Open eml file in any mail client and take screenshot

Question

I perform a lot of tests that create e-mail messages. I store each message in separate eml file. (I can change file extension if needed.)

I would like to open each file in any mail client and take a screen shot, so I could visually inspect e-mails later.

The idea is that I could use a image viewing application to look at several screenshots in the same time, so I could visually compare them (after each test run).

I have access to Windows, Mac and Linux machines. I would prefer if the solution is in Ruby, but that is not required.

I am searching the web and this site, but no luck so far. I will post the solution in answer if I find it.

Answer 1

Looks like you can not automate Outlook Express. It accepts only newsonly and mailonly options when started from command line.

Thunderbird accepts file name when started from command line:

C:\>"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" mail.eml

That was all I needed to open an e-mail in a mail client.

snapit.exe takes the screen shot and saves it to file.

And here is the script to take the screen shot for multiple eml files.

file_names.each do |file_name|
  `start /d "#{thunderbird_folder}" thunderbird.exe #{file_name}`

  # if the script does not wait for a second, screen shot will be taken before
  # thunderbird opens
  sleep 1

  `snapit.exe`
end

Answer 2

Try using Selenium to take the screenshots

I never tried it, but there are ways to take screenshots and ways to use Ruby

From the documentation :

capture_screenshot(filename)

Captures a PNG screenshot to the specified file.

‘filename’ is the absolute path to the file to be written, e.g. "c:\blah\screenshot.png" 

You can also take a look at Page Glimpse for these tasks.

The you need to find a way to automatize the "open email / take screenshot" procedure using this.