mailto: and URL in body

[timjowers]

Hi,

I'm attempting to send a mailto: and include a link in the body. Has
anyone done this?

Also, has anyone done mailto: with Lotus Notes 6.5? It will place the
body in the subject line if it is above a certain length of about 64
characters! Also, Lotus Notes does not un-escape/decode URL encoded
strings.

Example code:
<FORM method="post" action="mailto: ti********@toyo ta.com"
enctype="text/plain">

<br>Subject:<IN PUT TYPE="text" NAME="subject">

<br>Message:<IN PUT TYPE="text" size="128" NAME="body">
<!-- The following body text works.
<a href="http://localhost:7021/t3Portal">TA CASE</a>
-->
<!-- This body text gets appended to the subject with an empersand
delim.
<a
href="http://localhost:7021/t3Portal/appmanager/t3/int?_nfpb=true& tasCaseEditorPo rtlet_actionOve rride=%2Fportle ts%2Ftas%2Fcase Editor%2Fselect SymptomSubcompo nent&_windowLab el=tasCaseEdito rPortlet">TA
CASE</a>
-->
<!-- This body text totally fails. Lotus Notes does nothing! Make it
one char shorter and it works.
<a
href="012345678 911234567892123 456789312345678 941234567895123 456879612345687 91">TA
CASE</a>
-->

<br>CC:<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="cc">

<br>BCC:<INPU T TYPE="text" NAME="bcc">

<input type="submit" value="send email"></input>

</FORM>

Note that using POST rather than GET only changes the format of the
message but does not allow more characters or make the "escaped"'e d
string recognized.

Insight?

Thanks!
TimJowers

[Philip Ronan]

ti*******@gmail .com wrote:

Example code:
<FORM method="post" action="mailto: ti********@toyo ta.com"
enctype="text/plain">

Don't do that.

See <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.3>, for example:

[The 'action' attribute] specifies a form processing agent. User
agent behavior for a value other than an HTTP URI is undefined.

A mailto: URI does not count as an HTTP URI, so it's invalid.

Having said that, *some* browsers will *attempt* to email a form built in
this way, but you can't rely on this happening, and you don't get any
warnings when it fails.

Process your forms with a script running on your server. That's the only
reliable way of doing things.

--
phil [dot] ronan @ virgin [dot] net
http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/

[timjowers]

Slackers!

Oh well. Yes, an email is the proper solution for this need. mailto: is
the appropriate solution. The alternative is for us to implement a
feature-rich email app in the browser. We have tens of thousands of
users in this organization so attempting to re-write an email app as a
series of web pages is dumb as hell. You are saying for us to do that
and I guess we have no choice given the shoddy support in Lotus Notes.

Oh well, HTML is STILL not ready for the enterprise. W3C folks need to
work in the real world for a bit before making their
spec.s!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The real world is not only
browser-server.

Anyone have an html email app that integrates with LDAP and performs as
well as a PC app. (I've already posted this previously to *javascript
and *java and the only reply was to use a a fat email client and please
not post to more thatn one goup!!!!!!!!!)

TimJowers

[timjowers]

mailto: works for most email clients.

- Konqueror 3.3 to KMail works for POST but ignores "subject" and
"body" tags for GET and just munges the string together with the tags
in the body. Konqueror does prompt about sending email (unlike Firefox)
and does allow me to turn off prompting in the future (unlike IE!)
- On SUSE Linux, Firefox to Evolution works best of all tests for GET
but does not pass data for POST.
- On XP, Firefox and IE to YahooMail: works fine.
- to Outlook Express 6: works fine with FireFox. With IE works fine for
GET but for POST passes to and subject but does not pass form fields.
- to Lotus Notes: sends to address and subject but fails with issues
stated above. Noteably, a URL can be sent but the message has to be
very short for Lotus Notes. Unacceptable.

I still haven't figured out how to have a link name rather than showing
the link itself. <a href="thelinkit self.com">The Link Name Itself
Inc.</a> just shows as text. Maybe I have to attach a whole HTML form.
Any ideas anyone?

So, lack of support for mailto: seems to be a product deficiency in
Lotus Notes rather than a deficiency in de facto standards. I cannot
resist noting that Microsoft is kicking IBM's butt here and Yahoo is
kicking Microsoft's butt. Open Source is on par with Microsoft and not
as complete as Yahoo!. An embarassment for Microsoft and a huge
embarassment for IBM. In fact, the de facto standard is quite simple.

TimJowers

[timjowers]

Other notes:

Lotus Notes will append the body text plus with the "&body=" to the
subject line if the body text is greater than say 80 characters but
less than say 100. Above say 100 total failure.

Lotus Notes also fails on putting a URL in the body if the URL has
arguments. Any arguments after the ? (or even &) and including the ?
(or &) are dropped. Even if the URL is escaped first before mailto:
GET.

One can email a link or a page with IE but not both AFAICT!!! Customer
wants both. Also, I do not see how we can command the browser to send a
page by email from our web page. Any pointers or tricks?

[timjowers]

ti*******@gmail .com wrote:

Other notes:

Lotus Notes will append the body text plus with the "&body=" to the
subject line if the body text is greater than say 80 characters but
less than say 100. Above say 100 total failure.

Lotus Notes also fails on putting a URL in the body if the URL has
arguments. Any arguments after the ? (or even &) and including the ?
(or &) are dropped. Even if the URL is escaped first before mailto:
GET.

One can email a link or a page with IE but not both AFAICT!!! Customer wants both. Also, I do not see how we can command the browser to send a page by email from our web page. Any pointers or tricks?

Lotus notes 1.5.4 raises the limit on the number of characters to about
220. We'll probably just send to the owner as we have their email
address and then let them forward. Sad to see IBM cannot even keep up
with the Open Source products on this issue! And Lotus Notes has
probably been arund twice as long. Want to see it done right then look
at how Yahoo Mail integrates with the browser.

TimJowers