How difficult to create script to send html email?

[J]

Filemaker Newbie question.

I am looking send html emails from Filemaker. I don't understand why this is not a built in function... in todays business world, sending emails that look as good as possible and are as flexible as possible is extremely important.

Anyways...

How difficult would it be to write your own plugin or work around to send html emails? Not trying to take money from people who write and sell this stuff, but their prices seem pretty expensive.

Thanks. Any new suggestions for plugins would be great. I work with win2k.

Jason

FileMaker Version: Server 7

Platform: Windows 2000

[Reed]

I've seen some examples using Applescript on a mac to communicate directly with the UNIX sendmail program. Presumably you could do something similar using batch scripting or ActiveX in windows, but not being familiar with windows scripting I can't give you any specifics.

Writing a plugin does not seem trivial...you need to have either Microsoft and/or Codewarrior compiler/IDE (not cheap) and also you need to get your hands on the API that Filemaker exposes for plugin developers. (and be a reasonably accomplished C/C++ programmer, which I'm not) This API and documentation is provided with Filemaker Developer. If you just want to send HTML email, I don't know if the time/expense of creating a plugin is worth the < $200 you would spend buying 5 licenses of smtpit. Or if you're that concerned about cost, just send the emails from one of the computers in your network and just buy one copy of the plugin. ($55)

I'm not associated with cns or any other plugin vendors, but sometimes spending a few $ not to have to reinvent the wheel is worth every penny.

Dana

[Leb i Sol]

Hello People!

Is the goal to send email without having to initiate & confirm with email program like Outlook...otherwise there is a script to trigger it:

http://mostarnet.com/tutorials/filemaker/SendEmail.zip

SMTP servers:

http://www.snapfiles.com/downloadfind.php?st=SMTP&search=Search&lc=1&action=s

along with ('Send Message' or 'DDE Execute') u could semlessly send emails...

hopefully some links u can use...

Take care!

[Wrangler]

SMTPit is $55 and works just fine. How can any business not afford that? I think there are other SMTP plug-ins out there too.

I create the e-mails in FrontPage, copy to the clipboard and paste into a FileMaker text field. It's a cinch to personalize each e-mail by using the Substitute function in Define Fields.

Substitute(Email::HTML , "||Salutation||", EmailSalutation)

I also use the built-in Send Mail script for plain mail. Also, no graphics are included in the mail, only links to graphics previously put on the web.

Fred

FileMaker Version: 7

Platform: Windows XP

[Leb i Sol]

Our pricing structure for SMTPit is as follows:

License Price Cost per License

1 User $ 55.00 $55.00 each

5 User $193.00 $38.60 each

10 User $270.00 $27.00 each

25 User $473.00 $19.92 each

50 User $662.00 $13.24 each

Site / Worldwide $927.00

Developer's $563.00

it is not all that 'cheep'...Filemaker 6 is now less then $250... while "just" email plgin is 2 times more...

Anyhow, please post if u manage to get some of those STMP servers to bind with FM

take care!