trying to accept photo as Microsoft chat bot attachment and send it as an email attachment C#

Question

i am trying to accept a photo as an attachment in Microsoft chat-bot waterFall Dialog...then sending it as an attachment or (even in the body) of an email functionality (which i created).. the email functionality seems to be working....however i am unable to pass the photo attachment in the email

it is like:

cannot convert from microsoft bot schema attachment to string

this is my code : the first method is to ask user to upload photo

  private static async Task<DialogTurnResult> UploadAttachmentAsync(WaterfallStepContext stepContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        stepContext.Values["desc"] = (string)stepContext.Result;
        if (lang == "en")
        {
            lang = "en";
            return await stepContext.PromptAsync(

                attachmentPromptId,
                new PromptOptions
                {
                    Prompt = MessageFactory.Text($"Can you upload a ScreenShot of the Error?"),
                });
        }
        else if (lang == "ar")
        {
            lang = "ar";
            return await stepContext.PromptAsync(

               attachmentPromptId,
               new PromptOptions
               {
                   Prompt = MessageFactory.Text($"هل يمكنك تحميل لقطة شاشة للخطأ؟"),
               });
        }
        else return await stepContext.NextAsync(); 


    }

the second method is the upload code itself:

   private async Task<DialogTurnResult> UploadCodeAsync(WaterfallStepContext stepContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {

         List<Attachment> attachments = (List<Attachment>)stepContext.Result;
         string replyText = string.Empty;
         foreach (var file in attachments)
         {
             // Determine where the file is hosted.
             var remoteFileUrl = file.ContentUrl;

             // Save the attachment to the system temp directory.
             var localFileName = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), file.Name);

             // Download the actual attachment
             using (var webClient = new WebClient())
             {
                 webClient.DownloadFile(remoteFileUrl, localFileName);
             }

             replyText += $"Attachment \"{file.Name}\"" +
                          $" has been received and saved to \"{localFileName}\"\r\n";
         }

         return await stepContext.NextAsync();                          
    }

and the third is to store the photo as activity result to pass it later

  private static async Task<DialogTurnResult> ProcessImageStepAsync(WaterfallStepContext stepContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        stepContext.Values["picture"] = ((IList<Attachment>)stepContext.Result)?.FirstOrDefault();
        await stepContext.PromptAsync(nameof(TextPrompt), new PromptOptions { Prompt = MessageFactory.Text("Attachment Recieved...Thank you!!") }, cancellationToken);
        return await stepContext.EndDialogAsync();
    }

and finally the step where i am storing the values i got from each stepcontext and should be passed in an email body: (the attachment is supposed to be stoted in ticketProfile.screenShot)

 private static async Task<DialogTurnResult> SummaryStepAsync(WaterfallStepContext stepContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        var ticketProfile = await _ticketDialogAccessor.GetAsync(stepContext.Context, () => new Ticket(), cancellationToken);

        ticketProfile.userType = (string)stepContext.Values["userType"];
        ticketProfile.staffType = (string)stepContext.Values["staffType"];
        ticketProfile.empIdInfo = (string)stepContext.Values["shareId"];
        ticketProfile.emailInfo = (string)stepContext.Values["shareEmail"];
        ticketProfile.helpType = (string)stepContext.Values["helpType"];
        ticketProfile.describeHelp = (string)stepContext.Values["desc"];
        ticketProfile.screenShot = (Attachment)stepContext.Values["picture"];

        string[] paths = { ".", "adaptiveCard.json" };
        var cardJsonObject = JObject.Parse(File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine(paths)));

        var userEmailValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[0]");
        var userIdValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[1]");
        var userTypeValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[2]");
        var staffTypeValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[3]");
        var helpTypeValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[4]");
        var describeValue = cardJsonObject.SelectToken("body[2].facts[5]");


        userEmailValue["value"] = ticketProfile.emailInfo;
        userIdValue["value"] = ticketProfile.empIdInfo;
        userTypeValue["value"] = ticketProfile.userType;
        staffTypeValue["value"] = ticketProfile.staffType;
        helpTypeValue["value"] = ticketProfile.helpType;
        describeValue["value"] = ticketProfile.describeHelp;


        var attachment = new Attachment()
        {
            Content = cardJsonObject,
            ContentType = "application/vnd.microsoft.card.adaptive"
        };

         var reply = stepContext.Context.Activity.CreateReply();
        reply.Attachments = new List<Attachment>();

        reply.Attachments.Add(attachment);
        await stepContext.Context.SendActivityAsync(reply);
        Email($"Here you go{Environment.NewLine}{ticketProfile.screenShot}");



        return await stepContext.EndDialogAsync(cancellationToken: cancellationToken);
    }

the email function:

 public static void Email(string htmlString)
    {
        try
        {
            MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();
            SmtpClient SmtpServer = new SmtpClient();
            mail.From = new MailAddress("hassanjarko55@gmail.com");

            mail.Subject = "New Ticket";

            mail.Body = htmlString;
            SmtpServer.Port = 587;
            SmtpServer.Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
            SmtpServer.EnableSsl = true;
            SmtpServer.UseDefaultCredentials = false;
            SmtpServer.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("user Name, "password");
            SmtpServer.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network;
            mail.To.Add(new MailAddress("hassan.jarko@yahoo.com"));
            mail.IsBodyHtml = true;

            SmtpServer.Send(mail);
        }

        catch (Exception e)
        {

            e.ToString();

        }
    }



 public class Ticket
{
    public string userType { get; set; }

    public string staffType { get; set; }

    public string helpType { get; set; }

    public string helpWith { get; set; }


    public string describeHelp { get; set; }

    public Attachment screenShot { get; set; }

    public string emailInfo { get; set; }

    public string empIdInfo { get; set; }
}

any help will be much appreciated...thanks in advance

Answer 1

thanks a lot for @Alphonso...appreciate your efforts to hep... i did the following to send the picture received from my chatbot as attachment as an email: 1-moved my email functionality method inside SummaryStepAsync method. 2-downloaded the image accepted from user using WebClient

 string contentURL = ticketProfile.screenShot.ContentUrl;
        string name = ticketProfile.screenShot.Name;
        using (var client = new WebClient())
        {
            client.DownloadFile(contentURL, name);
            client.DownloadData(contentURL);
            client.DownloadString(contentURL);
        }

3-passed it to my email functionality

 try
        {
            HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient();



            //Help Desk Email Settings
            MailMessage helpDeskMail = new MailMessage();
            if (ticketProfile.screenShot != null)
            {
                System.Net.Mail.Attachment data = new System.Net.Mail.Attachment(ticketProfile.screenShot.Name);
                helpDeskMail.Attachments.Add(data);
            }

that's it :)

Answer 2

Have you tried attaching the file name instead of attaching a microsoft.bot.schema.attachment type

also have a look @ this it might help you How do I add an attachment to an email using System.Net.Mail?

Also also in you email function you need to add this code in order to have an attachment in your email

mail.Attachments.Add(new Attachment());

Note: I don't have that big knowledge in C# but I like to participate in these type of questions that have no answers to help the future programmers