Quick Tutorial on how to add MFMailComposeViewController

http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/tutorial-discussion/43633-quick-tutorial-how-add-mfmailcomposeviewcontroller.html

 

This process is fairly simple. The SDK includes the MessageUI.framework which simplifies this process to a few lines of code; don't know why you would want to send an email from the iPhone in another way.

1. Create a new View-Based Application and name it MailTutorial.

2. Import the framework “MessageUI.framework” into the project.

3. Add these lines into the MailTutorialViewController.h file.

Code:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <MessageUI/MessageUI.h>
#import <MessageUI/MFMailComposeViewController.h>

@interface MailTutorialViewController : UIViewController <MFMailComposeViewControllerDelegate>{
}

- (IBAction)actionEmailComposer;

@end

Here we need to import <MessageUI/MessageUI.h> and the <MessageUI/MFMailComposeViewController.h>. We added the MessageUI.framework and we needed to import these two files from the framework into our viewcontrollers header. We also need to add the < MFMailComposeViewControllerDelegate>.

Now, the IBAction class method named actionEmailComposer is what’s important. You can call this method however you want in your program. Here we’re going to call this method with the UIButton created in Interface Builder to simplify it. (Save all files. Open up MailTutorialViewController.xib with Interface Builder. Drag a UIButton onto the view. Give the UIButton a title called “Mail Composer” and then click on the Connections Inspector tab. Drag “Did Touch Up Inside” to File’s Owner in the Document window and link it to actionMailComposer. Save and quit.)

4. Now add these lines into the MailTutorialViewController.m file.

Code:

#import “MailTutorialViewController.h”

@implementation MailTutorialViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad {

[super viewDidLoad];

}

- (IBAction)actionEmailComposer {

if ([MFMailComposeViewController canSendMail]) {

MFMailComposeViewController *mailViewController = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
mailViewController.mailComposeDelegate = self;
[mailViewController setSubject:@"Subject Goes Here."];
[mailViewController setMessageBody:@"Your message goes here." isHTML:NO];

[self presentModalViewController:mailViewController animated:YES];
[mailViewController release];

}

else {

NSLog(@”Device is unable to send email in its current state.”);

}

}

-(void)mailComposeController:(MFMailComposeViewController*)controller didFinishWithResult MFMailComposeResult)result error  NSError*)error {

[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];

}

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {

[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];

}

- (void)viewDidUnload {

}

- (void)dealloc {

[super dealloc];

}
@end

Here we added the IBAction method code. First we wanted to check if the current device’s state is able to send email so we are using a *if* function here to simply test it. MFMailComposeViewController has a method called canSendMail that returns a boolean value of YES if the device is configured for sending email or NO if it is not.

If the device is able to send emails, we created mailViewController by initializing and allocating MFMailComposeViewController and delegating the mailComposeDelegate to self.

To set the subject and body of the e-mail message, we used the setSubject and setMessageBody instance method. The class reference for the MFMailComposeViewController can be found here iPhone Dev Center: MFMailComposeViewController Class Reference

I set the isHTML for the message body to NO. You can use HTML if you want by setting it to YES.

We are presenting the mailViewController, the MFMailComposeViewController allocated, with as a modal view with presentModalViewController so when the button is clicked the mailViewController slides up to fill the screen.

The MFMailComposeViewControllerDelegate protocol has a call-back method “mailComposeController:didFinishWithResult:error:” and this method indicates if the user is finished with the mailComposerView, the MFMailComposeViewController. MFMailComposeResult provides the vales of the action of the email composer: MFMailComposeResultSent, MFMailComposeResultSaved, MFMailComposeResultCancelled and MFMailComposeResultFailed. To get more information about any failures, you can retrieve the error parameter.

Here I just want to dismiss the ModalViewController and nothing else so I’m just calling dismissModalViewControllerAnimated.

Build and Run and check it out. This is pretty simple for sending a e-mail with your iPhone with just a subject and message. Check out the class reference for MFMailComposeViewController for additional goodies.

I have the source and same step on my site here.

I haven't worked much outside of basic email on the iPhone because I haven't needed to. If you know more or can help improve this, let me know. Thanks.