Testing Email from Local Apps with a Pickup Directory

I just learned about this neat trick that’s helpful for developing email features locally.

In your web.config file you can tell your application to save emails to a folder instead of sending through an smtp server.  This way you can have your application code work as normal and check all the emails it sends by just looking in a folder.  The folder has to exist first.  For instance, I created a local folder called c:\TempEmail\ and then changed my local web.config to this:

<!–
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp from=”email@address.com”>
<network host=”smtp.address.com” password=”” userName=”” defaultCredentials=”true” />
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>
–>

<!– use a pickup directory for debugging –>

<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp from=”email@address.com” deliveryMethod=”SpecifiedPickupDirectory”>
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation=”C:\TempEmail”/>
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>

All email sent through your application will end up as a file in the c:\TempEmail\ folder instead of actually being sent out. And I didn’t have to change my code at all!

MailDefinition md = new MailDefinition();
…..
MailMessage msg = md.CreateMailMessage(user.Email, replacements, bodyHtml, newSystem.Web.UI.Control());

//send it!
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Send(msg);

You can open the eml file in Outlook and it’ll look just like it’ll look in the real world – except that you didn’t bother your user with a test email.  Sweet!

Custom Header Elements in Master Page

Sometimes the need arises to have the ability to change the meta tags within a child of a master page. I created a couple public properties that you can put in your code behind for your .net 2.0 master page to change the keywords and description meta tags on the fly. The methods below will set the tags and replace them if they already exist. Code is in C#.

Description Meta Tag

public string Description
{
set
{
if (Page.Header.FindControl(“dsc”) == null)
{
HtmlMeta hmDesc = new HtmlMeta();
hmDesc.Name = “description”;
hmDesc.ID = “dsc”;
hmDesc.Content = value;
Page.Header.Controls.Add(hmDesc);
}
else
{
((HtmlMeta)Page.Header.FindControl(“dsc”)).Content = value;
}
}

get
{
HtmlMeta hmDesc = (HtmlMeta)Page.Header.FindControl(“dsc”);
return (hmDesc != null) ? hmDesc.Content : String.Empty;
}
}

Keywords Meta Tag

public string Keywords
{
set
{
if (Page.Header.FindControl(“kw”) == null)
{
HtmlMeta hm = new HtmlMeta();
hm.Name = “keywords”;
hm.ID = “kw”;
hm.Content = value;
Page.Header.Controls.Add(hm);
}
else
{
((HtmlMeta)Page.Header.FindControl(“kw”)).Content = value;
}

}
get
{
HtmlMeta hm = (HtmlMeta)Page.Header.FindControl(“kw”);
return (hm != null) ? hm.Content : String.Empty;
}
}

Here are other ways that you can insert headers from the page level as well. The “ResolveUrl” methods below will get the relative path from the .net web application to whatever you pass it so a tilde will be translated into the root of your application. This function is really handy too.

Insert JavaScript Link

HtmlGenericControl js = new HtmlGenericControl();
js.TagName = “script”;
js.Attributes.Add(“language”, “javascript”);
js.Attributes.Add(“type”, “text/javascript”);
js.Attributes.Add(“src”, ResolveUrl(“~/js/global.js”));
/* ResolveUrl will get the relative path from the .net web application */
this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(js);

Cascading Style Sheet Link

HtmlLink ss = new HtmlLink();
ss.Attributes.Add(“type”, “text/css”);
ss.Attributes.Add(“rel”, “stylesheet”);
ss.Attributes.Add(“href”, ResolveUrl(“~/css/scr.css”));
this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(ss);

Robots/Other Meta Tags

HtmlMeta hm = new HtmlMeta();
hm.Name = “robots”;
hm.Content = “index,follow”;
this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(hm);

//and re-use the HtmlMeta object again
hm = new HtmlMeta();
hm.Name = “date”;
hm.Content = DateTime.Now.ToString(“yyyy-MM-dd”);
hm.Scheme = “YYYY-MM-DD”;
this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(hm);

As you can see, the new meta functionality of .net 2.0 is a lot better than 1.1. Hopefully this will be of use in some of your web applications.