as an attachment.(Thanks Paras!)
Background
iCalendars are special attachments that can be used to represent Meeting Requests or Appointments. By default, most mail systems like to have the iCalendar object as an alternative body. In fact, that is how I wrote aspNetEmail to work. When you can create and add an iCalendar to the EmailMessage object, under the covers, aspNetEmail actually adds it to the internal body parts collection.
Below are 3 code examples. One example demonstrates creating a standard iCalendar enabled email. The 2nd example demonstrates creating email that has the iCalendar as the body. The 3rd example offers a combination of the 2.
All 3 of these examples use the following helper method called CreateiCal(…)
Create iCal creates a very simple iCalendar object, that has a meeting set tomorrow at 10am.
public iCalendar CreateiCal()
{
iCalendar iCal = new iCalendar();
iCal.ContentTransferEncoding = MailEncoding.Bit7;
//create an start and end date, tomorrow at 10am, for 1 hr.
DateTime tomorrow = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1);
DateTime start = new DateTime( tomorrow.Year, tomorrow.Month, tomorrow.Day, 10,0,0);
DateTime end = start.AddHours( 1 );
//set some basic properties
iCal.Event.Summary.Text = "this is a test ical";
iCal.Event.Location.Text = "100 main conf room";
iCal.Event.DateStart.Date = start;
iCal.Event.DateEnd.Date = end;
iCal.TimeZone.Format = TimeZoneFormat.ConvertToUTC;
return iCal;
}
Example 1
This example demonstrates how to create a standard iCalendar enabled email. This code example will create the iCalender object, and add it to the EmailMessage object. Internally, aspNetEmail actually adds the iCalender to the internal body parts collection. The resulting email will actually have 3 body parts:
a)A Plain Text body part
b)A Html Body Part
c)An iCalendar Body Part
Here is a code example that demonstrates this behavior, along with a screenshot of the resulting email.
public void NormaliCalendar()
{
//create a normal EmailMessage object
//set some basic properties
EmailMessage msg = new EmailMessage( "127.0.0.1" );
msg.From = "me@example.com";
msg.To = "you@example.com";
msg.Subject = "ical test";
//create the iCalendar object
iCalendar iCal = CreateiCal();
//add the iCalendar to the EmailMessage object
msg.AddCalendar( iCal );
//send it
//msg.Send();
}
Notice that in that screenshot, we can have a nicely formatted, easily readable body. By default, aspNetEmail will create this from the properties of the iCalendar. However, the developer can over ride this behavior, and create their own friendly body.
Example 2
Some mail systems don't like to have a 3rd body part. This is typically a smaller subset, has a specialized situation. Instead, these mail systems like to have the entire body of the email actually be the iCalendar. The limitation of this is that some mail systems don't know how to interpret the email message. This may or may not affect your situation. If you need to have the iCalendar object be the email body, the following code example demonstrates this behavior. Also, found below, is a screenshot of an email that doesn't know how to render this type of format.
public void iCalAsBody()
{
//create a normal EmailMessage object
//set some basic properties
EmailMessage msg = new EmailMessage( "127.0.0.1" );
msg.From = "me@example.com";
msg.To = "you@example.com";
msg.Subject = "ical test";
//create the iCalendar object
iCalendar iCal = CreateiCal();
//set the body of the EmailMessage object itself.
msg.ContentType = "text/Calendar;\r\n\tMethod=\"REQUEST\";";
msg.Body = iCal.ToString( iCalendarType.iCal );
//send it
//msg.Send();
}
Notice that in this screenshot, the email is not easily reable. Also, this iCalendar appears to be missing. This is because the email client (Outlook Express in this example) doesn't know how to render an email, where the body is an iCalender.
Example 3
The 3rd example attempts to offer a combination of both Example 1 and Example 2. By adding a "name" parameter to the Content-Type value, we can get some mail clients to alternatively render the body of the email as an attachment. There really isn't an attachment, but the mail client thinks there is. This allows some mail clients to at least add the iCalendar to their calendaring system.
Below is a code example that demonstrates this, along with a screenshot of the resulting email.
public void iCalAsBodyAndAttachment()
{
//create a normal EmailMessage object
//set some basic properties
EmailMessage msg = new EmailMessage( "127.0.0.1" );
msg.From = "me@example.com";
msg.To = "you@example.com";
msg.Subject = "ical test";
//create the iCalendar object
iCalendar iCal = CreateiCal();
//set the body of the EmailMessage object itself.
//however, the additional Name parameter tricks the
//mail client into thinking there is an attachment
msg.ContentType = "text/Calendar;\r\n\tMethod=\"REQUEST\";\r\n\tName=\"meeting.ics\"";
msg.Body = iCal.ToString( iCalendarType.iCal );
//send it
//msg.Send();
}
Although this email isn't as pretty, by adding the "Name" parameter, it allows the mail client to present the user with an iCal that can be used.
As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me.
Thanks!
Dave Wanta