Sending Text Messages

To compose and send a text e-mail message to one or more recipients, you only need to use two methods, ComposeMessage and SendMessage. Here is an example of how they could be used to send a message using the information entered by the user on a form:

Private Sub cmdSend_Click()
    Dim nError As Long

    cmdSend.Enabled = False
    nError = InternetMail1.ComposeMessage(editFrom.Text, _
                                          editTo.Text, _
                                          editCc.Text, _
                                          editBcc.Text, _
                                          editSubject.Text, _
                                          editMessage.Text)
    If nError Then
       MsgBox "Unable to compose a new message" & vbCrLf & _
              InternetMail1.LastErrorString, vbExclamation
       Exit Sub
    End If

    nError = InternetMail1.SendMessage()

    If nError Then
        MsgBox "Unable to send the message" & vbCrLf & _
               InternetMail1.LastErrorString, vbExclamation
        Exit Sub
    End If

    cmdSend.Enabled = True
End Sub

The ComposeMessage method creates a new message and has the following arguments:

Property	Description
From	A string value which specifies the e-mail address of the person sending the message. This argument is required.
To	A string value which specifies one or more e-mail addresses of those who will receive the message. Multiple addresses may be separated by a comma (such as "john@company.com, jane@company.com"). This argument is required.
Cc	An optional string value which specifies recipients who should receive a copy of the message. Multiple recipients may be separated by a comma and the addresses are included in the header of the message.
Bcc	An optional string value which specifies recipients who should receive a copy of the message, however, these addresses are not included in the header of the message. Multiple recipients may be separated by a comma.
Subject	An optional string value which specifies the subject of the message. If the argument is not specified then the message is created without a subject.
MessageText	An optional string value which specifies the body of the message. If the argument is not specified, then the message is created without a body.
MessageHTML	An optional string value which specifies an HTML version of the message. If this argument is provided along with the MessageText argument, then a multipart message is created which contains both plain text and HTML versions of the message. If the MessageText argument has not been specified, then only an HTML message is created. If this argument is omitted, then the message is sent with only a plain text body.
CharacterSet	An optional integer value which specifies a character set to use when composing the message. This typically only needs to be set for languages which use extended characters. For more information on the available character sets, consult the technical reference.
EncodingType	An optional integer value which specifies an encoding type to be used with the character set that was selected. For more information about the encoding types available, consult the technical reference.

The SendMessage method has four optional arguments:

Property	Description
Sender	An optional string value which specifies the sender of the message. If this argument is provided, then the message will be identified as being sent from this address. If the argument is omitted, then the value of the From property is used. Note that specifying a different sender address does not change the contents of the message.
Recipient	An optional string value which specifies one or more recipient e-mail addresses. Multiple addresses may be separated by a comma. If this argument is provided, then the message will be delivered only to those recipients, regardless of the addresses listed in the message itself. If the argument is omitted, then the addresses listed in the To, Cc and Bcc properties are used. Note that specifying a different recipient does not change the contents of the message.
Message	An optional string value which specifies a complete, formatted e-mail message including all headers and the body. If this argument is provided, then the message is used instead of the current message; otherwise the current message will be sent. If this argument has been specified, but the Sender or Recipient arguments have been omitted, the message is parsed and the values of the From, To and Cc header fields are used as appropriate. It is expected that this string contain a complete, correctly formatted message which conforms to the RFC 822 and MIME e-mail standards.
Options	A long integer value which specifies one or more options to be used when sending the message. If this argument is omitted, the value of the Options property is used. The most common option that is used is mailOptionNotify which enables delivery status notification (DSN) if it is supported by the server. This tells the server to return a message back to the sender indicating the message has been delivered or if there were any errors encountered during delivery. Note that if the server does not support DSN, this option is ignored and will not affect the delivery of the message itself.

In most cases, the optional arguments to the SendMessage method will not be used. They are primarily provided for advanced applications which need to control the sender, recipient or message contents that are being sent to the SMTP server.