Feedback form won't appear, either in HTML or PHP

[Derek-F]

May I seek the advice of the experts? I am new to web design and know almost nothing about coding.

I have managed to create a multipage, multilevel site using NOF 10, which uploads and works well in HTML. However, having successfully 'munged' the e-addresses using the excellent Tutorial #4047 from gotFusion, I decided to include a simple e-mail feedback form, using the code obtained from Address Munger. The block of code was inserted in the HTML of the hidden Contact page and added to the whole site. When the link is clicked the page comes up with the code, not the expected form. My ISP allows CGI so I think I followed their help pages, renamed the contact page .php, and reloaded the site to the CGI server. Now the whole site has corrupted elements on every page and still the contact form doesn't work.

The ISP's PHP/CGI pages and corresponding forum assume a level of coding and knowledge of other aspects that way above my capability. The advice/instructions are too complicated for me to understand and I am utterly bewildered. Having seen and used much of the guidance offered to others on this message board to get my site to where it is, I hope the experts can help me on this one. Failing that I shall have to resort to restricting myself to another 'munged' e-address for the Webmaster but it won't look as stylish or competent.

I shall be grateful for any assistance

Derek

[Derek-F]

Coming back to this problem in a fresher state of mind than last night, I think I have found a couple of mistakes in positioning the Address Munger code. Please consider this question on 'Hold' while I investigate, but I might have to reopen the topic.
Thanks,
Derek.

[gotFusion]

If you find any parts of the tutorial confusing let me know so that I can correct it.

The munger code sections go into 2 separate areas (document head and document body).

[Derek-F]

Thanks for your offer, Mike, but I wasn't aware of a tutorial for the AddressMunger.com PHP Contact Form Generator. I have only found your tutorials for hiding e-addresses, which is model of simplicity, and the Fusion Forms Handler.

Using the A/M PHP C/F Generator, I stumble at the first block of code, for the contact form. Should it go in the Page HTML inside 'Body tag' or should it be inserted in the page via a box and CTRL T as with the e-address tutorial? I stumble again, in understanding meaning of Instruction 3: "Enter the text into a file called 'mailform.php' and put it in the same folder that your contact form will be in." Does 'file' really mean 'folder'? If not, I'm perplexed about how to do that. Same query applies to Instruction 4; file or folder.

I warned that I'm new to web design and know almost nothing.

Derek.

[gotFusion]

I think you are trying to make things more difficult than you need to.

If you just need a simple contact form and don't want to mess with the formhandler component or working with 3rd party scripts or writing your own contact form to email script you can go to one of the 3rd party forms processing web sites, set up an account , and generate a block of code that will be processed on the 3rd party site and they will send you the email form input.

I have suggested http://www.123contactform.com/ to several users and all are happy with the results.

They have Free processing for basic forms to email. Most user's needs fit in to the free/basic level.

Just go there, create a form, generate the code, then copy/paste it into any Fusion page using this method: http://www.gotfusion.com/tutorials/t...emID=4068#body

[Derek-F]

Thanks, again, Mike. Your tutorial on inserting coding is elegantly simple, and 123contactform.com looks straightforward, but I'm seriously jaded after last night's marathon so I'll register and obtain the info tomorrow.

All I'm left with, now, is the worry over whether PHP and CGI will be as easily overcome. Presumably as soon as PHP is invoked it is obligatory to go the CGI route....or will the code cater for this via HTML?

Derek.

[gotFusion]

Thanks, again, Mike. Your tutorial on inserting coding is elegantly simple, and 123contactform.com looks straightforward, but I'm seriously jaded after last night's marathon so I'll register and obtain the info tomorrow.

All I'm left with, now, is the worry over whether PHP and CGI will be as easily overcome. Presumably as soon as PHP is invoked it is obligatory to go the CGI route....or will the code cater for this via HTML?

Derek.

If you use the 123 contact form web site, all you are dealing with is every day plain vanilla html. The form sends the information to their web site and their web servers process the form information and send an email to who ever you specified when you went through their create form wizard.

No PHP. No CGI. No muss. No fuss

[Derek-F]

Thanks, again, Mike.

You were right about 123contactform.co being easy to use. It worked first time and looks very neat. I wish I had checked a bit further back in this forum before getting too deeply embroiled. I'd have saved myself a lot of hassle. Ain't hindsight wonderful!

Derek.

