The Action Mailer component of Rails 
enables applications to send and receive e-mail. 

In this chapter, We will set the steps to send an 
email using Rails. 
 
1. Create emails project 
issue the following command-line:

C:\ruby\> rails emails

This command creates the related Rails framework, under 
the created director: C:\ruby\emails.

2. Configure Action Mailer:
Open the file: C:\ruby\emails\config\environment.rb 
and set things as follow: fold & unfold




3. Create a mailer Generate:
Issue the command line:

C:\ruby\> cd emails
C:\ruby\emails> ruby script/generate mailer Emailer

This creates a file emailer.rb in the directory: 
C:\ruby\emails\app\models directory. Open this file 
and define a method (here contact-email).It should 
look like this:

class Emailer < ActionMailer::Base
   def contact_email(recipient, subject, message, sent_at = Time.now)
      @subject = subject
      @recipients = recipient
      @from = 'ajaja@sympatico.ca'
      @sent_on = sent_at
	  @body["title"] = 'Welcome to the scientific sentence!'
  	  @body["email"] = 'ajaja@sympatico.ca'
   	  @body["message"] = message
      @headers = {}
   end
end


4. Create the related contact_email.rhtml file:
This file is placed in C:\ruby\emails\app\views\emailer\;
It will look like this:

Hi!

This is an email from <%= @email %> 
<%= @title %>
<%= @message %>

Best regards,


5. Create a controller for the application:
Issue the command::

C:\ruby\emails> ruby script/generate controller Emailer

This creates  the file: emailer_controller.rb 
in the directory: C:\ruby\emails\app\controllers.
Open this file and define a Vontroller method (here: 
send_email). This method will call Model method to 
send the actual email. It sould look like this:

class EmailerController < ApplicationController

  def index
       render :file => 'app\views\emailer\index.rhtml'
    end
   
    def send_email
       email = params["email"]
       recipient = email["recipient"]
       subject = email["subject"]
       message = email["message"]
       Emailer.deliver_contact(recipient, subject, message)
       return if request.xhr?
       render :text => 'The message has been sent successfully'
    end
 end 

 
6. Set the related file app\views\emailer\index.rhtml 
from where we will send email. It should look like this:

<h1>Send Email</h1>
<%= form_tag :action => 'send_email' %>
<p><label for="email_subject">Subject</label>:
<%= text_field 'email', 'subject' %></p>
<p><label for="email_recipient">Recipient</label>:
<%= text_field 'email', 'recipient' %></p>
<p><label for="email_message">Message</label><br/>
<%= text_area 'email', 'message' %></p>
<%= submit_tag "Send" %>
<%= form_tag %>


7. Use the application:
1. First: run ruby

C:\ruby\emails> ruby script/server

We get on the prompt:
=> Booting WEBrick...
=> Rails application started on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server; call with --help for options
[2008-09-05 00:47:28] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2008-09-05 00:47:28] INFO  ruby 1.8.6 (2007-03-13) [i386-mswin32]
[2008-09-05 00:47:28] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=4504 
port=3000


2. Then: Open the URL:

http://localhost:3000/Emailer/index 

This displays the following screen. The application allows sending 
messages everywhere.






We get on the prompt:
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server; call with --help for options
[2008-09-05 00:58:02] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2008-09-05 00:58:02] INFO  ruby 1.8.6 (2007-03-13) [i386-mswin32]
[2008-09-05 00:58:02] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: 
pid=4876 port=3000
127.0.0.1 - - [05/Sep/2008:00:58:08 Eastern Daylight Time] "GET 
/Emailer/index HTTP/1.1" 304 0
- -> /Emailer/index


Once the button "Send" is cliked, the message is snet and we get 
on the prompt:
127.0.0.1 - - [05/Sep/2008:01:00:14 Eastern Daylight Time] "POST 
/emailer/send_email HTTP/1.1" 200 25
http://localhost:3000/Emailer/index -> /emailer/send_email