Class ActionMailer::Base
In: vendor/rails/actionmailer/lib/action_mailer/base.rb
Parent: Object

Usage:

  class ApplicationMailer < ActionMailer::Base
    # Set up properties
    # Properties can also be specified via accessor methods
    # (i.e. self.subject = "foo") and instance variables (@subject = "foo").
    def signup_notification(recipient)
      recipients recipient.email_address_with_name
      subject    "New account information"
      body       { "account" => recipient }
      from       "system@example.com"
    end

    # explicitly specify multipart messages
    def signup_notification(recipient)
      recipients      recipient.email_address_with_name
      subject         "New account information"
      from            "system@example.com"

      part :content_type => "text/html",
        :body => render_message("signup-as-html", :account => recipient)

      part "text/plain" do |p|
        p.body = render_message("signup-as-plain", :account => recipient)
        p.transfer_encoding = "base64"
      end
    end

    # attachments
    def signup_notification(recipient)
      recipients      recipient.email_address_with_name
      subject         "New account information"
      from            "system@example.com"

      attachment :content_type => "image/jpeg",
        :body => File.read("an-image.jpg")

      attachment "application/pdf" do |a|
        a.body = generate_your_pdf_here()
      end
    end

    # implicitly multipart messages
    def signup_notification(recipient)
      recipients      recipient.email_address_with_name
      subject         "New account information"
      from            "system@example.com"
      body(:account => "recipient")

      # ActionMailer will automatically detect and use multipart templates,
      # where each template is named after the name of the action, followed
      # by the content type. Each such detected template will be added as
      # a separate part to the message.
      #
      # for example, if the following templates existed:
      #   * signup_notification.text.plain.rhtml
      #   * signup_notification.text.html.rhtml
      #   * signup_notification.text.xml.rxml
      #   * signup_notification.text.x-yaml.rhtml
      #
      # Each would be rendered and added as a separate part to the message,
      # with the corresponding content type. The same body hash is passed to
      # each template.
    end
  end

  # After this, post_notification will look for "templates/application_mailer/post_notification.rhtml"
  ApplicationMailer.template_root = "templates"

  ApplicationMailer.create_comment_notification(david, hello_world)  # => a tmail object
  ApplicationMailer.deliver_comment_notification(david, hello_world) # sends the email

Configuration options

These options are specified on the class level, like ActionMailer::Base.template_root = "/my/templates"

  • template_root - template root determines the base from which template references will be made.
  • logger - the logger is used for generating information on the mailing run if available. Can be set to nil for no logging. Compatible with both Ruby’s own Logger and Log4r loggers.
  • server_settings - Allows detailed configuration of the server:
    • :address Allows you to use a remote mail server. Just change it from its default "localhost" setting.
    • :port On the off chance that your mail server doesn’t run on port 25, you can change it.
    • :domain If you need to specify a HELO domain, you can do it here.
    • :user_name If your mail server requires authentication, set the username in this setting.
    • :password If your mail server requires authentication, set the password in this setting.
    • :authentication If your mail server requires authentication, you need to specify the authentication type here. This is a symbol and one of :plain, :login, :cram_md5
  • raise_delivery_errors - whether or not errors should be raised if the email fails to be delivered.
  • delivery_method - Defines a delivery method. Possible values are :smtp (default), :sendmail, and :test. Sendmail is assumed to be present at "/usr/sbin/sendmail".
  • perform_deliveries - Determines whether deliver_* methods are actually carried out. By default they are, but this can be turned off to help functional testing.
  • deliveries - Keeps an array of all the emails sent out through the Action Mailer with delivery_method :test. Most useful for unit and functional testing.
  • default_charset - The default charset used for the body and to encode the subject. Defaults to UTF-8. You can also pick a different charset from inside a method with @charset.
  • default_content_type - The default content type used for the main part of the message. Defaults to "text/plain". You can also pick a different content type from inside a method with @content_type.
  • default_mime_version - The default mime version used for the message. Defaults to nil. You can also pick a different value from inside a method with @mime_version. When multipart messages are in use, @mime_version will be set to "1.0" if it is not set inside a method.
  • default_implicit_parts_order - When a message is built implicitly (i.e. multiple parts are assembled from templates which specify the content type in their filenames) this variable controls how the parts are ordered. Defaults to ["text/html", "text/enriched", "text/plain"]. Items that appear first in the array have higher priority in the mail client and appear last in the mime encoded message. You can also pick a different order from inside a method with @implicit_parts_order.

Methods

deliver   deliver!   receive  

Included Modules

AdvAttrAccessor PartContainer Reloadable::Subclasses

Attributes

mail  [R]  The mail object instance referenced by this mailer.

Public Class methods

Deliver the given mail object directly. This can be used to deliver a preconstructed mail object, like:

  email = MyMailer.create_some_mail(parameters)
  email.set_some_obscure_header "frobnicate"
  MyMailer.deliver(email)

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionmailer/lib/action_mailer/base.rb, line 257
257:       def deliver(mail)
258:         new.deliver!(mail)
259:       end

Receives a raw email, parses it into an email object, decodes it, instantiates a new mailer, and passes the email object to the mailer object’s receive method. If you want your mailer to be able to process incoming messages, you’ll need to implement a receive method that accepts the email object as a parameter:

  class MyMailer < ActionMailer::Base
    def receive(mail)
      ...
    end
  end

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionmailer/lib/action_mailer/base.rb, line 244
244:       def receive(raw_email)
245:         logger.info "Received mail:\n #{raw_email}" unless logger.nil?
246:         mail = TMail::Mail.parse(raw_email)
247:         mail.base64_decode
248:         new.receive(mail)
249:       end

Public Instance methods

Delivers a TMail::Mail object. By default, it delivers the cached mail object (from the create! method). If no cached mail object exists, and no alternate has been given as the parameter, this will fail.

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionmailer/lib/action_mailer/base.rb, line 328
328:     def deliver!(mail = @mail)
329:       raise "no mail object available for delivery!" unless mail
330:       logger.info "Sent mail:\n #{mail.encoded}" unless logger.nil?
331: 
332:       begin
333:         send("perform_delivery_#{delivery_method}", mail) if perform_deliveries
334:       rescue Object => e
335:         raise e if raise_delivery_errors
336:       end
337: 
338:       return mail
339:     end

[Validate]