[Tinkerer]

"Derek-F" <Derek-F.4nop2n@no-mx.forums.netobjects.com> wrote in message
newserek-F.4nop2n@no-mx.forums.netobjects.com...
>
> May I seek the advice of the experts? I am new to web design and know
> almost nothing about coding.
>
> I have managed to create a multipage, multilevel site using NOF 10,
> which uploads and works well in HTML. However, having successfully
> 'munged' the e-addresses using the excellent Tutorial #4047 from
> gotFusion, I decided to include a simple e-mail feedback form, using the
> code obtained from Address Munger. The block of code was inserted in the
> HTML of the hidden Contact page and added to the whole site. When the
> link is clicked the page comes up with the code, not the expected form.
> My ISP allows CGI so I think I followed their help pages, renamed the
> contact page .php, and reloaded the site to the CGI server. Now the
> whole site has corrupted elements on every page and still the contact
> form doesn't work.
>
> The ISP's PHP/CGI pages and corresponding forum assume a level of
> coding and knowledge of other aspects that way above my capability. The
> advice/instructions are too complicated for me to understand and I am
> utterly bewildered. Having seen and used much of the guidance offered to
> others on this message board to get my site to where it is, I hope the
> experts can help me on this one. Failing that I shall have to resort to
> restricting myself to another 'munged' e-address for the Webmaster but
> it won't look as stylish or competent.
>
> I shall be grateful for any assistance
>


I know that this thread is complete and the OP used a third party supplier
but I thought I would just post this because it seemed to work very easily
and even a novice like me managed to do it. Here goes then, if anyone has
any further advice (like changing the order of fields in the resulting email
or making it more user friendly) I would welcome it.

Create Page.



In Properties select "Layout is Form".



Ensure that Form Tools bar is visible (if not, tick in View menu).



Select Method as Post



In Action select Form Handler (PHP) or whatever your hosting site supports.



Set SMTP server with IP address of your web hosting company's outgoing email
server (use Ping to get it or ask the company).



Set From as name or email address that you want to appear in From box of
email.



Set To as the email address you want it to go to.



Set Subject as the subject line you want in the email.



Set successful url as the FULL web address of the page you want to go to
after submitting the data.



CSV Filepath and File Upload Folder are not needed if you are only sending
the data by email.



(To reach this setup later, highlight the Layout, click on the word "Form"
at top left of layout and set them by double clicking the item you want to
change in properties).



After this is all done, Insert a normal (not Form) table and enter Field
Names in left cells (no text box required). I tried with a Form Table but
it did not work although that could have been my fault. Insert Form Fields
(Editable Text, Multi Line, Combo Box etc) in the order that they are to
appear in the resulting email. You can do this without a table using Field
Labels for the Field Names but alignment on screen is iffy.



Create Submit button and Reset button.



IMPORTANT - create the fields in the right order, I couldn't change it
afterwards other than by deleting back to the error and recreating from
there on. You can change tab order (right click on form and select tabs
item) but this does not affect the order that they appear in on the email.



Publish to your test site and test.

--
Tinkerer

[gotFusion]

Here goes then, if anyone has
any further advice (like changing the order of fields in the resulting email
or making it more user friendly) I would welcome it.

In Action select Form Handler (PHP) or whatever your hosting site supports.

Set SMTP server with IP address of your web hosting company's outgoing email
server (use Ping to get it or ask the company).

--
Tinkerer

If I understand you correctly, you are using your host's form processing script or you are using a 3rd party processing script.

If you are using the script that is on your host server you cannot make any changes to it.

If you are using a 3rd party script and you are VERY good in the programing language that the script was written in you can edit the script to customize it for your form. Just remember that if you use multiple forms, you are using the 1 script to process them all and you may get "odd" results if the 2 forms are not very close in content.

If your host supports the ColdFusion dynamic language you can easily write your own form and processing in less time that it took me to answer this forum post. AND since you are writing it and it is specific to a single form you can customize it to your heart's content.

If you want to take a look at a custom formated form email you can run through my CF form processing example that I wrote 8 years ago. The page will ask you to log in but it is available to anyone with a free level membership at gotFusion. I had to set the page to log in as an old friend on a DW group got "spammed" from the form. Turns out it was a mutual friend who was sending form results to his email address (backtracked the IP address to the prankster). The form and processing are hijack proof so I knew it had to be someone running through the form and sending the results to my friend. Don't worry about signing up for a free membership. I have never contacted any one of the 13k + registered users, never used direct mail, and don't plan on it

CF form to email processing example is here: http://www.gotfusion.com/tutstd/cfform/

It will process your input and send you a formated email so you can see how flexable/customizable ColdFusion form to email processing can be. It will surprise you.