Help creating a mailto-less web form...

[rdale]

Hi,

Please excuse the crude visual in the attachment, but it shows roughly what I'd like to accomplish.

What I want to set up is a method of allowing communication via a web page that would send a user's feedback\comments to a (restricted access\login to view from browser ?) web page. All this in a text file. I'd like to avoid the pitfalls of using a mailto to keep from being bombarded with spam. Figured that text files are safe...

Is there an easy to use cgi script (with setup instructions) available that would be appropriate? Does this need to be done with php, .htaccess? Even though I know nil about cgi and php, I figured that I might not need to, just enough to make this work.

Thanks to anyone that can get me pointed in the right direction. If I'm attempting to make this harder than it needs to be, I'd appreciate knowing that also...

 

[oddchild]

ok what you need to do... is use a form that posts into a txt file

 

[firecracker]

Easiest route would be PHP for me. Which would give you two useful opions.

Firstly, you can configure PHP to write <form> data straight to a text file on your server's disc, or just a simple, use PHP's built in email function to send the <form> data straight to the email account you specify.

With the first option you may have to also use the .htaccess route to secure the folder that you want to store the text files in, for the second, the data will not be stored, so you wouldn't have to bother with the .htaccess.

I only have basic experience myself, but here goes...

1. Ensure PHP is installed and running on your server.
2. Create a form, like the one you have a picture of, and give the fields useful names...

Rough exanmple...

<form method="post" action="myformhandler.php">
<input type="text" name="uname" />
<input type="text" name="umessage" />
<input type="text" name="uemail" />
<input type="submit" value="submit" />

3. When the user presses submit, the data in the fields uname, umessage, uemail, etc
will be passed straight to the myformhandler.php script, and processed according to the requirements you choose.

4. You'll obviously need the PHP script, which I can let you have a sample copy of if you want, which you can modify to suit - it's very simple.

5. If you go down the text file route, then thats very simple to, however, you'll need to modify your apache server ini file to secure a directory of choice. I've managed to do this, and when you go to access that folder via a link, you get presented with a Log On dialogue, which I think is what you are looking for. Again, if you want the specifics then let me know.

If you Google "free php scripts" you'll soon get plenty of sites with free example code to do exactly what you're looking for. (Which is one of the ways I learned )

 

[rdale]

Wow ! Thanks...

I'm trying to get my head around the mechanics involved to get this to work, and you've given me alot to work with firecracker, thank you. I'll reference this again this evening and direct my questions to Google. Really appreciate the time you took to get me going. Heading out the door right now...

rd