An easy way to create and send email in VB (or any other language) is to use the "mailto:" protocol that already works on client computers. The technique makes a request to the installed email client, and works with Outlook, Lotus Notes, and other registered email clients.
You can't use the standard VB Shell function; instead, you call the Windows ShellExecute API to send email.
Put this code in a module called Module1.bas:
Public Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32" _
Alias "ShellExecuteA" ( _
ByVal hwnd As Long, _
ByVal lpOperation As String, _
ByVal lpFile As String, _
ByVal lpParameters As String, _
ByVal lpDirectory As String, _
ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long
'Constants for ShowWindow (nCmdShow)
Public Const SW_HIDDEN As Long = 0
Public Const SW_NORMAL As Long = 1
Public Const SW_MINIMIZED As Long = 2
Public Const SW_MAXIMIZED As Long = 3
Public Const SW_NOTACTIVE As Long = 4
Public Const SW_UNHIDDEN As Long = 5
Public Const SW_MINWITHFOCUS As Long = 6
Public Const SW_MINNOTACTIVE As Long = 7
Public Const SW_RESTORE As Long = 9
You'll need a form to enter an email address. Open the default Form1.frm, in design mode, and place three Textboxes and a Command Button on the form. Then add this code to handle the control events:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim Email As String
Email = "mailto:" & Text1.Text _
& "?subject=" & Text2.Text _
& "&body=" & MailTo_StringConverter(Text3.Text)
ShellExecute Me.hwnd, vbNullString, _
Email, vbNullString, vbNullString, SW_MAXIMIZED
End Sub
Private Function MailTo_StringConverter(Text As String) As String
Dim CharIndex As Integer
Dim CharLength As Integer
Dim ASCIIcode As Integer
MailTo_StringConverter = Text
'easy tecnique to speed up For cicle!!
CharLength = Len(MailTo_StringConverter)
For CharIndex = CharLength To 1 Step -1
ASCIIcode = Asc(Mid$(MailTo_StringConverter, CharIndex, 1))
If (ASCIIcode < vbKey0 Or ASCIIcode > vbKey9) _
And (ASCIIcode < vbKeyA Or ASCIIcode > vbKeyZ) _
And (ASCIIcode < vbKeyA + 32 Or ASCIIcode > vbKeyZ + 32) Then
' replace punctuation chars with "%hex"
MailTo_StringConverter = Left$( _
MailTo_StringConverter, CharIndex - 1) _
& "%" & ASCIIcode2HexChar(ASCIIcode) _
& Mid$(MailTo_StringConverter, CharIndex + 1)
End If
Next
End Function
Private Function ASCIIcode2HexChar(ASCIIcode As Integer) As String
If ASCIIcode < 16 Then
'need leading zero to complete 2 bytes !!!
ASCIIcode2HexChar = "0" & Hex$(ASCIIcode)
Else 'all ok, Hex$ returned string has 2 bytes
ASCIIcode2HexChar = Hex$(ASCIIcode)
End If
End Function
