Setting the 'From:' field in e-mails

[HenryH]

I am trying to use a FileMaker script to e-mail several people in my database but the "Send Mail" tool (or whatever it's called) only allows me to specify the 'To:', 'CC:', 'Subject:' and 'Message:' e-mail fields. I want/need to also specify the 'From:' field as well.

Firstly, where does FileMaker (Send Mail) get the information that it pust into this field?

Secondly, how would I be able to specify the contents of the 'From:' field using FileMaker (& Send Mail, or other scripts)?

Thanks...

[Vaughan]

The Send Mail script only passes data to the default e-mail program on your computer; it's the e'mail program wehich actually sends the message.

So to answer your question, the sender is whatever has been entered into your default e-mail program.

Third party plugins exiat that allow direct sending of email from FMP. These offer much more control over configuration.

[Barbecue]

You can use a command line utility such as mutt or bmail to send SMTP email and specify the From: value among other things. Works with most mail servers.

bmail - http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/cmdlinemail/cmdlinemail.htm

mutt - http://www.geocities.com/win32mutt/win32.html

[HenryH]

That looks good, I may prefer to try Mutt.

It does rais a question though, how do I tell FM to use Mutt (or bmail or Cygwin) and not my usual e-mail client (The Bat!)?

I have managed a work-aroune by creating a new caaount with a username matching the email I wish to send under but I would prefer to get something working which wasn't so kludgy!

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Barbecue]

With this approach, you don't use the Send Mail script step at all, you use the Send Message step, which allows you to run pretty much any program. This way you bypass the Windows default email client, without having to make any configuration changes to your system.

You'll need to use a script or calculated field to "build" the command line arguments for the command. It's a more flexible approach, but does require a little more effort.

Here's a sample command line for sending a message with bmail...

bmail.exe -s smtp.mydomain.com -t [email protected] -f [email protected] -a "Insert Message Subject Here" -b "This is the message body."

Mutt is pretty powerful, but also more complex, and needs some configuring. I like bmail because it's so simple and small. One thing to be aware of. The Mutt for Windows that says Cygwin needs the Cygwin environment installed, which is basically a complete Unix shell environment for Windows. It's big, and probably overkill for a simple task like this. The non-Cygwin version of Mutt is less powerful, but also much smaller and simpler to install. There are other such programs available as well, such as Blat, GBMailer, etc that will do similar things.

[Fitch]

You might want to try a plugin such as SMTPit.

[HenryH]

I had a look at SMTPit but thought that a 'simple' scripting approach should be sufficient for my needs. SMTPit certainly should do all I want but at a price...

My preferred option, in most cases, is to understand what's happening and to work with that, rather than simply accept a 'black box' packaged solution. Thanks for the suggestion.

[HenryH]

Thanks for the expansion on your previous post. Now it makes more sense.

This seems to be the type of think that I was looking for, though I am dissapointed that FM doesn't provide tools for this 'out of the box'.

I appreciate the sample command line/script too. That makes it much more comprehensible and approachable.

[Barbecue]

SMTPit has a nice user interface, but behind the scenes is really just doing the same thing as mutt. I think it's a bit pricy for what it does, but then again, I'm one of those people who uses a rolling pin to get the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube...