Start Mail-Client with Attachment

Start user's standard mail client with attachment pre-attached

So...

After days of research I gave up to get a general solution.
I came up with a solution working at least for the two most common clients (Thunderbird & Outlook)

My solution is basically calling the application from command line.

For those interested, here is my solution: (I haven't tested it cross platform - works on my old XP laptop though)

import java.io.IOException;

/*
::   Punctuation             Hexadecimal equivalent
::   ----------------------------------------------
::   Space ( )               %20
::   Comma (,)               %2C
::   Question mark (?)       %3F
::   Period (.)              %2E
::   Exclamation point (!)   %21
::   Colon (:)               %3A
::   Semicolon (;)           %3B
::   Line feed               %0A --> New line   %0D%0A
::   Line break (ENTER key)  %0D --> New line   %0D%0A
*/

public class Main {
    static String test = "hi";
    private static String attachment;
    private static String to;
    private static String cc;
    private static String subject;
    private static String body;
    public static void main (String[] args){

        attachment  = "F:\\pietquest.png";
        to          = "test@test.de";
        cc          = "a.b@c.de";
        subject     = "TestSubject 123";
        body        = "Hi, what\'s going on%0D%0Anew line";

        body     = replace(body);
        subject  = replace(subject);

        String[] value = WindowsRegistry.readRegistry("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Clients\\Mail", "");

        if (value[10].contains("Thunderbird")){
            System.out.println("Thunderbird");
            String[] pfad = WindowsRegistry.readRegistry("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Clients\\Mail\\Mozilla Thunderbird\\shell\\open\\command", "");
            String Pfad = pfad[10] + " " + pfad[11];
            String argument = Pfad + " /compose \"to=" + to + ",cc=" + cc + ",subject=" + subject + ",body=" + body + ",attachment=" + attachment + "\"";
//          System.out.println(argument);
            try {
                Runtime.getRuntime().exec(argument);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        else if (value[10].contains("Outlook")){
            System.out.println("Outlook");
            String[] pfad = WindowsRegistry.readRegistry(
                    "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Clients\\Mail\\Microsoft Outlook\\shell\\open\\command", "");
            String Pfad = pfad[10];
            String argument = Pfad + " /a " + attachment + " /m \"" + to 
                    + "&cc=" + cc + "&subject=" + subject + "&body=" + body + "\"";
//          System.out.println(argument);
            try {
                Runtime.getRuntime().exec(argument);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
    public static String replace(String toReplace){
        toReplace = toReplace.replace(" ", "%20");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace(",", "%2C");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace("?", "%3F");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace(".", "%2E");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace("!", "%21");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace(":", "%3A");
        toReplace = toReplace.replace(";", "%3B");
        return toReplace;
    }
}

and this is the Windows Registry Class: (got that from here)

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.StringWriter;

public class WindowsRegistry {

    /**
     * 
     * @param location path in the registry
     * @param key registry key
     * @return registry value or null if not found
     */
    public static final String[] readRegistry(String location, String key){
        try {
            // Run reg query, then read output with StreamReader (internal class)
            Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("reg query " + 
                '"'+ location);

            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(process.getInputStream());
            reader.start();
            process.waitFor();
            reader.join();

            // Parse out the value
            String[] parsed = reader.getResult().split("\\s+");
            if (parsed.length > 1) {
                return parsed;
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {}

        return null;
    }

    static class StreamReader extends Thread {
        private InputStream is;
        private StringWriter sw= new StringWriter();

        public StreamReader(InputStream is) {
            this.is = is;
        }

        public void run() {
            try {
                int c;
                while ((c = is.read()) != -1)
                    sw.write(c);
            } catch (IOException e) { 
            }
        }

        public String getResult() {
            return sw.toString();
        }
    }

Opening the client default mail with attachment

This is not at all possible - and it would be a big security hole if web applications could open our default email client with random files attached (!).

The mailto protocol allows you to set the following properties only:

• subject: Text to appear in the subject line of the message.
• body: Text to appear in the body of the message.
• CC: Addresses to be included in the "cc" (carbon copy) section of the message.
• BCC: Addresses to be included in the "bcc" (blind carbon copy) section of the message.

One possible idea would be to allow your users to upload files to your website first, and you create a mailto: link that includes the URL of the file they uploaded in the body of the email message.

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