Programmatically send shipping/tracking mail

Question

In Magento 1.4, I am successfully using this code to mark an order as Complete and add a shipping tracking code to it :

$order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($increment_id);

if($order->canShip())
{
$itemQty =  $order->getItemsCollection()->count();
$ship = Mage::getModel('sales/service_order', $order)->prepareShipment($itemQty);
$ship = new Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Shipment_Api();
$shipmentId = $ship->create($increment_id);
}

$shipment_collection = Mage::getResourceModel('sales/order_shipment_collection');
$shipment_collection->addAttributeToFilter('order_id', $order_id);

foreach($shipment_collection as $sc) {
    $shipment = Mage::getModel('sales/order_shipment');
    $shipment->load($sc->getId());
    if($shipment->getId() != '') { 
        $track = Mage::getModel('sales/order_shipment_track')
                 ->setShipment($shipment)
                 ->setData('title', $type)
                 ->setData('number', $code)
                 ->setData('carrier_code', 'custom')
                 ->setData('order_id', $shipment->getData('order_id'))
                 ->save();
        }
} 

It is working properly, but I cannot find the right piece of code I need to send shipment confirmation mail to customer, as when you check the right box and validate shipping in magento backend.

Thank you a lot in advance for your help.

Answer 1

                if($shipment){
                    if(!$shipment->getEmailSent()){
                        $shipment->sendEmail(true);
                        $shipment->setEmailSent(true);
                        $shipment->save();                          
                    }
                }   

Answer 2

I spent alot of time messing with this myself...instead of using the sales/order_shipment_track model to add tracking, you can use the same Api you used to create the shipment, and then follow that with the Api's sendInfo() method to send the shipment email with tracking info. (renamed $ship from OP's example to $shipmentApi)

    //add tracking info ($shippingCarrier is case sensitive)
    $shipmentApi->addTrack($shipmentIncrementId, $shippingCarrier, $shippingTitle, $trackingNumber);

    //send shipment email with tracking info
    $shipmentApi->sendInfo($shipmentIncrementId);

Full example:

if($order->canShip()){

    $shipmentApi = Mage::getModel('sales/order_shipment_api');

    //pass false for email, unless you want Magento to send the shipment email without any tracking info
    //could also be written as $shipmentIncrementId = $shipmentApi->create($order->getIncrementId());
    $shipmentIncrementId = $shipmentApi->create($order->getIncrementId(), array(), '' , false, 0); 

    //add tracking info ($shippingCarrier is case sensitive)
    $shipmentApi->addTrack($shipmentIncrementId, $shippingCarrier, $shippingTitle, $trackingNumber);

    //send shipment email with tracking info
    $shipmentApi->sendInfo($shipmentIncrementId);
}

See app\code\core\Mage\Sales\Model\Order\Shipment\Api.php for all methods.