Sending a PDF as an attachment but from a Console

Question

So, some background. I have created a visualforce page that displays a Case and renders it as a PDF. This works fine. I have included it on a Case Page Layout as a Detail Button and it correctly formats all the information when clicked.

I have now created a second Visualforce page that uses the standard case controller and a new extension class. This is intended to email a recipient with the PDF page above attached. I have added it to the page layout as a detail button and in my tests or if I run it via salesforce classic it works.

However our Org uses the Service Cloud Console and I want to load this functionality from there. Obviously the page layout contains the button so I click it, I enter the email address and click send (I can see the case controller is working as the page displays the casenumber etc). On receipt of the email I always receive an unformatted/broken/blank PDF document and for the life of me I don't know why.

Can anyone shed any light as to why it would work in my tests but not in the console?

Thanks - I haven't included my code above as it seems to be working if you think it would help I can copy the code in.

EDIT: Attachment code below:

public with sharing class PDFEmailController {
    private final Case cs;
    public String caseID {get;set;}
    public String email {get;set;}

    public PDFEmailController(ApexPages.StandardController controller) {
        this.cs = (Case)controller.getRecord();
    }


     public PageReference sendPdf() {

    PageReference pdf = Page.PDFPAGE123;
    // add parent id to the parameters for standardcontroller
     pdf.getParameters().put('id',cs.ID);
    // the contents of the attachment from the pdf
    Blob body;


    try {

      // returns the output of the page as a PDF
      body = pdf.getContent();

    // need to pass unit test -- current bug  
    } catch (VisualforceException e) {
      body = Blob.valueOf('Some Text');
    }

    Messaging.EmailFileAttachment attach = new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment();
    attach.setContentType('application/pdf');
    attach.setFileName('testPdf.pdf');
    attach.setInline(false);
    attach.Body = body;

    Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
    mail.setUseSignature(false);
    mail.setToAddresses(new String[] { email });
    mail.setSubject('PDF TESTING');
    mail.setHtmlBody('<p>Please see attached</p>');
    mail.setFileAttachments(new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment[] { attach }); 

    // Send the email
    Messaging.sendEmail(new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage[] { mail });

    ApexPages.addMessage(new ApexPages.Message(ApexPages.Severity.INFO,  cs.CaseNumber + ' with PDF sent to '+email));

    return null;

  }

Edit - as comment, I changed it to getContentAsPDF() and this returns an almost blank PDF document (it only lists the visualforce page and controller with an x on the right hand side).

Answer 1

Rather hilariously the problem was quite simple - I needed to disable "Development Mode" for my user.

• Click "User Name"
• Click "My Settings"
• Click "Personal"
• Click "Advanced User Details"
• Untick "Development Mode"