TimStone wrote:These are single emails with attachments. I'm going to create several options for them to use, including SMTP, Outlook, standard MAPI ( in case they have another email client ). Of course those who do strictly web based email clients don't understand why we can't email through them ( though their web client doesn't support the services ).
Tim
Tim:
I used to require a mapi program but this resulted in a lot of tech support and hassle, especially when Microsoft quit including Qutlook Express with Windows. Additionally, many users had problems using Outlook for security reasons. You can download and use Windows Live Mail with Vista and Win 7 but a lot of users were reluctant to download, install, and configure it for their email client and/or wanted us to do it for them. I no longer wanted to be dependent on someone else's email program. The other issue is the one you mentioned where a lot of users want to use web based email. If a user is using webbased email you can still send email using the smtp server of their internet provider.
For these reasons I went with smtp and so far it seems to be working fine. In addition to sending individual emails users can send batch emails (statments, invoices, notices, etc.) to numerous recipients at one time. I could never get the tsmtp class to work in all situations so I went with a 3rd party library.
www.catalyst.com. Works with gmail, hotmail, and many other webbased email programs as well. We are only sending emails and not managing incoming email. We sometimes have minor tech support issues helping users specify the correct parameters for their smtp server. Users can check their email the same way they always have. The user can specify whatever From email they want so their recipients will reply to whatever email address they want them to regardless of the smtp server used to send email. Except with gmail, which requires the From be a gmail email address.
It's been my experience that you need to be able to configure certain parameters for certain smtp servers, i.e. some require authentication, some don't, some require SSL, some don't, etc.
Randal