395754 - Always sends plain text e-mail when called from MS Access

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Elizabeth Lock]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.6 (20070728)

I used to be able to send HTML e-mails from an Access database using the sendobject method--this still works in Thunderbird 1.5.0.13 which is on another machine in our office, but 2.0.0.6 creates a plain-text message with all the HTML code visible. I suspect that sending HTML mail with sendobject shouldn't be possible, but it was a really, really useful feature and I shall have to go back to Thunderbird 1.5 if there is no way of restoring this capability!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Set up a button in an access form running something like this: DoCmd.SendObject , , , Me.EMailAddress, , , "Hello", "Dear Sir or Madam,<br><br>Hello!<br><br>With best wishes,<br><br>(Mrs) Elizabeth Lock<br>Assistant Editor<br>", -1 (You'll need the emailaddress field, obviously)
2.Press the button
3.
Actual Results:  
You get a plaintext message full of tagging.

Expected Results:  
Interpreted the HTML

I am reasonably sure that the only change between this working and this not working was upgrading to Thunderbird 2 (I don't want to have to reinstal all the intervening versions to find the last one where the mail rendered properly)! I have Thunderbird configured to default to plain text and HTML, and I've tried defaulting to just HTML

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

But is the default composition window set to html mode or not? (If it is you see the bold, italic, list buttons etc over the message body area.)

Comment 2

[Elizabeth Lock]

Yes, it is. I normally use the 'plain text and HTML' option but have also tried this with the default setting as just HTML. When I open a new message directly from Thunderbird it always appears in HTML mode.

Comment 3

[Elizabeth Lock]

I have resolved this. First of all, I'm a fool and I apologise for not noticing that, although Thunderbird is configured as my default e-mail program, Access was sneakily starting Outlook. One message window looks very like another. So it was Outlook's fault that the e-mails were defaulting to plain text. But the weird thing, which might be of interest, is that I solved the problem by going into 'Set Program Access and Defaults' (I'm using XP) and unticking 'Enable Access for this Program' for Thunderbird. So only 'Use my current e-mail program' is selected. Why this should work I don't know, but now Access starts Thunderbird rather than Outlook. Sorry to have taken up your time. The change probably occurred when I had to reinstall Windows after a hard disc problem.

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

No problem.

->WFM (FIXED is only used when known code changes resolved the issue)

Comment 5

[Elizabeth Lock]

Sorry. For info, this site is good on making sure that Thunderbird really, really is the default e-mail program (Access started calling Outlook again today):

http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t44307.html