Really stuck with multipart message...

Question

I post below the essence of my code... I read a lot of pages on the internet but my multipart message doesn't want to work :
With Outlook the mailer says that the encoding is unsupported and it attaches the multipart as a text file...
In outlook express the message is ok but the images used as datasources are attached a second time, as regular files. I have checked everything several times...
Thanks for any hint, I lost my day :-(
I use javamail API 1.3, jaf 1.0.2, jdk 1.3.1
I have an ArrayList for the datasources, one for their headers, another one for the urls to the fiels to attach and a last one for the file names. I have 3 datasources (gif images) and 2 attachments (xml and pdf). The multipart message code is snipped at the bottom.
Barbara
// creates mail session and mime message
this.mailSession = javax.mail.Session.getDefaultInstance(this.props, null);
this.msg = new MimeMessage(mailSession);
MimeBodyPart mbp1 = new MimeBodyPart();
Multipart mmp = new MimeMultipart();
//set from, to and cc fields ok
try{
this.msg.setSubject(this.subject,this.mimeCharSet);
this.msg.setSentDate(new java.util.Date());
catch(Exception e){}
// html ?
try{
if(html){
mbp1.setContent(this.body,"text/html");
mbp1.addHeaderLine("Content-Type: text/html;charset=" + this.mimeCharSet +"\"");
mbp1.addHeaderLine("Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable");
else{
mbp1.setContent(this.body, "text/plain");
mbp1.addHeaderLine("Content-Type: text/plain;charset=" + this.mimeCharSet +"\"");
mbp1.addHeaderLine("Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit");
mmp.addBodyPart(mbp1);
catch(Exception e){System.out.println("bug with content : " + e);}
// datasources and headers
try{
if(this.dataSources != null){
for(int j=0;j < this.dataSources.size();j++){
BodyPart mbp2 = new MimeBodyPart();
javax.activation.DataSource aSource = new URLDataSource(new URL((String) this.dataSources.get(j)));
mbp2.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(aSource));
mbp2.setHeader("Content-ID",(String) dsHeaders.get(j));
System.out.println("added datasource : " + this.dataSources.get(j));
mmp.addBodyPart(mbp2);
catch(Exception e){
System.out.println("bug with add datasources " + e);
// other attachments
try{
if(this.file != null){
for(int j=0;j < this.file.size();j++){
BodyPart mbp2 = new MimeBodyPart();
javax.activation.DataSource aSource = new URLDataSource(new URL((String) this.file.get(j)));
mbp2.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(aSource));
System.out.println("attached file : " + this.file.get(j));
try{
mbp2.setFileName((String) fileName.get(j));
catch(Exception e){// no filename
mmp.addBodyPart(mbp2);
this.msg.setContent(mmp);
catch(Exception e){
System.out.println("bug with add files " + e);
try{
javax.mail.Transport.send(this.msg);
catch(Exception e){
System.out.println("send mail failed : " + e);
Now the multipart message :
Received: from <snip> with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2650.21)
     id P63WS3KF; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 16:57:07 +0200
Message-ID: <4650852.1031581670610.JavaMail.[snip]>
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 16:27:49 +0200 (CEST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Barbara=A0Post?= <[snip]>
To: <snip>
Subject: Some subject
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238"
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<snip of html code>
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: 69zzz@pc01
<snip of first included image code>
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: 69zzz@pc00
R0lGODlhAQABAID/AMDAwAAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAQAICRAEAOw==
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: 69zzz@pc02
<snip of third included image code>
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: text/xml; name=nop41.xml; charset=Cp1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=nop41.xml
<snip of xml attachement code>
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238
Content-Type: application/pdf; name=nop41lt.pdf
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=nop41lt.pdf
<snip of pdf attachement code>
------=_Part_0_8194658.1031581669238--

Answer 1

Basic message structure required is
*{HEADERS}
*{MULTIPART MIME MESSAGE (RELATED)}
*>>>{PART 1 MULTIPART PART (ALTERNATIVE)}
*>>>>>>{PLAIN TEXT PART}
*>>>>>>{HTML TEXT PART}
*>>>{END PART 1 MULTIPART PART (ALTERNATIVE)}
*>>>{PART 2 INLINE IMAGE FILE (GIF/JPEG etc}
*>>>......
*>>>{PART n     }
*{END MULTIPART MIME MESSAGE (RELATED}
Snippet of code I use, but be aware all the html references to images etc are converted to cid:xxxxxxxxxxxx format outside of this code. No point in sending the image in the message if you refer to it by a url like http://www.foo.org/image1.gif
SH
<Code Snippet>
// create a message
msg = new MimeMessage(session);
msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
msg.setSubject(subject);
// create and fill the first message part with the Title and plain text
MimeBodyPart mbpa1 = new MimeBodyPart();
mbpa1.setText(ho.getTitle() + "\n" + ho.getText());
mbpa1.addHeaderLine("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"");
mbpa1.addHeaderLine("Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable");
// Create and fill the second message part with the HTML code
MimeBodyPart mbpa2 = new MimeBodyPart();
mbpa2.setText(ho.getHTMLCode());
mbpa2.addHeaderLine("Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"");
mbpa2.addHeaderLine("Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable");
// create the Multipart and its parts to it
Multipart mp = new MimeMultipart("related");
Multipart mp2 = new MimeMultipart("alternative");
mp2.addBodyPart(mbpa1);
mp2.addBodyPart(mbpa2);
MimeBodyPart mbp1 = new MimeBodyPart();
mbp1.setContent(mp2);
mp.addBodyPart(mbp1);
if (inline) {
// Enumerate the Image Names and add them to the message
for (Enumeration e = ho.getImageNames(); e.hasMoreElements();) {
String str = e.nextElement().toString();
MimeBodyPart mpi;
URL url2;
String fullStr = ho.getImageUrl(str);
if (inlineAll || ho.isImageLocal(fullStr)) {
if (debug)
System.out.println("Adding: " + fullStr);
url2 = new URL(fullStr);
mpi = new MimeBodyPart();
URLDataSource fds2 = new URLDataSource(url2);
mpi.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(fds2));
// mpi.addHeaderLine("Content-Location: " + fullStr);
if (ho.getCidValue(str).length() > 0)
mpi.setHeader("Content-ID", ho.getCidValue(str));
mp.addBodyPart(mpi);
// add the Multipart to the message
msg.setContent(mp);
// set the Date: header note that the java.sql package also defines date
msg.setSentDate(new java.util.Date());
</Code Snippet>