Is it possible to create an email-attachment on a Silverlight email? - web-services

Question

I need to be able to send an email from a silverlight client-side application.
I've got this working by implementing a webservice which is consumed by the application.
The problem is that now I need to be able to add an attachment to the emails that are being sent.
I have read various posts, tried a dozen times to figure it out by myself, but to no prevail.
So now I find myself wondering if this is even possible?
The main issue is that the collection of attachments needs to be serializable. So, going by this, ObservableCollection - of type(FileInfo) is not working, ObservableCollection - of type (object) is not working... I've tried using List - of type(Stream), which serializes, but then i do not know how to create the file on the webservice side, as the stream-object does not have a name (which is the first thing I tried to assign to the Attachment object which will then be added to the message.attachments)... I'm kind of stuck in a rut here.
Can anybody maybe shed some light on this please?

Answer 1

I figured out how to do this, and it wasn't really as difficult as it appeared.
Create the following in your webservice-namespace:
`
[Serializable]
public class MyAttachment
{
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public byte[] Bytes { get; set; }
}`
Then add the following to your web-method parameters:
MyAttachment[] attachment
Add the following in the execution blocks of your web-method:`
foreach (var item in attachment)
{
Stream attachmentStream = new MemoryStream(item.Bytes);
Attachment at = new Attachment(attachmentStream, item.Name);
msg.Attachments.Add(at);
}`
Create the following property (or something similar) at your client-side:
`
private ObservableCollection<ServiceProxy.MyAttachment> _attachmentCollection;
public ObservableCollection<ServiceProxy.MyAttachment> AttachmentCollection
{
get { return _attachmentCollection; }
set { _attachmentCollection = value; NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => AttachmentCollection); }
}`
New up the public property (AttachmentCollection) in the constructor.
Add the following where your OpenFileDialog is supposed to return files:`
if (openFileDialog.File != null)
{
foreach (FileInfo fi in openFileDialog.Files)
{
var tempItem = new ServiceProxy.MyAttachment();
tempItem.Name = fi.Name;
var source = fi.OpenRead();
byte[] byteArray = new byte[source.Length];
fi.OpenRead().Read(byteArray, 0, (int)source.Length);
tempItem.Bytes = byteArray;
source.Close();
AttachmentCollection.Add(tempItem);
}
}`
Then finally where you call your web-method to send the email, add the following (or something similar):
MailSvr.SendMailAsync(FromAddress, ToAddress, Subject, MessageBody, AttachmentCollection);
This works for me, the attachment is sent with the mail, with all of its data exactly like the original file.