Class: AkActionMailer  - X-Ref

AkActionMailer allows you to send email from your application using a mailer model and views.

= Mailer Models

To use AkActionMailer, you need to create a mailer model.

$ ./script/generate mailer Notifier

The generated model inherits from AkActionMailer. Emails are defined by
creating methods within the model which are then used to set variables to be
used in the mail template, to change options on the mail, or to add attachments.

Examples:

class Notifier extends AkActionMailer
{
function signupNotification($Recipient)
{
$this->setRecipients($Recipient->getEmailAddressWithName());
$this->setFrom("system@example.com");
$this->setSubject("New account information");
$this->setBody(array('account' => $Recipient ));
}
}

Mailer methods have the following configuration methods available.

* <tt>setRecipients</tt> - Takes one or more email addresses. These addresses are where your email will be delivered to. Sets the <tt>To:</tt> header.
* <tt>setSubject</tt> - The subject of your email. Sets the <tt>Subject:</tt> header.
* <tt>setFrom</tt> - Who the email you are sending is from. Sets the <tt>From:</tt> header.
* <tt>setCc</tt> - Takes one or more email addresses. These addresses will receive a carbon copy of your email. Sets the <tt>Cc:</tt> header.
* <tt>setBcc</tt> - Takes one or more email address. These addresses will receive a blind carbon copy of your email. Sets the <tt>Bcc</tt> header.
* <tt>setSentOn</tt> - The date on which the message was sent. If not set, the header wil be set by the delivery agent.
* <tt>setContentType</tt> - Specify the content type of the message. Defaults to <tt>text/plain</tt>.
* <tt>setHeaders</tt> - Specify additional headers to be set for the message, e.g. <tt>$this->setHeaders(array('X-Mail-Count' => 107370));</tt>.

The <tt>setBody</tt> method has special behavior. It takes an array which generates an instance variable
named after each key in the array containing the value that that key points to.

So, for example, <tt>setBody(array("account" => $Recipient));</tt> would result
in an instance variable <tt>$account</tt> with the value of <tt>$Recipient</tt> being accessible in the
view.


= Mailer views

Like AkAkActionController, each mailer class has a corresponding view directory
in which each method of the class looks for a template with its name.
To define a template to be used with a mailing, create an <tt>.tpl</tt> file with the same name as the method
in your mailer model. For example, in the mailer defined above, the template at
<tt>app/views/notifier/signup_notification.tpl</tt> would be used to generate the email.

Variables defined in the model are accessible as instance variables in the view.

Emails by default are sent in plain text, so a sample view for our model example might look like this:

Hi {account.name},
Thanks for joining our service! Please check back often.

You can even use Action View helpers in these views. For example:

You got a new note!
<?=$text_helper->truncate($note->body, 25);?>


= Generating URLs for mailer views

If your view includes URLs from the application, you need to use Ak::urlFor in
the mailing method instead of the view.
Unlike controllers from Action View, the mailer instance doesn't have any
context about the incoming request. That's why you need to jump this little
hoop and supply all the details needed for the URL.

Example:

function signupNotification($Recipient)
{
// This is the same as calling each individual setter
$this->setAttributes(array(
'recipients' => $Recipient->getEmailAddressWithName(),
'from'       => "system@example.com",
'subject'    => "New account information",
'body'       => array(
'account'   => $Recipient,
'home_page' => Ak::urlFor(array('host' => "example.com", 'controller' => "welcome", 'action' => "greeting"))
)
));
}

You can now access @home_page in the template and get http://example.com/welcome/greeting.

= Sending mail

Once a mailer action and template are defined, you can deliver your message or
create it and save it for delivery later:

Notifier::deliver('signup_notification', $David); // sends the email
$Message = Notifier::create('signup_notification', $David); // => A PEAR::Mail object
Notifier::deliver($Message);

You never instantiate your mailer class. Rather, your delivery instance
methods are automatically wrapped in class methods that are called statically
The <tt>signup_notification</tt> method defined above is delivered by invoking
<tt>$Notifier =& new Notifier(); $Notifier->signupNotification(); $Notifier->deliver();</tt>.


