Emailing web form information to me

[Martin]

Hello. I have created a web form in my web site for the user to convey
information. On submit, I chose the option of emailing me the form
responses. My problem is that when submit is clicked, the user gets the
"HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found. Internet Information Services
(IIS)" error. I have contacted my ISP Earthlink and they assure me that they
support FrontPage extensions. I have Publisher 2007, Vista Home Premium SP
1, MS Outlook email. Thanks in advance.

 

[DavidF]

If you are using forms in your web publication, reference: Publisher web
publication forms 101:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/07/80564.aspx
Just because your ISP supports FPSE doesn't mean they are activated and
working. Test them as per the article since you did not provide the URL to
your website. If you uploaded with FTP vs. HTTP, then you may have to
reinstall the FPSE, as FTP uploading can corrupt them.

Reference: How to publish a Publisher web in HTTP:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/pages/80557.aspx
For the way to upload using HTTP uploading protocol with IE6.

Prepare, publish, and maintain your Publisher Web site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100947601033.aspx
It is written for Pub 2007, but if you are using IE7 instead of IE6, then
the directions for using Vista would apply. FTP uploading has changed with
the introduction of IE7. Pay particular attention to the instructions for
FTP uploading in Vista. You can probably modify these to use HTTP and
mapping a network drive.

If you cannot figure out how to map the drive, you might ask your ISP. You
might also decide to use just an email link for contacting you, or perhaps a
javascript form that you can insert via the code fragment feature.

DavidF

 

[Martin]

Hello again -

I studied the linked documents and verified that FPSE is installed per the
article . I also verified with my host what my http protocol url is. I went
through the step by step in How to publish a Publisher web in HTTP and when I
went to save the index file in the http location I got this error: The folder
that this web page would use to organize supporting files is already reserved
for use in the current location. Please choose a different name or location
for this web page.

I changed the name of the web page and that didn't work either. FYI I was
never prompted for my user ID and password. Maybe that comes later in the
process. URL is custompcprogramming.com. I do have a direct email link
which works fine but I wanted the form option as well. Thanks again.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Martin,

Are you trying to upload to http://custompcprogramming.com/ or to a
folder such as http://custompcprogramming.com/http_docs/ or maybe
/public_html/

Usually there is a specific folder you need to upload files to.

Mike

 

[DavidF]

As you are using IE7, the directions for HTTP uploading that are described
in How to publish a Publisher web in HTTP no longer work. I gave you that
article primarily for reference. Instead you need to map a network drive
much as the description for ftp uploading with Vista in the last article:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100947601033.aspx

------------
In Windows Vista
1.. On the File menu, click Publish to the Web.
2.. In the Publish to the Web dialog box, click Tools, and then click Map
Network Drive.
3.. In the Map Network Drive dialog box, do the following:
a.. In the Drive list, click a drive letter. You can choose any
available letter.
b.. To connect every time that you log on to your computer, select the
Reconnect at logon check box.
c.. Click Connect to a Web site that you can use to store your documents
and pictures.
4.. In the Add Network Location Wizard, click Next, click Choose a custom
network location, and then click Next.
5.. In the Internet or network address box, type the address of the FTP
site (for example, type ftp://ftp.microsoft.com), and then click Next.
Note If you cannot connect to a network drive or folder, the computer
might be turned off or you might not have the correct permissions. If you
can't connect, contact your network administrator or ISP.

6.. If you do not want to log on anonymously, clear the Log on anonymously
check box, type a user name in the User name box, and then click Next.
7.. Type a name for this network location, and then click Next.
8.. Click Finish.
-------------

The difference is that you need to "map your drive" using your http address
instead of the ftp address. Unfortunately I do not have Vista installed, so
can not verify the exact procedure and MSFT has not provided it anywhere I
know. In past discussions with other posters they had success by using My
Computer or Windows Explorer to map the drive, then published their web
files to their local drive, and drag and dropped the index.htm file and the
index_files FOLDER of files that Publisher produces to the network drive on
the server on the host. You can no longer publish through IE. I would
suggest that you focus on figuring out how to map the drive using http...and
I am sorry I cannot give you more detailed instructions on how to do that.
In fact, if you do figure it out, I would appreciate you posting back your
steps, so I could help others with details in the future.

Here is one other set of instructions that I found that might also help you
sort out the specifics steps needed to map a network drive:

--------------

1.. Click Start, and then click Computer.
2.. On the actions bar, click Map network drive, then click Connect to a
Web site that you can use to store your documents and pictures.
3.. In the Add Network Location wizard, click Next.
4.. Select Choose a custom network location, and then click Next.
5.. In the Internet or network address box, type the address for your Web
site (for example, http://mydomain.com), and then click Next.
6.. If prompted, type your user name and password, and then click OK.
7.. If you want to give this new location a name, in the Type a new name
for this network location box, type a name, and then click Next.
The name should be one that you easily recognize as your Web site file
folder.

8.. To open the new connection, select the Open this network location when
I click Finish box, and then click Finish.
A folder window opens and all of the files on your Web site appear.

Your new network location appears when you open the Computer view on your
computer. You can access your Web site files by clicking this location

---------------

I would also again say that if you used FTP uploading to get the current
copy of your files uploaded to your site, then chances are you will need to
uninstall and reinstall the FPSE as FTP uploading corrupts the FPSE. This
can be true even when you test: http://custompcprogramming.com/_vti_inf.html
and you get confirmation of the server extensions being installed. You may
also need to delete the old Publisher generated files from the server prior
to reinstalling the FPSE.

And finally, you might have a problem with how you built the form itself, so
for testing purposes you might want to use the name, telephone and email
address only while you are testing, and then add in other form controls
after you get it working.

