How do I send e-mail without an e-mail program?

[ChrisSergent]

Not all users have e-mail configured on their machines. I would like to be able to send e-mail without an e-mail program in the FlexViewer. One our site at: Decatur Digital Atlas  after you click on the pop-up of okay, you can click on Help in the upper right hand corner. This displays a pop-up where you can click on a link to contact the GIS Administrator. When you click on that link, it creates a new e-mail from your default e-mail program. How can I make this form driven using smtp send mail so that there is no need for an e-mail program and the e-mail is sent behind the scenes? I know how to do this in .NET, but not in Flex.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP · Accepted solution]

Chris,

   As Flex is a clientside program it does not have serverside capabilities like SMTP. If you are familiar with .net development than I would say your best route is to develop a .net form app that the flex app will open and have the user fill in the form and then the .net app can do the emailing for you can just check the database that the .net form app writes to every so often.

[ChrisSmith7]

I wonder, you might also be able to call JavaScript from Flex - Adobe Flex 4.6 * Accessing JavaScript functions  - and then use Ajax to send the e-mail - How to send an email from JavaScript - Stack Overflow  - using something called Mandrill (seems like there are potential security/abuse issues here).

[ChrisSmith7]

Chris,

I came across a blog where a developer created a library to do this:

Coltware – AIR/Flex/ActionScript 3: airxmail

I don't have any experience with this, but it seems others have mentioned airxmail since mailto doesn't support attachments in Flex. No one reported back with findings, though!

mailto: with Attachement from Flex | Adobe Community

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

I created an .net asmx called FlexMail but I never really put it into use as I was worried about malicious use.

[ChrisSergent]

I plan on using a .NET form. I have created these before. To avoid bots, I will probably use captchas.