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);