.net - What does MailMessage.IsBodyHtml do?

Question

I'm testing sending out some emails via C#, but I can't tell what effect setting IsBodyHtml to true has. Regardless of the value, whatever I send in my Body shows up with a content type of "text/plain", and my HTML shows up tags and all in my email client (gmail). What is that flag actually supposed to do?

NOTE: I can send an HTML email just fine by creating an AlternateView with a content type of "text/html", I just want to understand how setting the body is supposed to work.

Answer 1

Here is an excerpt for my SMTP helper I use everyday....

public bool SendMail(string strTo, string strFrom, string strCc, string strBcc, string strBody, string strSubject)
{

    bool isComplete = true;

    SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
    MailMessage message = new MailMessage();

    try
    {
        //Default port will be 25
        smtpClient.Port = 25;

        message.From = new MailAddress(smtpEmailSource);
        message.To.Add(strTo);
        message.Subject = strSubject;

        if (strCc != "") { message.Bcc.Add(new MailAddress(strCc)); }
        if (strBcc != "") { message.Bcc.Add(new MailAddress(strBcc)); }

        message.IsBodyHtml = true;

        string html = strBody;  //I usually use .HTML files with tags (e.g. {firstName}) I replace with content.  This allows me to edit the emails in VS by opening a .HTML file and it's easy to do string replacements.

        AlternateView htmlView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(html, new ContentType("text/html"));

        message.AlternateViews.Add(htmlView);


        // Send SMTP mail
        smtpClient.Send(message);
    }
    catch
    {
        isComplete = false;
    }

    return isComplete;
}

[UPDATE]

The key points as I originally left off...

1. IsBodyHtml states that your message is HTML formatted. If you were only sending a single view of HTML, this is all you need.

2. AlternateView is used to store my HTML, this is not required for sending a HTML message but it's required if you want to send a message that includes HTML and Plain Text, in case the receiver is unable to render the HTML.

I took out my plainView above so this isn't obvious, sorry...

The key here is that if you want to send a HTML formatted message you need to use IsBodyHtml = true (default is false) to have your content rendered as HTML.