How to Send Email in WP7 using the EmailComposeTask?

In the last blog post, we learnt "How to Save Email Address in WP7 using the SaveEmailAddressTask?" where we shared code snippet of the internal implementation of the SaveEmailAddressTask along with the code implementation of a demo app.

Today in this blog post, we will learn how to compose an email using the Windows Phone 7 SDK class called "EmailComposeTask". I will also be sharing the decompiled version of the class, so that you can know the SDK implementation. Continue reading and at the end, don’t forget to leave your feedback.

Know About the API

Like all other launchers and choosers, "EmailComposeTask" is also a sealed class present inside the namespace Microsoft.Phone.Tasks. It exposes few properties to populate the email fields like "To", "Cc", "Bcc", "Subject", "Body", etc. The one and only one method named "Show()" opens up the Email Composer dialog in the screen.

Here is the meta data of the EmailComposeTask class:

namespace Microsoft.Phone.Tasks
{
    public sealed class EmailComposeTask
    {
        public string Body { get; set; }
        public string Bcc { get; set; }
        public string Cc { get; set; }
        public int? CodePage { get; set; }
        public string Subject { get; set; }
        public string To { get; set; }
        public void Show();
   }
}

Do you want to know how this class has been implemented inside the SDK library? Then here is your chance to study the code. I am sharing the decompiled version of the EmailComposeTask class here:

namespace Microsoft.Phone.Tasks
{
    public sealed class EmailComposeTask
    {
        private const int SHAREMETHOD_SEND = 1;
        private const string AppUri = "app://5B04B775-356B-4AA0-AAF8-6491FFEA5614/ShareContent";

        public string Body { get; set; }
        public string Bcc { get; set; }
        public string Cc { get; set; }
        public int? CodePage { get; set; }
        public string Subject { get; set; }
        public string To { get; set; }

        public void Show()
        {
        if (!ChooserHelper.NavigationInProgressGuard((Action) (() => this.Show())))
            return;
            ChooserHelper.Navigate(new Uri(this.BuildUri(), 
                  UriKind.Absolute), this.BuildParameterPropertyBag());
        }

        internal string BuildUri()
        {
            return "app://5B04B775-356B-4AA0-AAF8-6491FFEA5614/ShareContent";
        }

        internal ParameterPropertyBag BuildParameterPropertyBag()
        {
            ParameterPropertyBag parameterPropertyBag = new ParameterPropertyBag();
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.To))
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("To").StringValue = this.To;
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.Cc))
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("Cc").StringValue = this.Cc;
                string subject = this.Subject;
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(subject))
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("Subject").StringValue = subject;
                string body = this.Body;
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(body))
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("Body").StringValue = body;
                string bcc = this.Bcc;
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(bcc))
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("Bcc").StringValue = bcc;
                int? codePage = this.CodePage;
            if (codePage.HasValue)
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("CodePage").StringValue = codePage.Value.ToString();
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("ShareMethod").Int32Value = 1;
                parameterPropertyBag.CreateProperty("MsgClass").StringValue = "IPM.Note";
                return parameterPropertyBag;
        }
    }
}

Here, the internal method named BuildParameterPropertyBag() constructs all the properties to compose the email. Check out the AppUri that the class generates.

Implementation Steps

Now, it’s time to demonstrate the implementation to compose an email from the code. The exposed properties allow you to auto populate the values. Based on your requirement, set the required properties as shown below:

var emailComposeTask = new EmailComposeTask
{
    To = "no-reply-to@kunal-chowdhury.com",
    Cc = "no-reply-cc-1@kunal-chowdhury.com; no-reply-cc-2@kunal-chowdhury.com",
    Bcc = "no-reply-bcc@kunal-chowdhury.com",
    Subject = "Test Message using EmailComposeTask",
    Body = "This is a test email body created using the EmailComposeTask"
};
emailComposeTask.Show();

At the end, call the Show() method to open the composer task. If you have multiple email accounts setup in your phone device, this will ask you to chose the right account. Otherwise, it will directly go to the next screen where the UI will have an email client showing the email compose screen. User will be able to add/update any field from the screen.

Note: The WP7 emulator doesn't provide setting up email account and hence I am unable to provide screenshot here.

I hope that this post was very useful for you to understand the SDK API, it’s internal code implementation and the sample code implementation. Please leave your feedback below to leave your comment.

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