c# - Razor View Page as Email Template

Question

I have designed an Email Template from Razor Syntax. When I send this template as Email using C# code and SMTP protocol, I get bare Razor and HTML markups as Email Body. Am I wrong in this approach? Are Razor Pages allowed as Email Template?

Here is my Page

@inherits ViewPage
@{
Layout = "_Layout";
ViewBag.Title = "";
}
<div class="container w-420 p-15 bg-white mt-40">
<div style="border-top:3px solid #22BCE5">&nbsp;</div>
<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt">
    Hello <b>{UserName}</b>,<br /><br />
    Thanks for Registering to XYZ Portal<br /><br />
    <a style="color:#22BCE5" href="{Url}">Click to Confirm Email</a><br />

    <br /><br />
    Thanks<br />
    Admin (XYZ)
</span>

Update..

 using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/ContentPages/EmailConfTemplate.cshtml")))
  {
     body = reader.ReadToEnd();
     //Replace UserName and Other variables available in body Stream
     body = body.Replace("{UserName}", FirstName);

  }

Later On I am replacing the SMTP Code as ..

  MailMessage message = new MailMessage(
    ApplicationWideData.fromEmailId, // From field
    ToEmailId, // Recipient field
    "Click On HyperLink To Verify Email Id", // Subject of the email message
    body
   );

Answer 1

Email messages only understand two formats: plain text and HTML. Since Razor is neither, it will need to be processed by some engine, so that it gives you back the generated HTML.

That's exactly what happens when you use Razor in ASP.NET MVC, behind the scenes. The Razor file is compiled into a internal C# class, that gets executed, and the result of the execution is the string content of the HTML, that gets sent to the client.

Your problem is that you want and need that processing to run, only to get the HTML back as a string, instead of being sent to the browser. After that you can do whatever you want with the HTML string, including sending it as an e-mail.

There are several packages that include this power, and I've used Westwind.RazorHosting successfully, but you can also use RazorEngine with similar results. I would prefer RazorHosting for standalone non-web applications, and RazorEngine for web applications

Here is a (sanitized) version of some of my code - I'm using Westwind.RazorHosting to send razor-formatted emails from a windows service, using a strongly typed view.

RazorFolderHostContainer host = = new RazorFolderHostContainer();
host.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("NotificationsManagement.dll");
host.TemplatePath = templatePath;
host.Start();
string output = host.RenderTemplate(template.Filename, model);

MailMessage mm = new MailMessage { Subject = subject, IsBodyHtml = true };
mm.Body = output;
mm.To.Add(email);

var smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
await smtpClient.SendMailAsync(mm);