Razor View Page as Email Template

Question

I have designed an Email Template from Razor Syntax. When I send this template as Email using C# code and SMTP protocol, I get bare Razor and HTML markups as Email Body. Am I wrong in this approach? Are Razor Pages allowed as Email Template?

Here is my Page

@inherits ViewPage
@{
Layout = "_Layout";
ViewBag.Title = "";
}
<div class="container w-420 p-15 bg-white mt-40">
<div style="border-top:3px solid #22BCE5">&nbsp;</div>
<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt">
    Hello <b>{UserName}</b>,<br /><br />
    Thanks for Registering to XYZ Portal<br /><br />
    <a style="color:#22BCE5" href="{Url}">Click to Confirm Email</a><br />

    <br /><br />
    Thanks<br />
    Admin (XYZ)
</span>

Update..

 using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/ContentPages/EmailConfTemplate.cshtml")))
  {
     body = reader.ReadToEnd();
     //Replace UserName and Other variables available in body Stream
     body = body.Replace("{UserName}", FirstName);

  }

Later On I am replacing the SMTP Code as ..

  MailMessage message = new MailMessage(
    ApplicationWideData.fromEmailId, // From field
    ToEmailId, // Recipient field
    "Click On HyperLink To Verify Email Id", // Subject of the email message
    body
   );

Answer 1

Email messages only understand two formats: plain text and HTML. Since Razor is neither, it will need to be processed by some engine, so that it gives you back the generated HTML.

That's exactly what happens when you use Razor in ASP.NET MVC, behind the scenes. The Razor file is compiled into a internal C# class, that gets executed, and the result of the execution is the string content of the HTML, that gets sent to the client.

Your problem is that you want and need that processing to run, only to get the HTML back as a string, instead of being sent to the browser. After that you can do whatever you want with the HTML string, including sending it as an e-mail.

There are several packages that include this power, and I've used Westwind.RazorHosting successfully, but you can also use RazorEngine with similar results. I would prefer RazorHosting for standalone non-web applications, and RazorEngine for web applications

Here is a (sanitized) version of some of my code - I'm using Westwind.RazorHosting to send razor-formatted emails from a windows service, using a strongly typed view.

RazorFolderHostContainer host = = new RazorFolderHostContainer();
host.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("NotificationsManagement.dll");
host.TemplatePath = templatePath;
host.Start();
string output = host.RenderTemplate(template.Filename, model);

MailMessage mm = new MailMessage { Subject = subject, IsBodyHtml = true };
mm.Body = output;
mm.To.Add(email);

var smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
await smtpClient.SendMailAsync(mm);

Answer 2

You do not need any special libraries to render a Razor view to a string in an ASP.NET MVC application.

Here is how you do it in MVC Core 3

public static class ViewToStringRenderer
{
    public static async Task<string> RenderViewToStringAsync<TModel>(IServiceProvider requestServices, string viewName, TModel model)
    {
        var viewEngine = requestServices.GetRequiredService(typeof(IRazorViewEngine)) as IRazorViewEngine;
        ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = viewEngine.GetView(null, viewName, false);
        if (viewEngineResult.View == null)
        {
            throw new Exception("Could not find the View file. Searched locations:\r\n" + string.Join("\r\n", viewEngineResult.SearchedLocations));
        }
        else
        {
            IView view = viewEngineResult.View;
            var httpContextAccessor = (IHttpContextAccessor)requestServices.GetRequiredService(typeof(IHttpContextAccessor));
            var actionContext = new ActionContext(httpContextAccessor.HttpContext, new RouteData(), new ActionDescriptor());
            var tempDataProvider = requestServices.GetRequiredService(typeof(ITempDataProvider)) as ITempDataProvider;

            using var outputStringWriter = new StringWriter();
            var viewContext = new ViewContext(
                actionContext,
                view,
                new ViewDataDictionary<TModel>(new EmptyModelMetadataProvider(), new ModelStateDictionary()) { Model = model },
                new TempDataDictionary(actionContext.HttpContext, tempDataProvider),
                outputStringWriter,
                new HtmlHelperOptions());

            await view.RenderAsync(viewContext);

            return outputStringWriter.ToString();
        }
    }
}

In the controller

string str = await ViewToStringRenderer.RenderViewToStringAsync(HttpContext.RequestServices, $"~/Views/Emails/MyEmailTemplate.cshtml", new MyEmailModel { Prop1 = "Hello", Prop2 = 23 });

In ConfigureServices() in Startup.cs

services.AddSingleton<IHttpContextAccessor, HttpContextAccessor>();

Here is how you do it in MVC 5

public static class ViewToStringRenderer
{
    public static string RenderViewToString<TModel>(ControllerContext controllerContext, string viewName, TModel model)
    {
        ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(controllerContext, viewName, null);
        if (viewEngineResult.View == null)
        {
            throw new Exception("Could not find the View file. Searched locations:\r\n" + viewEngineResult.SearchedLocations);
        }
        else
        {
            IView view = viewEngineResult.View;

            using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
            {
                var viewContext = new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, new ViewDataDictionary<TModel>(model), new TempDataDictionary(), stringWriter);
                view.Render(viewContext, stringWriter);

                return stringWriter.ToString();
            }
        }
    }
}

Then, from the controller

ViewToStringRenderer.RenderViewToString(this.ControllerContext, "~/Views/Emails/MyEmailTemplate.cshtml", model);

After you have the email content, it is easy to send the email using MailMessage and SmtpClient.

Answer 3

Have you took a look at MVC Mailer?

It's a free package available from GitHub (https://github.com/smsohan/MvcMailer)

There is a step by step guide for it too https://github.com/smsohan/MvcMailer/wiki/MvcMailer-Step-by-Step-Guide

It's also on Nuget too. https://www.nuget.org/packages/MvcMailer

Essentially it will parse your razor view into html.