Mailto from preferences xml possible?

Question

I am trying to build out the preferences for my application and I was hoping to do a "Contact the developer" area where when clicked, it would open an email directed to me. Is this possible to do from the xml file alone or do I need to do stuff in the main class?

I searched here a bit but did not see anything about doing it from XML so maybe thats not possible? Thought I would throw this question out there.

Thanks!

EDIT: This is how I actually got it to work for anyone in the future looking for some code:

import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.Preference;
import android.preference.Preference.OnPreferenceClickListener;
import android.preference.PreferenceActivity;

public class Prefs extends PreferenceActivity {

@Override

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    addPreferencesFromResource(R.layout.prefs);
    Preference mailTo = (Preference) findPreference("mailTo");


    mailTo.setOnPreferenceClickListener(new OnPreferenceClickListener() 
  {
   public boolean onPreferenceClick(Preference preference) 
   {
        // Preferences

        Intent mailto = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND); 
        mailto.setType("message/rfc822") ; // use from live device
        mailto.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{"[email protected]"});
        mailto.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT,"Subject Here");
        mailto.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT,"Body Here");
        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(mailto, "Select email application."));
    return true;
   }
  });

}

}

Answer 1

You can do it directly from preferences:

<Preference
        android:key="contactDevKey"
        android:title="Contact developer"
        android:summary="Tell me all about your problems">
    <intent android:action="android.intent.action.VIEW"
            android:data="@string/contact_developer_uri"/>
</Preference>

Where @string/contact_developer_uri is:

<string name="contact_developer_uri">mailto:[email protected]</string>

The limitation is no predefined subject/body which is possible using the Java method about along with extras. Adding extras to <intent>s are supported since 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich thanks to this commit (see commit tags). It's a side effect of allowing extras for fragments. So you can provide a template as Andrew suggested in the comments:

<intent android:action="android.intent.action.VIEW"
        android:data="@string/contact_developer_uri">
    <extra android:name="android.intent.extra.TEXT"
           android:value="What can I help you with?" />
    <extra android:name="android.intent.extra.SUBJECT"
           android:value="Feedback about World Changing App" />
</intent>

Using resource references are encouraged, but not necessary for both data and values.

Sadly you can't use Intent.ACTION_SEND this way, because EXTRA_EMAIL needs to be a String[] and that's not supported as <extra android:value=.