= HTML email

To send mail as HTML, make sure your view (the <tt>.tpl</tt> file) generates HTML and
set the content type to html.

class ApplicationMailer extends AkActionMailer
{
function signupNotification($Recipient)
{
$this->setAttributes(array(
'recipients' => $Recipient->getEmailAddressWithName(),
'from'       => "system@example.com",
'subject'    => "New account information",
'body'       => array('account'   => $Recipient),
'content_type' => text/html" //    Here's where the magic happens
));
}
}


= Multipart email

You can explicitly specify multipart messages:

class ApplicationMailer extends AkActionMailer
{
function signupNotification($Recipient)
{
$this->setAttributes(array(
'recipients' => $Recipient->getEmailAddressWithName(),
'from'       => "system@example.com",
'subject'    => "New account information"
));

$this->addPart(array(
'content_type' => "text/html",
'body' => $this->renderMessage('signup-as-html', 'account' => $recipient)));

$this->addPart("text/plain", array(
'transfer_encoding' = "base64",
'body' => $this->renderMessage('signup-as-plain', 'account' => $recipient)));
}
}

Multipart messages can also be used implicitly because AkActionMailer will automatically
detect and use multipart templates, where each template is named after the name of the action, followed
by the content type. Each such detected template will be added as separate part to the message.

For example, if the following templates existed:
* signup_notification.text.plain.tpl
* signup_notification.text.html.tpl

Each would be rendered and added as a separate part to the message,
with the corresponding content type. The same body array is passed to
each template.


= Attachments

Attachments can be added by using the +addAttachment+ method.

Example:

class ApplicationMailer extends AkActionMailer
{
// attachments
function signupNotification($Recipient)
{
$this->setAttributes(array(
'recipients' => $Recipient->getEmailAddressWithName(),
'from'       => "system@example.com",
'subject'    => "New account information"
));

$this->addAttachment(array(
'content_type' => 'image/jpeg',
'body' => Ak::file_get_contents("an-image.jpg")));

$this->addAttachment('application/pdf', generate_your_pdf_here());
}
}


= Configuration options

These options are specified on the class level, as class attriibutes
<tt>$AkActionMailerInstance->templateRoot = "/my/templates";</tt>

* <tt>templateRoot</tt> - template root determines the base from which template references will be made.

* <tt>server_settings</tt> -  Allows detailed configuration of the server:
* <tt>address</tt> Allows you to use a remote mail server. Just change it
from its default "localhost" setting.
* <tt>port</tt> On the off chance that your mail server doesn't run on port 25, you can change it.
* <tt>domain</tt> If you need to specify a HELO domain, you can do it here.
* <tt>user_name</tt> If your mail server requires authentication, set the username in this setting.
* <tt>password</tt> If your mail server requires authentication, set the password in this setting.
* <tt>authentication</tt> If your mail server requires authentication, you need to specify the authentication type here.
Options are: plain, login, cram_md5

* <tt>delivery_method</tt> - Defines a delivery method. Possible values are 'php' (default), 'smtp', and 'test'.

* <tt>perform_deliveries</tt> - Determines whether AkActionMailer::deliver(*) methods are actually carried out. By default they are,
but this can be turned off to help functional testing.

* <tt>deliveries</tt> - Keeps an array of all the emails sent out through the Action Mailer with delivery_method 'test'. Most useful
for unit and functional testing.

* <tt>default_charset</tt> - The default charset used for the body and to encode the subject. Defaults to UTF-8. You can also
pick a different charset from inside a method with <tt>$this->charset</tt>.
* <tt>default_content_type</tt> - The default content type used for the main part of the message. Defaults to "text/plain". You
can also pick a different content type from inside a method with <tt>$this->content_type</tt>.
* <tt>default_mime_version</tt> - The default mime version used for the message. Defaults to "1.0". You
can also pick a different value from inside a method with <tt>$this->mime_version</tt>.
* <tt>default_implicit_parts_order</tt> - When a message is built implicitly (i.e. multiple parts are assembled from templates
which specify the content type in their filenames) this variable controls how the parts are ordered. Defaults to
array("multipart/alternative", "text/html", "text/enriched", "text/plain"). Items that appear first in the array have higher priority in the mail client
and appear last in the mime encoded message. You can also pick a different order from inside a method with
<tt>$this->implicit_parts_order</tt>.