Sending email with CakeEmail

Question

In my CakePHP application I have an email form I have made myself that opens when an email hyperlink is clicked. How do I then pass the data from the form so that it can be sent using CakeEmail? Sorry, I've tried this for ages and checked through all the documentation on http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-utility-libraries/email.html, still can't figure it out.

Here is my code...

email.ctp

<?php $this->Html->addCrumb('New Email', '#'); ?>

<div id="email_page" class="span12">
    <div class="row">

    <?php 
        echo $this->Form->create('Email', array('controller'=>'person', 'action'=>'email_send'));
        echo $this->Form->input('email', array('class'=>'email_form','label'=>'To: ','value'=>$email['Person']['primEmail']));
        echo $this->Form->input('subject', array('class'=>'email_form','label'=>'Subject: '));
        echo $this->Form->input('message', array('class'=>'email_form email_body', 'type'=>'textarea','label'=>'Message: '));
        echo $this->Form->end('Send', array('class'=>'pull-right')); 
    ?>

    </div>
</div>

email_send.php

<?php
    $email = new CakeEmail('default');
    $email->to('email');
    $email->subject('subject');
    $email->send('message');
?>

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

Form data will be available in the Controller in $this->request->data (writable) or $this->data (readable). As your form is called Email all data will be available under $this->request->data['Email'] after the form is submitted.

I'm not sure why you would have the email code in email_send.php instead of using a Controller method. The form expects an email_send method present in the PersonsController, as the form action is set to /persons/email_send. So I would place the email code inside email_send() in PersonsController.php.

So:

<?php
    public function email_send() {
      $email = new CakeEmail('default');
      $email->to($this->request->data['Email']['email']);
      $email->subject($this->request->data['Email']['subject']);
      $email->send($this->request->data['Email']['message']);
    }
?>

Of course, when all this is working, you should set up proper validation and check if $this->request->data is populated with the relevant data.

Answer 2

A better optimised code would be in

public function email() 
{
  //add this
  if ($this->request->is('post')) {
  $post_array = $this->request->data;

  $email    = new CakeEmail();
  $email->viewVars(array('message' => $post_array['Email']['message'] ))
     ->template('contactForm')
     ->emailFormat('html')
     ->config(array('from' => '[e-mail]' ,'to' => $post_array['Email']['email']))
     ->subject ($post_array['Email']['subject'])
     ->send();

 }

}

This is in general you can define an email template with name of contact_form.ctp under

/app/View/Emails/html/

and pass the data to templete and format the html as per your requirement. thanks!