Sending an e-mail

If there is one task we can hardly avoid when building web applications it is sending out e-mails. It is such a basic need that CakePHP provides us with a ready-to-go component that can send e-mails, either through SMTP, or using PHP's mail() function.

In this recipe we will learn how to use the Email component to send out e-mails through SMTP using a Google Mail account, and how to use e-mail layouts to proper render the e-mails.

Getting ready

We only need some place to put our code, and that place will be a model-less controller. Create a file named emails_controller.php and place it in your app/controllers folder, with the following contents:

class EmailsController extends AppController {
public $uses = null;
public function index() {
$this->_stop();
}
}

How to do it...

1. 1. Edit your app/controllers/emails_controller.php and add the following property to the EmailsController class (right below the uses property declaration), replacing the username and password settings...