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How do you put a variable in a shell command line?

Shell("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe /c ipm.note /m mailto:name@comcast.net&subject=Retrofits%21&body=txtRetrofitPartNumber.text")

I have the above command line in a Visual Basic Button_Click event. When I click the button a pre-addressed, pre-formatted new e-mail message pops up. To: name@comcast.net, Subject: Retrofits. This is what I want so far. In the body I have the literal txtRetrofitPartNumber.text. n my program that is a variable. It is a textbox that the text will change from time to time. I want my e-mail to have the text that was typed into txtretrofitPartNumber.text not the literal "txtRetrofitPartNumber.text" Any ideas how to do that?

Joel Coehoorn

Shell("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe /c ipm.note /m mailto:name@comcast.net&subject=Retrofits%21&body=" & txtRetrofitPartNumber.text)

That was the simple answer. The complete answer is that Shell is included for compatibility with VB6, and you should really move on to using System.Diagnostics.Process() (or just Process() ) instead. Then build the string like I show above.

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Jaime Olivares

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Jaime Olivares

notice your text should be very short and simple. Will be better if you use UrlEnconding to avoid invalid characters in body text:

Shell("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe /c ipm.note /m mailto:name@comcast.net&subject=Retrofits%21&body=" & _
System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(txtRetrofitPartNumber.Text))