Problem in displaying plain text alternateview to non-html clients

Question

Hi I am sending an email with an embedded JPEG image from a C# windows application. I have made two views one html view and one plain view for different html/non-html clients. I tested it with my own email and configured my outlook to receive email in plain text mode. The problem is that when the email is received it is not showing the text defined in plain view. Rather it is showing the html tags for the picture defined in html view. The plain text view is getting totally ignored. Is there any way of putting a condition for checking if the customer's email client supports html so as to pass on the right view? Can anyone please help? This is the output i am getting when viewing it on outlook in plain text mode. abcdef Sample of my SendEmail method.... public static string SendMessageWithAttachment(string sendTo string sendFrom string sendSubject string sendMessage ArrayList attachments) { try { sendMessage = sendMessage.Replace(
  ); sendMessage =   + sendMessage; // validate email address //bool bTest = ValidateEmailAddress(sendTo); //if (bTest == false) // return Invalid recipient email address:  + sendTo; // Create the basic message MailAddress from=new MailAddress( ); //MailAddress to = new MailAddress( MailAddress to = new MailAddress(soumyajit@bba-reman.com); MailMessage bccMsg = new MailMessage(from to); bccMsg.ReplyTo = new MailAddress(soumyajit@bba-reman.com); bccMsg.Bcc.Add(sendTo); // bccMsg.To = ; bccMsg.Subject = sendSubject; bccMsg.Body = sendMessage; //MailMessage message = new MailMessage( // sendFrom // sendTo // sendSubject // sendMessage); // The attachments arraylist should point to a file location where // the attachment resides - add the attachments to the message //foreach (string attach in attachments) //{ // Attachment attached = new Attachment(attach MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet); // bccMsg.Attachments.Add(attached); //} AlternateView plainView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(If you are not able to view the bulletin please save the attachment to your computer open it. System.Text.Encoding.ASCII text/plain); AlternateView htmlview = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(  + sendMessage +   System.Text.Encoding.Unicode text/html); //AlternateView htmlview=new AlternateView(attachments[0].ToString()); ContentType type=new ContentType(MediaTypeNames.Text.Plain); plainView.ContentType = type; for (int a = 0; a bccMsg.Attachments.Add(new Attachment(attachments[a].ToString())); LinkedResource res = new LinkedResource(attachments[0].ToString()); res.ContentId = logo; //htmlview.LinkedResources.Add(res); bccMsg.AlternateViews.Add(plainView); bccMsg.AlternateViews.Add(htmlview); bccMsg.IsBodyHtml = true ; // create smtp client at mail server location // SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient(Properties.Settings.Default.SMTPAddress); SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient(  25); client.Timeout = 600000; client.UseDefaultCredentials = false; // Add credentials System.Net.NetworkCredential nc = new System.Net.NetworkCredential( ); client.Credentials = nc; // send message client.Send(bccMsg); return Message sent to  + sendTo +  at  + DateTime.Now.ToString() + .; } catch (Exception ex) { return ex.Message.ToString(); } }

Suthish Nair · Answer

If the query got resolved then mark the post that helped you as Answer so will be helpful for others. Otherwise if you got the solution please share with us.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I think you are both correct. Typically the user decides whether to get HTML format or plain text format. You need to send out one of the two formats based on whAt the user has selected. Many users will choose to receive plain text format for many reasons even when their email client supports it. Plain text is smaller and safer and has limited support for commercial messages. Smaller is better for slow connections. Plain text is safer because it is impossible to execute a script in a plain text message. When a message is sent using HTML format there is typically (but not always?) a copy of the message in plain text format also. I don't think it is called views but it is like a view. So you need to become familiar with lookiing at the raw messages; it is sometimes called the message source. In your email client look at a message and then look at the View menu; there is probably a View menu and in that is probably a way to look at the raw message. Look at the headers. See a Content-Type header? For HTML format messages it is probably multipart/mixed. For plain text messages it is text/plain. For multipart messages there will also be a boundary that separates the parts. Become familiar with all that. I hope you learn about it enough that you can explain some of it to me when I need help.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Outlook has the option to set html or plain text view. If your sending a html format but the client have settings of Text format then it will not work. It will work in browser version. So its depends upon fully user configuration.

Raja Krishnamurthy · Answer

There is no concept of multiple views for an email message. I just said that based on the user preference you can decide which one to send either HTML or just plain text. You should basically have two methods one sending an HTML email and one sending plaint text email. Based on the client your code should execute one of them. HTH. Happy Programming!!! Regards Raja

Soumyajit Dasgupta · Answer

Hi So you say that I need to keep just one view going out with the emails? I can see that the HTML view is taking precedence over the plain text view. Are multiple views not allowed for 1 email message then?

Raja Krishnamurthy · Answer

This is a design issue. While the customer registers itself ask them if they can view HTML mails and save that information in the DB. Based on that information you can either send HTML or Plain Text. I don't think there is a way to determine if an email client supports HTML (which 99% of them support) or not (as in your case even though Outlook supports HTML you have disabled it). HTH. Happy Programming!!! Regards Raja