[thelist] mailto: long body text

Robert Goodyear rob_goodyear at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 14 18:26:55 CDT 2001


Check out http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2368.html for a definitive syntax on the method.

Also, per my previous post, around 2048 chars is the limit for the body.

Some clients also seem to handle the CRLF differently, I saw some bug posts on MSDN where
Outlook would not recognize a break correctly.

You may be victim to the fact that this method (or protocol?) was designed for short-form
usage only. Seems to be a real scarcity of definitive knowledge out there about mailto.

Oh, in re your mention of ASP querystings being unlimited, don't forget that although the
string is GENERATED by ASP, it's still passed through the browser as a cgi call. (Well,
ok, that's what I call things that are posted in a URL request... be it a hidden form
field or an HTML anchor tag or whatever.) Bottom line is, it's a variable passed through
the client, not passed only on the server side.

Hope that helps.

/rg


--- Tyme <nopun at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Whew! Finally a response on topic.  ;-)
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Goodyear <rob_goodyear at yahoo.com>
> To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 5:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [thelist] mailto: long body text
> 
> 
> > I have a couple of (relevant) questions for you.
> >
> > 1. Can we see a code snippet?
> 
> TYME} Well, I tried various things.  Just ditched them all when my curious
> enthusiasm gave way to my sleepiness.  I was pretty blurry-eyed at 5:00 AM,
> but here are the things that I did try (with slightly different versions):
> 
> 1.  Stored the letter as a string (ASP) something like:
>      strBody = "Dear Mr. SoAndSo:" & vbCrLf
>      strBody = strBody & "I am writing to you because..." & vbCrLf
>      strBody = strBody & "...Sincerely,"
> 
>      Then: <a
> mailto:href="mailto:tyme at no-pun.com?subject=Veterans_Park_Condos&body=<%=str
> Body%>"
> 
> 2.  Same as above except used <%=Server.HTMLEncode(strBody)%>; also tried
> <%=Server.URLEncode(strBody)%>
> 
> 3.  strBody = "Dear%20Mr.%20SoAndSo:%A0D0I&20am..."  (courtesy of a encoder
> utility)
> 
> 4.  Etc.
> 
> > 2. How are you breaking the paragraphs?
> 
> TYME} Tried several ways:
> 1.  & vbCrLf (ASP method)
> 2.  %A0%D0
> 3.  Not at all.  (Tried it as one big string, just for testing.)
> 
> > 3. Isn't a URL query limited to 256 characters? Maybe mailto's method is
> considered as
> > such.
> 
> TYME} My understanding, for ASP querystrings there is no limit.  I did a
> quick source to try to confirm.  Here is one response to that question:
> 
> "Actually there has always been a limit of just over 4000 chars since as
> far back as I can remember.  I did some testing, and found the answer with
> at least my version of IE5.5 there is a max of 2053 characters which can be
> contained in a querystring.  Otherwise the link just stops working."
> 
> TYME} And, of course, the reason for my original post was that I had not
> been able to find the answer to that as it relates specifically to a mailto:
> body value.
> 
> > 4. So does the body break cleanly after the first paragraph or arbitrarily
> in that area?
> 
> TYME} Didn't thoroughly tested that.
> 
> > Have you done a chracter count on the resulting truncated email? Is it
> some base-2 number
> > like 256 or 1024? (Or, perhaps more telling: 256-(length of the HREF
> string))
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > --- Tyme <nopun at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > So, basically, you do not know the answer.  :-)    Regardless of the
> method
> > > that I end up with, I would like to know exactly what the limitations of
> > > mailto: are, if only for curiousity's sake rather than future reference.
> > > That was my question, afterall.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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