JavaMail : Java Glossary

JAF is now bundled with the JDK (Java Development Kit) 1.6. If you are using an older Java, to install JAF, open the download with WinZip and extract all files with folder names to the Program Files directory of some drive. Ditto for JavaMail. As of Java version 1.6, JAF is bundled with the JDK. Then make sure J:\Program Files\jaf-1.1\activation.jar and J:\Program Files\javamail-1.4.3\mail.jar are explicitly mentioned in your classpath, (not just in a classpath directory!). Alternatively, add the jars to the ext directory.

You won’t likely directly use the JAF java.activation package, but JavaMail uses them. JavaMail also comes bundled with JavaEE.

Look on your local hard disk in the JavaMail downloaded docs J:\Program Files\javamail-1.4.3\docs\javadocs\index.html or

JavaMail also supports Google Gmail and Yahoo mail.

The

Coding Tips

If you get a Message, you can’t close the Folder or Session until you are completely finished grabbing fields for the Message. Once the Session is gone, you can’t get any additional information about the Message. This is not that unusual, but it means you can’t write a method to return a Message object unless either:

1. All the Message’s interesting fields have already been probed and cached.
2. You keep the Session and Folder open. Until the caller is finished with the Message object.
3. You can get a free account to experiment with IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) from FastMail.

Similarly you need to hold Folder and Session open in order to be able to later delete the Message from the server.

Most JavaMail applications involve reading a message and modifying it in some way and sending it on. Most mail servers will not permit you to modify the incoming message. You must create a new one and copy the parts over. There are three techniques you can use to copy.

1. Part.getContent Part.setContent
2. Part.getDataHandler Part.setDataHandler
3. Multipart.getBodyPart Multipart.addBodyPart

You probably want to use transport.sendMessage ( message, recipients ), not Transport. send( message );

Often

message.setFlag( Flags.Flag.SEEN, true );
message.setFlag( Flags.Flag.DELETED, true );

JavaMail In Applets

Awkward Characters

JavaMail is does not provide a mailserver. You might use something like James rather that using your ISP (Internet Service Provider) ’s mailserver.

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