Sending e-mail programmatically in Magento is failing - email

Question

Why is there nowhere in the Configuration/System/Mail Sending Settings to specify a user name and password for your smtp server?
To get around this, do you need to make the changes to getMail() outlined in this post:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/1073/P30/
I want to do something very simple:
- create an e-mail template
- do not have to make reference to that template in any config files.
- programmatically send an e-mail using the template defined above
- supply values to replace any tags in the template
- supply recipient e-mail addresses
- supply other bits, like a from address
So first step - create a template.
- In Confguration/Transactional Emails I believe I am supposed to see a list of templates. I see nothing. But if I add a new template, I can select from a list of templates.
- Give template a name of "Bob".
- Add a few vars to the template:
myvar1={{var myvar1}}
myvar2={{var myvar2}}
- Save the template; it is given an Id of 1.
Now send the e-mail programmatically from a controller action:
- No need to make change to LINEEND in Mime.php as it is already set to \n in version 1.4.2.0
- Make changes to getMail() in Template.php as specified in this post: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/1073/P30/
- Write code in the controller action to send the e-mail:
This returns nothing:
$emailTemplate = Mage::getModel('core/email_template')->loadDefault('no matter what goes here emailTemplate is not set');
This does return an email template:
$emailTemplate = Mage::getModel('core/email_template')->loadByCode('Bob');
but the call to send below fails:
$emailTemplate->setSenderEmail('sent#byme.com');
$emailTemplate->setSenderName('Steve');
$emailTemplateVariables = array();
$emailTemplateVariables['myvar1'] = 'TestValue1';
$emailTemplateVariables['myvar2'] = 'TestValue2';
// $processedTemplate = $emailTemplate->getProcessedTemplate($emailTemplateVariables); -- this returns nothing
$emailTemplate->send('thisisme#mydomain.com','John', $emailTemplateVariables);
In the system.log I get the warning below, and no e-mail ever arrives.
Warning: stream_socket_enable_crypto() [<a href='streams.crypto'>streams.crypto</a>]: this stream does not support SSL/crypto in C:\Applications\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\magento\lib\Zend\Mail\Protocol\Smtp.php on line 206
Should I be using loadByCode? I wish there was some worthwhile documentation (the help for loadByCode is "Load template by code" !!). Should I be using send, sendTransactional? Oh for a bit of quality documentation.
Thanks

Answer 1

I see 2 questions here.
1. How to configure Magento mailing system to use smtp protocol ?
You are having trouble for this because Magento is made to use default host mailing. So it will search for it on the machine where it is installed.
If you want to configure a smtp server, I would recommend using this extension : http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/ziq2004/extension/460/advanced-smtp--artson.it
I found it simple to use and configure.
2. How to send a mail in your custom module
You can first create your template in Confguration/Transactional Emails, mark down the Id for it will be your identifier
Then, simply use this code to send the mail in your module
<?php
// The Id you just marked...
$templateId = 1;
// Define the sender, here we query Magento default email (in the configuration)
// For customer support email, use : 'trans_email/ident_support/...'
$sender = Array('name' => Mage::getStoreConfig('trans_email/ident_general/name'),
'email' => Mage::getStoreConfig('trans_email/ident_general/email'));
// Set you store
// This information may be taken from the current logged in user
$store = Mage::app()->getStore();
// In this array, you set the variables you use in your template
$vars = Array('my_var' => $my_var,
'another_var' => 12);
// You don't care about this...
$translate = Mage::getSingleton('core/translate');
// Send your email
Mage::getModel('core/email_template')->sendTransactional($templateId,
$sender,
'recipient#gmail.com',
'Recipient Name',
$vars,
$store->getId());
// You don't care as well
$translate->setTranslateInline(true);
?>
Hope this will help you
Regards,

Answer 2

I took out the 'ssl' => 'tls' element in the array in getMail() in Template.php and my e-mail came through.
I'd still appreciate if anyone has an explanation of how the smtp server's username and password should be specified, and an explanation of the differences in the template load methods etc would be most welcome!

Answer 3

If anyone is looking for full sample code of how to send a Magento email based on an existing Magento email template, the following works well. It does not require any XML config. You can load the template by name as well as by ID. In this case I load it by name.
// This is the name that you gave to the template in System -> Transactional Emails
$emailTemplate = Mage::getModel('core/email_template')->loadByCode('My Custom Email Template');
// These variables can be used in the template file by doing {{ var some_custom_variable }}
$emailTemplateVariables = array(
'some_custom_variable' => 'Hello World'
);
$processedTemplate = $emailTemplate->getProcessedTemplate($emailTemplateVariables);
$emailTemplate->setSenderName('Joe Bloggs');
$emailTemplate->setSenderEmail('test#test.com');
$emailTemplate->setTemplateSubject("Here is your subject");
$emailTemplate->send('recipient#test.com', 'Joanna Bloggs', $emailTemplateVariables);