David
The verify form is working
Check it out here (my test site)
http://www.gizmomind.info/mail/
The other PHP works for me but not on some servers of the FREE variety
Posted the other one on Cannot find page-cgimail thread
Spike
David
Good response. Each time I write ISP I keep telling my self that
someone somewhere is going to go to AOL and look for their site,
then I
get over it. You are correct, I should refer to the hosting service.
I
use to do absolute paths until I figured out the relative ones. As
you
said, there are some newbie's here and absolute is better to get
things
started. I do have some PHP things I am working on that REQUIRE
absolute
paths. As far as the help areas, when people post their hosting
service
I go to my search engine and enter forms and the hosting service and
most
of the time I get what I need. That seems faster than going on line
to
the host and looking for help. Example: enter forms godaddy into
Google
and scroll down to the godaddy link
"
http://help.godaddy.com/article/512" and there it is.
I have two PHP mailers just about ready. One is a straight forward
form
mailer working with publisher forms and the other is script form that
requires the sender to put in a 4 number code to send (stops
spammers).
Spike
Spike,
Good job. I will try to follow the instructions myself when I have
time
to see where or if things are unclear to me. A few first impressions
though:
Though Publisher uses 'ISP' I think that may be confusing to some as
my
ISP is not where I host my website. Instead of using just 'ISP',
perhaps
it would be useful to define 'ISP/website host' at least the first
time
you use ISP or just use 'website host' instead. Perhaps this is picky
as
I knew what you meant, but others might not.
You alluded to this several times, but you might be more specific
about
how different ISPs/Website hosts offer different form handler
programs,
and that the user should go to their webhost 'help' section, or
perhaps
'Support', 'Knowledge Base' or maybe even 'FAQs section' to find what
form handler the host supports and the directions for using their
form
handler. From my experience of going to the various hosts this
information can be hard to find sometimes, so I also always look for
a
search field in the 'help' section and search for 'forms'. That
almost
always saves me time in finding the information. I am of course not
suggesting that you use all these words, but perhaps in your own more
succinct style ;-), give the poster a little more direction of how to
find what forms their host supports and how to find the directions.
Once
they do, chances are your directions will be work in general
regardless
of what forms handler program they have.
You and Don tend to use relative links and paths, but I think that it
might be more clear if posters use absolute links/paths in general.
For
example when you double click the submit button, and then the 'form
properties' button, and the 'use a program from my ISP' then this is
what is given as the sample link:
http://example.microsoft.com/~user/ispscript.cgi I guess what I am
saying is that people can sometimes understand an absolute link
easier
than they can a relative one.
I will try your directions to see if I can follow the rest but it
looks
like good information. I will look forward to trying out your PHP
directions too. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I think
helping people move away from FPSE is a good idea...especially since
they can use FTP uploading.
DavidF
David
I put together a routine that I use with success: Look it over
please
and see if I make sense. I will do another one for PHP. I am
leaning
towards PHP more and more as it is somewhat easier if you like
modifying scripts.
======
CGI Mail form
If your ISP supports cgi and has a form handling program then a form
created in publisher will function using FTP upload rather than
front
page server extensions to upload the pages.
You must tell the server what e mail address you want the form
results
sent to. Some ISP's are different than others. Check with the ISP
help section on handling forms for that information.
Locate the cgi form handler file on the server. It is probably in
the
cgi or cgi-bin folder. Again ISP's are not all the same.
For example, if the form handler is in the cgi folder and it is
named
myform.cgi then the path for the handler in publisher will be "
/cgi/myform.cgi " without the quotes.
In publisher create a page for your form and build the form.
In the form properties window select "Use a program from my ISP"
In the action section insert the path you discovered above. Example
for godaddy.com is " /cgi/gdform.cgi " without the quotes.
From method is Post
In the hidden fields window: enter under Item "subject" no quotes
an
in the item value for subject enter a subject line that you want on
the
form when you receive it.
Below the subject enter "redirect" no quotes if you want have a
thank
you page built and in the item value enter the path to your thank
you
page
Example: " /thank_you/thankyou.htm " the thankyou.htm file is
located
in the thank_you folder in the root directory.
The thank you page may have a link back to the page where you came
from
or any where else you so desire or an auto redirect script with a
delay.
The auto redirect script is inserted using the HTML fragment
function
and looks like:
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="4; url=/index.htm">
In this case the time delay is 4 seconds and the page that will come
up
is the index.htm.
=========
Spike is the one with the most experience with using something
other
than FrontPage Server Extensions to power the forms, so hopefully
he
will jump into this thread and offer some more information. But in
the
meantime...
I don't think you will have to "name your order form". I think what
Spike was suggesting was that the way you wrote the link was
incomplete, and that you needed to add the extension. I would just
try
it and see what happens. One thing to keep in mind is that unless
you
make that link an absolute link instead of a relative link, it
won't
work from your local computer. It is looking for the cgi folder on
your server when you use the relative link. So you may have to
upload
your pages in order to test it.
Here is another resource for you that might help explain the forms
in
Publisher:
Reference: Web forms:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH063576891033.aspx
If you test it and it still doesn't work as per Spike's suggestions
after uploading the pages, then post back and let us know. Also
provide us a link to your host and specifically where on the host
website it gives you the instructions for using the forms program
in
the cgi folder. Then perhaps we can help further.
DavidF
Oh, I did not know that David B has been inactive for some time.
But
now
looking at the date ...
Anyway, yes, I saw Spike's advise and it was very helpful to a
certain point
( I now know whre to put the command) but did not solve my
problem.
His
command was /cgi/myform.cgi. Does this mean that I will have to
name
my order
form. In fact, I inserted this order form by using one of the
templates and
would not know if this one has a name and were to find it.
Sorry, if I sound a little daft but since this is my very first
website, I
am a little lost presently
. Thank you very much for your
support.
Monika
:
David Bartosik has been inactive for a number of years now, so I
wouldn't
hold my breath waiting for an answer from him.
I see that Spike answered your other post. Did that give you
enough
information?
DavidF
David,
I would need some advice about this subject too. Could you
explain
to me
how
to find out the URL of the script? Will I have to ask my server
or
should
I
be able to find out going into my account with the server?
Thank you very much.
Monika
:
You have to use the form controls under "Insert, Form" to
build a
form.
You
then set the form properties (under submit button) to run the
host side
cgi.
You'll see under the form properties the option to "use my
ISP's
program",
you set that option to the URL of the script. Once on your
server
the
form
is filled out by the user and the submit button then hands the
values of
those form controls over to the cgi script. After that it is
up
to the
script and your host side programming to do whatever.
David Bartosik - [MSFT MVP]
www.publishermvps.com
www.davidbartosik.com
On my web site
http://www.randypoole.com I have a contact
form
so I can
get
info from my clients, However it does not work. Do I need a
cgi
script
on
my
host to get it to work or something else I'm not doing
right? I
want it
to
send me the info, then redirect them to a page so they can
search for
homes.
