Sending HTML email from Joomla! component - email

Question

I am developing a Joomla!3.0/3.1 component that allows people to book a golf lesson online. When they complete the booking and process paypal payment, I want to send them a receipt/confirmation email.
I can do this fine and send the information in html or plain text format. However I don't like the fact that I now have view (email content) data within my controller code.
Is it possible to have a sort of template view file which can be parsed and sent as the contents instead? or am I stuck with it in my code?
Thanks,
Chris

Answer 1

On admin side create a section for editing your email template with Joomla's default editor
you an create an editor on the backend and open an html file inside that, for changing the styles ,formats content etc for users.
keep your template file as an HTML file on server and email sending time something like below.
function send_mail_account_pages($email_title,$greeting_text,$subject,$email_content,$user_email){
$config = JFactory::getConfig();
$data['fromname'] = $config->get('fromname');
$data['mailfrom'] = $config->get('mailfrom');
$data['sitename'] = $config->get('sitename');
$path = JPATH_BASE."/email_tmpl/";
$fp = fopen($path."email_tmpl.html","r");
$fsize = filesize($path."email_tmpl.html");
$fcontent = fread($fp,$fsize);
fclose($fp);
$date_format = date("M.d, Y");
$fcontent = str_replace("{email_page_title}",$email_title,$fcontent);
$fcontent = str_replace("{date}",$date_format,$fcontent);
$fcontent = str_replace("{greeting_text}",$greeting_text,$fcontent);
$fcontent = str_replace("{email_content}",$email_content,$fcontent);
$fcontent = str_replace("{thanks_text}",THANKS_TEXT,$fcontent);
$return = JUtility::sendMail($data['mailfrom'], $data['fromname'], $user_email, $subject, $fcontent,1);
}
This way you can make admin users to give access to change the template styles make sure admin users do not edit the {place holders}.
Hope its helps..

Answer 2

Add a configuration field to your component of type textarea or editor, and let the user write the email template. You should explain which tokens are available or at least provide a default text, such as
Dear {USERNAME},
today I received {NUM_MESSAGES} messages on your behalf,
and your profile has been viewed {NUM_PROFILEVIEWS} times.
Then simply replace the {TOKENS} in your code with str_replace.