Help with understanding a contact form

sutty · 17-03-2008 12:10am #1

Hello all, I've just started my own company and am doing up a site from a template I found online for Dreamweaver. (I should say at this time I have never done any coding...what so ever) I'm on the contact section and I want to put in a form with Name, email, Subject and then a text body. I have one for the template but dont know how to edit/modify it to send the forum to me in a email or any other way that it might be done. Here is the code that I have...

<form name="form1" method="post" action="">
              <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4">
                <tr> 
                  <td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Name:</b></td>
                  <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="textfield" type="text" size="30"> 
                  </td>
                </tr>
                <tr> 
                  <td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Email:</b></td>
                  <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="textfield2" type="text" size="30"> 
                  </td>
                </tr>
                <tr> 
                  <td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Subject:</b></td>
                  <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="textfield2" type="text" size="30"> 
                  </td>
                </tr>
                <tr> 
                  <td valign="top" align="right" width="10%"><b>Message:</b></td>
                  <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <textarea name="textfield2" rows="5" cols="30"></textarea> 
                  </td>
                </tr>
                <tr> 
                  <td width="10%" align="right">&nbsp; </td>
                  <td colspan="2"> <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Send"> 
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </table>
            </form>

I take it what I want to edit is the "action" at the top. But what do I put in there? Any thoughts?

yeraulone · 17-03-2008 1:28pm

You'll need a script to process the form and send it to an email address. What type of server will the site be hosted on (windows or linux)? Does it support php or asp? There are other options too like CGI etc.

Design_Dude · 17-03-2008 4:47pm

You want one that the info will get sent straight to you? I can make you one, with an autoresponder back to the person as well if you want. And you wont need any script hosting (asp etc) its all in the html script.

Liam Byrne · 17-03-2008 7:14pm

Design_Dude wrote: »

You want one that the info will get sent straight to you? I can make you one, with an autoresponder back to the person as well if you want. And you wont need any script hosting (asp etc) its all in the html script.

How is that possible, Design_Dude ?

I know that you could (in theory) do a mailto: but if someone's using an internet cafe or uses hotmail, gmail, etc, then it won't work.

Webmonkey · 17-03-2008 8:41pm

You can do it through the server if you have PHP.
Havn't tested it though and looks messy sorry but no time atm.

Something like:

[php]<?php
$sent = $_GET;

if (isset($_GET))
{
$name = $_POST;
$email = $_POST;
$subject = $_POST;
$message = $_POST;

$receiveremail = 'youremail@yourhost.com';
$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

// Additional headers
$headers .= 'From: '.$email."\r\n";
$message = '<html>
<head>
<title>We got an Email!</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style>
body{
font-family: arial;
font-size: 12px;
}
</style>
</head>

<body>
<p>Hi,<br>
A message was sent from {MySite}<br>
From: <strong>'.$name.'</strong><br>
Their Email: <strong>'.$email.'</strong><br></p>
Their Subject: <strong>'.$subject.'</strong><br></p>
<p>Their Message:<br> <strong>'.$message.'</strong></p>
</body>
</html>
';

if (@mail($receiveremail,"A New Contact From {MySite}",$message,$headers))
{

print "<p align=\"left\">Thanks for your message! We will receive it shortly.</p><br>";
print "<p align=\"left\"><strong>Name: </strong>".$name."<br>
<strong>Email: </strong> ".$email."<br>
<strong>Query: </strong> ".$query."</p>";
} else
{
print "<p><strong>We are sorry</strong>, the server is experiencing some difficulty at the moment.<br /> Please try again later or refresh the page.</p>";
}
}
else
{
?>
<form name="form1" method="post" action="<?php $_SERVER; ?>?sent=true">
<table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4">
<tr>
<td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Name:</b></td>
<td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="name" type="text" size="30">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Email:</b></td>
<td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="email" type="text" size="30">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="10%" align="right" valign="top"><b>Subject:</b></td>
<td colspan="2" valign="top"> <input name="subject" type="text" size="30">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right" width="10%"><b>Message:</b></td>
<td colspan="2" valign="top"> <textarea name="message" rows="5" cols="30"></textarea>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="10%" align="right"> </td>
<td colspan="2"> <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Send">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<?php
} //end else
?>[/php]

Design_Dude · 17-03-2008 11:30pm

Liam Byrne wrote: »

How is that possible, Design_Dude ?

I know that you could (in theory) do a mailto: but if someone's using an internet cafe or uses hotmail, gmail, etc, then it won't work.

It uses a different website as its server for sending the emails, and also send an automated response if you want.

Bob the Builder · 18-03-2008 12:21am

hey,

what I usually use, and what I think you should use as well is this. You type in the variables of the contact forum and it will output three files that you can copy and paste onto your page.it saves so much time.

Good Luck.
Nev

Design_Dude · 18-03-2008 12:29am

Yea, ive used that, its pretty good alrite:)

Liam Byrne · 18-03-2008 1:12pm

Design_Dude wrote: »

It uses a different website as its server for sending the emails, and also send an automated response if you want.

OK, that explains it.....it DOES use php/asp/cf/perl or whatever, but it's just that he doesn't need to host it.

Cheers!

Design_Dude · 18-03-2008 1:35pm

aye

sutty · 20-03-2008 12:48pm

Cool thanks for the reply's lads, I got it working in the end by finding a scripting tool on my web hosting service provider. One thing I am interested in doing now is adding in a anti spam random number gen and key entry field. Would this be hard to do? What would I need to be able to host the gen local to my site (so I am not dependent on an other website/server being up)

Help with understanding a contact form

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