Open Lotus Notes mail page without sending from .NET

Question

I'd like to open a new email page, in Lotus Notes (I know I know, I hate it too...) from a WinForm (.NET) application. Right now, I have found this that uses Interop.Domino.dll very useful. I adapted it a little and it works. Unfortunately, I don't want the email to be sent. I just need to open a new mail window with the body I give it, but no "To adress"...

I know Notes question don't have a high reply rate over here, but I give it a try anyway.

Thanks !

Answer 1

On Windows Notes clients greater than version 6, there is support for a Notes:\ URL scheme to launch documents. You can construct a URL dynamically in .Net that points to the user's mail database and opens a new mail form.

http://www.dominoguru.com/pages/LotusNotes_notesURLs.html has more details, but essentially it is of the form Notes:\server\database\0\memo?OpenForm

Answer 2

Any reason you can't just use a mailto call in your code? Assuming that Lotus Notes is the registered mail handler on the client system, you should be able to pass in the body attribute and wot-not…

Answer 3

The Lotus Domino Objects (Interop.Domino.dll) don't have access to the Notes UI. You would need to use the deprecated, late-bound Lotus Notes Automation classes. Warning: they're crashy, which is one of the reasons they've been deprecated for more than ten years (since the release of Lotus Notes and Domino R5.0.2c).

Answer 4

I finally did use the mailto. Here the code :

Public Shared Sub OuvrirNouveauMessage(ByVal destinataire As String, ByVal sujet As String, ByVal corpsCourriel As String)

        Dim sFile As String = "mailto:" & destinataire & _
                              "?subject=" & sujet & _
                              "?body=" & corpsCourriel

        If sFile.Length > 2050 Then
            sFile = sFile.Substring(0, 2050)
        End If

        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(sFile)

    End Sub