Application Tier HTML Email

[bthubbard]

Hello All,

I am hoping to hear other people's suggestions and advice regarding
this issue.
Generating and sending a basic HTML email with Microsoft.Net is easy.
I can throw some HTML together from strings, templates, excreta and
then fire it out to the world via System.Net.Mail .

If I want to generate a more advanced HTML email using the same the
same templates as my site I could write a component which uses screen
scrapping to grab the generated HTML , programmaticall y correct
relative URLs etc and send that via SmtpClient.Send ();

Now for the sake of argument I say I want to generate a fairly
advanced HTML email (say an account statement, receipt, etc.) but I
want to do it entirely at the application tier or my application
doesn't actually have a traditional site so I don't have the luxury of
using IIS.

What approaches or components have you used to author and generate a
HTML email with a lot of dynamic data in a .Net environment?

Thanks,

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

"bthubbard" <Br************ *@gmail.comwrot e in message
news:71******** *************** ***********@f3g 2000hsg.googleg roups.com...

What approaches or components have you used to author and generate a
HTML email with a lot of dynamic data in a .Net environment?

I try to avoid HTML email if at all possible, as more and more people are
disabling it for (perceived) security concerns.

If I needed to email an account statement or a receipt, I'd create a PDF and
send it as an attachment.

I use this for all my PDF requirements: http://www.siberix.com/
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae.net

[Dave Bush]

For both my HTML and Text based email sent from asp.net, I use a simple
tagging system

|FirstName| |LastName|

Your invoice is |Price|

Etc...

I've even managed to get looping to work using begin end tag type
markers
|LineItems||Des cription| |Price|
|/LineItems|

From there it's just a matter of string manipulation.
Dave Bush
http://blog.dmbcllc.com

-----Original Message-----
From: bthubbard [mailto:Br****** *******@gmail.c om]
Posted At: Friday, November 23, 2007 11:38 AM
Posted To: microsoft.publi c.dotnet.framew ork.aspnet
Conversation: Application Tier HTML Email
Subject: Application Tier HTML Email

Hello All,

I am hoping to hear other people's suggestions and advice regarding
this issue.
Generating and sending a basic HTML email with Microsoft.Net is easy.
I can throw some HTML together from strings, templates, excreta and
then fire it out to the world via System.Net.Mail .

If I want to generate a more advanced HTML email using the same the
same templates as my site I could write a component which uses screen
scrapping to grab the generated HTML , programmaticall y correct
relative URLs etc and send that via SmtpClient.Send ();

Now for the sake of argument I say I want to generate a fairly
advanced HTML email (say an account statement, receipt, etc.) but I
want to do it entirely at the application tier or my application
doesn't actually have a traditional site so I don't have the luxury of
using IIS.

What approaches or components have you used to author and generate a
HTML email with a lot of dynamic data in a .Net environment?

Thanks,