Often we need to generate email responses from our ASP.NET applications. Users forget their passwords, need email confirmations, or we'd just like to send them a friendly thank you for signing up.

Now you could create that email message with a nice series of string concatenations, or some fancy xml/xslt transformation. But who needs that when there is an easier way using what's available from our aspx parser?

First thing to create is a typical user control. This will be your template.

                  <%@ Control Language="c#" AutoEventWireup="false" Codebehind="ForgotPasswordEmail.ascx.cs" Inherits="EmailTemplateExample.ForgotPasswordEmail" %>
                   Here is your password reminder. ----------------------------------- YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Login: 
                  <%
                  = Username 
                  %>
                   Password: 
                  <%
                  = Password 
                  %>
                   ----------------------------------- TO CHANGE YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION: You can change your account information by logging in and selecting 'Account Information'. This is an automated message; please do not reply to this email.
                

                  namespace
                   EmailTemplateExample { 
                  public
                  abstract
                  class
                   ForgotPasswordEmail : System.Web.
                  UI
                  .UserControl { 
                  public
                  string
                   Username; 
                  public
                  string
                   Password; } }
                

                  using
                   System; 
                  using
                   System.IO; 
                  using
                   System.Web.UI; 
                  using
                   System.Web.Mail; ... 
                  //Load the user control
                   ForgotPasswordEmail emailTemplate = (ForgotPasswordEmail)LoadControl(
                  "~/ForgotPasswordEmail.ascx"
                  ); emailTemplate.Username = 
                  "jroberts"
                  ; emailTemplate.Password = 
                  "a7e945"
                  ; 
                  //Render the user control to a string
                   StringWriter stringWriter = 
                  new
                   StringWriter(); HtmlTextWriter htmlWriter = 
                  new
                   HtmlTextWriter(stringWriter); emailTemplate.RenderControl(htmlWriter); 
                  string
                   body = stringWriter.ToString(); 
                  //Send the email
                   SmtpMail.SmtpServer = 
                  "localhost"
                  ; SmtpMail.Send(
                  
                  ,
                  
                  , 
                  "Password Reminder"
                  , body); 
                

                  
                    //Prepare 
                    HTML
                     email
                  
                   MailMessage mailMessage = 
                  new
                   MailMessage(); mailMessage.From = 
                  
                  ; mailMessage.Subject = 
                  "Password Reminder"
                  ; mailMessage.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Html; mailMessage.UrlContentBase = 
                  "http://localhost/"
                  ; 
                  //Send the email
                   SmtpMail.SmtpServer = 
                  "localhost"
                  ; SmtpMail.Send(mailMessage);