Publisher Form - Too dumb to use...

[glennl]

Who can help me get the survey form to work? I created my first website
using Publisher 2003, and of course the survey form doesn't work. My webhost
service is no help. Yes David, I've read your FAQ answers and all the rest
of that stuff, and it is not help to me because I don't understand what you
are saying. Where can I find someone to hire to get this function to work?
I have spent a good part of a week trying to figure it out.

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

it would help a great deal to give us the URL to your page so we can see
what's going on.

 

[glennl]

http://www.borrowingtobuild.com/

it would help a great deal to give us the URL to your page so we can see
what's going on.

 

[DavidF]

glennl,

Please excuse me for butting in here, but I think it is important to correct
a possible misunderstanding. Many of the reference articles I link to, are
written by a former MVP named David Bartosik...not me! His material is
invaluable if you want to build a website with Publisher. I reference it as
often as possible, and I think it is important to recognize that he deserves
the credit for that work...nuff said.

And since I already butted in, and after looking at your site, I would
suggest that you find one of the "canned" template based websites that are
available to you and mortgage broker industry, and let them build and
maintain your site. There are a number of good ones out there that will
create and manage your site for $50 a month. Your time and frustration with
trying to build your own website is not worth the cost. Do one more loan a
year, and you paid for that expense.

Just Google for other small mortgage broker sites and look at the bottom of
the home pages to find the link to the web master and host. Follow those
links to see what services that company offers. Or perhaps google "mortgage
broker websites" and that might point you in the right direction. There are
good ones out there...and some ripoffs...I have seen both. So invest the
time...be patient and thorough in the process of researching who to use and
don't rush a decision.

If I may be blunt, though you certainly don't lack the ability to build your
own site, I just don't think you have either the time, patience or desire
to do it. And perhaps even more important, building your own site is not
even cost effective for you, given your choice of good template sites in
your industry. Make the move now. Let someone else deal with the web side of
things and focus your energies on your business...

That's my two cents worth...

DavidF

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

You must publish to your host via http:// not ftp or the form won't work.
Most hosts will only allow the response email to be sent to an address
within the domain of the site ...not to (e-mail address removed) as you have in
form properties.
And...finally your host must allow frontpage's form handler to work.



--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Giordano
Microsoft MVP Expression

 

[glennl]

Is it not published via http://? That's the address it comes up under?

The host told me the have FPSE, so what do I need to tell them to get the
form handler to work?

Thanks,

Glenn

 

[glennl]

David, "to be blunt" I did not ask for your business advice. I want to learn
how to build my own websites and I've spent a great deal of time working on
this - because it is something I plan on doing more of. But when I get to
this point where I think everything is done only to find it doesn't work -
that's frustrating. Then the "help" articles you steer people to (with your
snide little "why don't you read the message boards before asking these
questions?" comments) speak in a language that I, and obviously others, don't
understand - yeah, it's frustrating.

Maybe MS could have a little window pop up before you start using their
products like Publisher that says, "For Demonstration Purposes Only - Your
site won't actually work when you get it done, but by then you'll be
frustrated enough to pay someone else to do this for you because you'll never
be able to figure it out." Instead, the sales pitch is - "Easy Website
Builder". I haven't found anything easy about this yet, but I'll get there.

For you, I suspect your intentions are to help people. Just keep in mind
that if I already understood this stuff well enough to know all the secret
codes - I probably wouldn't need to be asking for help. Dumb it down and
speak English, and maybe you can help more of us have success.

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

I don't know _how_ you are publishing...that's up to you to use http:// or
ftp. FTP will break the FPSE and the form handler will not work.
Keep in mind that some hosts don't allow FrontPage's form handler to work
anyway...you'd have to check with them.

But to begin with you should change your email address in the form's
properties because MOST host's require that the email coming from this form
handler must come from the same domain.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Giordano
Microsoft MVP Expression