Receive email with IMAP protocol
In 4D v18, we introduced a new way to send emails. Then in 4D v18 R2, we added a new way to retrieve emails using POP3. Now in 4D v18 R4, we’re taking the first steps for a new way to handle the IMAP protocol. As we did for SMTP and POP3, there’s a new IMAP New transporter command to handle the IMAP protocol.
The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server. This protocol makes it possible to manage multiple mailboxes, download emails, perform searches on the server, manage message state, and a lot more!
And with this first IMAP feature, you can add methods to the transporter to: have the list of the available mailboxes, select a mailbox, and receive email from the selected mailbox. Let’s see how.
Download your emails in MIME format with POP3
Do you need to store all business emails, for example, for legal or fiscal purposes? These documents must be stored as they are. That is, how they were received … in their original, unconverted formats. 4D v18 R3 answers this need by providing you with a new method allowing you to get emails in their original MIME format.
Receive emails with POP3 protocol
4D v18 introduced an easy to use and powerful new way to create and send emails. A way that lets you send eye-catching emails based on HTML (with images, videos, and attachments), using just a few lines of code. In 4D v18 R2, we’ve added the ability to locally download your emails and remove them from your email server. In this blog post, we’ll go through the new possibilities this offers.
Easily send a 4D Write Pro document containing images as the body of an email!
Want to use 4D Write Pro to create HTML emails with static pictures in the text? Maybe something like a fancy newsletter with pictures of the top ten destinations in the world, or simply include your company logo? Wondering how to accomplish this? Wonder no more because with the 4D v18, you can in three simple steps:
- Export your 4D Write Pro document in MIME format,
- use the MAIL Convert from MIME command to transform the MIME into an email object,
- then send it via the SMTP New transporter command.
Legacy charset support with 4D email
If you still need to communicate with old devices that don’t support Unicode, this blog post is for you! Keep reading because with 4D v17 R5, you can send emails in legacy encodings (ISO-2022-JP for Japanese or ISO-8859-1 for Western European).
Customize your email headers
Custom headers are useful to add information that may not be supported with standard properties. In 4D v17 R5, we’re not only giving you a set of predefined headers, but also a way to declare customized headers to the mail object.
Log your SMTP conversations
As promised in a previous post, each R-release includes more advances related to email functionality, unlocking its hidden power.
4D v17 R5 provides an interesting new feature for email logs. Sometimes during development everything works fine but when you deploy to the customer, there’s a problem delivering emails. Discovering where the failure occurs can be difficult, since the communication is encrypted and you often don’t have access to the SMTP server log files. The problem is very likely related to your SMTP server, but how can you be sure? Simply start the SMTP log in your application! This log contains a record of all the actions performed, including those stopping the connection. Even better, this log shows the communications with the SMTP server in plain, non-encrypted text, making it easier to analyze.
A new way to send mails
We know the importance of sending emails and common a task it has become in today’s applications. For example, imagine you’re in a business and you want to send an attractive email based on HTML with a few images or even a video, and attach a file to it (e.g., a purchase order or an invoice). And you want to do all of this with just a few lines of code. Code that is easy to write and understand. Well starting with 4D v17 R4, the previous scenario is now possible. That’s why we’ve enlarged the feature set related to emails.
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