Sending thunderbird email with attachment using vi

Question

I'm trying to send email from a visual basic script using Visual basic WITHOUT any user action. The idea came for the first reference below.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=540783

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=203591

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-options

The script does work BUT I have been unable to figure out how to include attachments. I know little about VB but in the first reference the mixture of " and chr(34) (" I assume) seems very weird. Also the discrepancy between "mailto" and "to" between the first and third reference is troubling.

Here's what I have tried.

dim s
Set s = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
s.run """thunderbird.exe""" & " -compose mailto:[e-mail]? &subject=""send mail 3""&body=""nice body text""&attachment='file:///c:/Documents and Settings/Mike/My Documents/sendmail/vb/msg.txt'" 
WScript.Sleep 1000
s.SendKeys "^{ENTER}"
WScript.Sleep 1000 

This composes and sends an email without user action BUT without the attachment. I have tried both single and double quotes around the file name.

If I change the file name to a non-existent file, an email is send without attachment BUT user action is required to actually send the message.

Answer 1

edited my answer since I've been learning a thing or two these last couple of weeks ;)

you need an apostrophe around to: and cc: lists with more than one recipient you also need an apostrophe around any main body text or attachments you're going to send

if you put an apostrophe into your VBA editor, it just comments it out, so you can get away with that by using Chr(39)

also, as the documentation suggests, you need attachment='file:///c:/test.txt' which includes the file:///

I've included an example from something I've been working on below

Dim reportTB As Object
Set reportTB = VBA.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Dim waitOnReturn As Boolean: waitOnReturn = True
Dim windowStyle As Integer: windowStyle = 1


reportTB.Run "thunderbird.exe  -compose to=bfx_" & LCase(show) & "[e-mail],subject=[" & show & "] EOD Report " _
     & prjDate & ",body=" & Chr(39) & "Hi " & UCase(show) & "ers,<br><br>Today's end of day report is attached.<br>" & _
      "Any questions let me know.<br><br>Edi " & Chr(39) & ",attachment=" & Chr(39) & reportPath & Chr(39), windowStyle, waitOnReturn

Hope that helps :)

Answer 2

Write proper programs. You can't send attachments with mailto. The standard only allows one parameter (although everyone accepts many).

Set emailObj      = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
emailObj.From     = "[e-mail]"

emailObj.To       = "[e-mail]"

emailObj.Subject  = "Test CDO"
emailObj.TextBody = "Test CDO"

emailObj.AddAttachment "C:/Users/User/Desktop/err.fff"

Set emailConfig = emailObj.Configuration

emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "smtp.gmail.com"
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 465
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing")    = 2  
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1  
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl")      = true 
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername")    = "dc"
emailConfig.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword")    = "Password1"
emailConfig.Fields.Update

emailObj.Send

If err.number = 0 then 
    Msgbox "Done"
Else
    Msgbox err.number & " " & err.description
    err.clear
End If