If I’m not mistaken, it’s normal that you don’t have a layout after $view_helper->action('exemple', 'Mycontroller','mymodule');
Indeed, a layout is a call to the postDisatch () plugin Zend_Layout_Controller_Plugin_Layout.
You can still try:
"mail.phtml" :
echo $this->layout()->content;
:
$view_helper = new Zend_View_Helper_Action();
$html_content = $view_helper->action('exemple', 'Mycontroller','mymodule');
$layout_path = $this->_helper->layout()->getLayoutPath();
$layout_mail = new Zend_Layout();
$layout_mail->setLayoutPath($layout_path)
->setLayout('mail');
$layout_mail->content = $html_content;
$mail_content = $layout_mail->render();
var_dump($mail_content);