Here is another link with more information about forms:
Reference: Web forms:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH063576891033.aspx

Once again, I regret not being able to give you more specific and succinct
directions. Hopefully someday soon MSFT will be more forthcoming with some
help about this process.

DavidF

 

[Martin]

First off, Mike and DavidF thanks much for the help. I believe I see what
we're driving at here. I have requested some additional information from the
web host and I will see what I can do. If this works out, I'll document
everything and relay it. It just plain shouldn't be this difficult. This
should be click - click - click and finished. Thanks again.

 

[drg]

Ooops slight problem in your comment. Vista x64 does not permit publishing
web pages because it won't accept page names of the form
http://blogsite.co.uk:nnnn/public_html
and therefore will not map them.

 

[DavidF]

Hi Dave G,

Thanks for your comment. As I suggested in my comments, I do not have Vista
installed, so I cannot work out the specifics steps involved. However I
think that if you use the second method I suggested, by first mapping the
drive via My Computer instead of as a step in the publishing process you
might still be successful.

In your example of http://blogsite.co.uk:nnnn/public_html I must admit that
I have never seen a colon in a http address, so perhaps that changes
everything (there are lots of things I haven't seen). However, many hosts
have a default folder such as "public_html" that you are supposed to upload
your web files to. Some don't. However, if you can map a drive to your
primary http://blogsite.co.uk or http://blogsite.co.uk:nnnn through My
Computer, then in the future when you click on that drive you should see the
subfolder public_html along with any other web host files and folders appear
under that mapped drive. Personally I prefer to work with Windows Explorer
because of the folder view and file tree, which makes it easier to see this
file directory and how it organized...or click folder view in Computer.

Then publishing your Publisher web files is a two step process. You first
Publish to the web and direct your Publisher web files to a folder on your
local computer where you can find them. Unless you change the default
settings that will be an "index.htm" file and a "index_files" folder. Step
two, or should I say one and a half is to open Windows Explorer or Computer
and connect to the mapped drive to your server, by simply clicking on that
drive. You might have to reenter your username and password to login. Then
you can simply drag and drop the index.htm file and the index_files folder
to the public_html folder on your host. Of course this will still be
dependent upon FPSE being installed.

It is also possible that when you Publish to the Web that you can choose to
direct your web files and folder to My Computer or Computer, however it is
called instead of the two step process assuming that you can map the drive
directly to the public_html folder. However, I would focus on trying to get
the two step approach to work first.

Does this make sense?

DavidF

 

[drg]

Thankyou for that.

To deal with your comments on Vista, it is the mapping via 'my computer'
that I'm referring to. The port or access number after the colon works just
fine and dandy in XP either of the form blogsite.co.uk:nnnn where nnnn is the
number needed to access the site as folders and files, or:mmmm where that
different number is the one needed to access the host's control panel.

I didn't know there was any other way, and it's the one the host site shows.
Learn something every day!

Mind you, if you can struggle past that barrier, it still doesn't recognise
any user name password that I can think of (and that XP happily accepts) so
it's back to XP.

Turning back to the original question, my host definitely has FPE turned on,
and as re-installing these extensions is under my direct control, I'm fairly
confident about that. I've checked IIS and can find no problems and I can
load a CGI script without trouble. What I can't do is either find out what
causes the webbot-fault, or indeed the other bug that causes Publisher to
tell you that the supporting files folder is already in use and cannot be
overwritten. Publishing is orf! Thinking that was something to do with the
"file/folder" relationship introduced in XP, I carefully deleted both but to
no effect. It might be that the host isn't flushing through directory changes
as fast at it would appear, and I should merely give it time, but after a
week that doesn't seem to be the case. It still refuses to allow me to
publish to an internet file (although it did just the once - but that was
under the dreaded Vista, so I don't know what terrible corruption that's left
all over the host's site!!

At the moment I'm compiling to a local directory and uploading those files
to the remote host and living in hope that I find a fix to the 'order
form/guest book/Webbot-self' problem by osmosis. Even the sample order form
in the latest upgraded version of Publisher operating under the latest
upgraded version of XPPro fails dismally with the same error.

Even if I could recognise the fault, editing Publisher's source code (as
opposed to HTML fragments) seems to be a nightmare because Publisher just
changes it back, and then uploads in a 'filtered' standard, meant only to
confuse.

Looking back, first reports of this webbot-self design flaw where reported
10 years ago. Shall we have a party?

Ouch!

Help gratefully accepted.

 

[DavidF]

I have read your response a couple times and am not clear about what you are
doing. What is the name of the company that hosts your site? What is the URL
of your site? Which version of Publisher are you using?

I have never heard of the need to add a port number to the http address. Are
there instructions on your host that describe the need for this? Give us a
link.

If you have uploaded via FTP at all, then even though you may have had FPSE
enabled and working, they are probably corrupt now. You generally cannot use
both FTP uploading and FPSE uploading. You may need to reinstall the FPSE.
Did you read the instructions and test the FPSE as described in Reference:
Publisher web publication forms
101:http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/07/80564.aspx

As you are able to get CGI scripts to work, have you considered forgoing the
use of FPSE and using the form program provided by your host? This is also
discussed in the referenced article. By moving away from FPSE for your form,
you can switch to FTP uploading which is generally easier.

Publisher is not a code editor. Each time you make a change in the Publisher
document and publish again, Publisher produces new code so if you edited the
code it will be overwritten. If you insert a code snippet into the page via
the insert html code fragment tool, then it will be reproduced each time
your republish. If you need to edit the code manually, then you will have to
redo it each time you republish.

Get back with the answers to the questions, and perhaps I can help further.

DavidF