I just found out that a Filemaker solution used by out club doesn't work as it did before.  When Send Mail is used, the recipient name is missing, and only the email address is seen in the To: field of the email.  We are using Filemaker 11.3 and I'm using Apple's Mail program in Mac OS 10.6.6.

I've searched the manual and forums, and the only guidance I can find is

 

http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2862/~/send-mail%3A-including-the-recipient-name-in-an-email-message

from 2007 and applicable to version 5.5 of Filemaker.

In 5.5, if I have a text field containing the following text (separated by carriage returns or semicolons):

(Sally Jones) [email protected]

[email protected] (Sally Jones)

Sally Jones <[email protected]>

"Sally Jones" <[email protected]>

and I specify that field to be used for the To: field in Send Mail, I see this in Apple's Mail program:

(Sally Jones) [email protected], Sally Jones <[email protected]>, Sally Jones <[email protected]>, Sally Jones <[email protected]>

In version 11.3 of Filemaker, if I do the same thing, I get only the email addresses:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Our club needs to be able to search emails using the person's name rather than just an email address as email addresses are always changing.  Is there something I'm missing here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I wouldn't store all emails for a person in one large text field. I would have a related child table of email addresses, and I'd store the ID of the preferred email address in the Person's record. Then, when I send an email, I'd only use one email address, the preferred.

Also, with FM11's support of SMTP, you do not need to use any email client.

I wouldn't store all emails for a person in one large text field. I would have a related child table of email addresses, and I'd store the ID of the preferred email address in the Person's record. Then, when I send an email, I'd only use one email address, the preferred.

Also, with FM11's support of SMTP, you do not need to use any email client.

Thanks bcooney. Actually I just put the email addresses in a text field for testing purposes. The names and email address fields are in child tables and each record (membership) may be related to many emails, for example, different members of the family. I'm not a SMTP fan and prefer using an email client- just a personal preference.

It appears that the name plus email address must now be enclosed in quotes, which can be done directly or with the Quote function. This was not the case in the days of version 5.5.  Each name+email can be separated by carriage returns or semicolons.

I did some testing and here are 3 formats that give the desired results.  The quotation marks are part of the text string.

   " ( Sally Jones & Gordon Smith ) <[email protected]> "

   " [email protected] (Sally Jones & Gordon Smith) "

   " Sally Jones & Gordon Smith <[email protected]> "

I can't get the format using quotes to delineate the name or names to work at all.  This is the format I prefer, and used to use.

If I use Quote( "Adam and Mary Smith" <[email protected]> ), the result is ""\"Adam and Mary Smith\" <[email protected]> \""

I tried a few more variations of where to put the quotes, but nothing worked. Thanks for your help, the problem is solved.

I'm glad that your problem is solved.

Please, those who read this, present the problem in its true state. When you say things like, "actually...", ugh.