{mailto}

{mailto} automates the creation of a mailto: anchor links and optionally encodes them. Encoding emails makes it more difficult for web spiders to lift email addresses off of a site.

Technical Note

Javascript is probably the most thorough form of encoding, although you can use hex encoding too.

Attribute Name Type Required Default Description
address string Yes n/a The e-mail address
text string No n/a The text to display, default is the e-mail address
encode string No none How to encode the e-mail. Can be one of none, hex, javascript or javascript_charcode.
cc string No n/a Email addresses to carbon copy, separate entries by a comma.
bcc string No n/a Email addresses to blind carbon copy, separate entries by a comma
subject string No n/a Email subject
newsgroups string No n/a Newsgroups to post to, separate entries by a comma.
followupto string No n/a Addresses to follow up to, separate entries by a comma.
extra string No n/a Any extra information you want passed to the link, such as style sheet classes

Example 8.20. {mailto} example lines followed by the result


{mailto address="me@example.com"}
<a href="mailto:me@example.com" >me@example.com</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" text="send me some mail"}
<a href="mailto:me@example.com" >send me some mail</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="javascript"}
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
   eval(unescape('%64%6f% ... snipped ...%61%3e%27%29%3b'))
</script>

{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="hex"}
<a href="mailto:%6d%65.. snipped..3%6f%6d">&#x6d;&..snipped...#x6f;&#x6d;</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" subject="Hello to you!"}
<a href="mailto:me@example.com?subject=Hello%20to%20you%21" >me@example.com</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" cc="you@example.com,they@example.com"}
<a href="mailto:me@example.com?cc=you@example.com,they@example.com" >me@example.com</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" extra='class="email"'}
<a href="mailto:me@example.com" class="email">me@example.com</a>

{mailto address="me@example.com" encode="javascript_charcode"}
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    {document.write(String.fromCharCode(60,97, ... snipped ....60,47,97,62))}
</script>


See also escape, {textformat} and obfuscating email addresses.