Better alternative to mailto

Question

Is there a better alternative to mailto? We have an ASP.net application that populates the cc field of the users default email client. The problem is that the character limit of the URL is causing problems when the number of characters exceeds 2000.

Is there another way that can be used to open the default email client (In this case outlook), and populate the cc field? Or perhaps a workaround for the character limit?

I would prefer to use a web form and some server side code to send the emails instead of mailto but the client wants to sent emails from his default email client.

Answer 1

There is no way of finding out, in client-side code running in the browser, what the end user's default mail client is and if there was, you'd still have to find a way to get the client-side code to communicate with that client. That is possible if you use ActiveX but that raises security issues and it only works on Windows PC's.

Mailto is the default way to work, and if 2000 characters is not enough, I'm afraid the only alternative is to have the server send the message. Of course the server may put any email address in the From: field, so for the person receiving the message, there would be no difference. If needed, the server may put the "author" in Cc: or Bcc:.