Webmaster forum - Email form

Author

Email form

MTC

2005-10-28, 3:22 am

As virtually every website of any consequence has this, I feel a bit foolish
not being able to figure out how to do it.

Anyway, I want to put a sign-up form on the main page of my site that will
collect the visitors name and email, then send them to another webpage
("thank you" page, download page, etc.) once the information has been
submitted. I've looked everywhere I can think of for a script or something
that will do this with no results.

The closest I have been able to come is a form generator that creates a form
on a seperate page (that can't be edited) that the visitor has to click a
link to get to.

trevor

2005-10-28, 3:22 am

you have to at least try, even for one milisecond, to find your answer by
SEARCHING for it.

Mark Parnell

2005-10-28, 3:22 am

In our last episode, MTC <freightshkr@earthlink.net> pronounced to
alt.www.webmaster:

> Anyway, I want to put a sign-up form on the main page of my site that will
> collect the visitors name and email, then send them to another webpage
> ("thank you" page, download page, etc.) once the information has been
> submitted.

Sounds pretty straight forward.

> I've looked everywhere I can think of for a script or something
> that will do this with no results.

Have you tried your host? Most usually have a basic form handler script
available.

Otherwise it will depend what server-side language(s) you have available
to you. But there are plenty around. E.g. for PHP:
http://hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_a...sors/index.html

--
Mark Parnell
http://clarkecomputers.com.au

Matt-the-Hoople

2005-10-28, 3:22 am

Quoth trevor in alt.www.webmaster

> you have to at least try, even for one milisecond, to find your answer
> by SEARCHING for it.
>

Trevor is right, though I think it's more like a femtosecond.

http://www.boaddrink.com/

--
# www.mattlindi.com
# matt.lindi@your_clothes_mattlindi.com
# remove _your_clothes_ to email me

William Tasso

2005-10-28, 6:23 am

Writing in news:alt.www.webmaster
From the safety of the EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net cafeteria
MTC <freightshkr@earthlink.net> said:

> ...
> Anyway, I want to put a sign-up form on the main page of my site that
> will
> collect the visitors name and email, then send them to another webpage
> ("thank you" page, download page, etc.)

research: HTML form element

--
William Tasso

virtue is its own punishment

MTC

2005-10-28, 6:23 am

"trevor" <not@your.house> wrote in message
news:11m3g521j4u1v55@corp.supernews.com...
> you have to at least try, even for one milisecond, to find your answer by
> SEARCHING for it.

As I pointed out, I HAVE searched for it. I've been to dozens of "script"
sites from multiple search engines, waded through hundreds of postings on
website design forums, Yahoo Groups, Gmail Groups and Topica groups. As of
yet, I have found nothing that specifically meets the requirements (at least
in the descriptions of the scripts and methods available as I am able to
understand them) necessary for what I need to do. Obviously, I have not
looked in the right places. That's why I, as a last (for obvious reasons)
resort, came to this NG hoping for some advice or a recomendation of a
specific script, etc..

At least, if all else fails, I can take comfort in the knowledge that I have
assisted you in validating your existence and sleep well tonight.

MTC

2005-10-28, 6:23 am

"Mark Parnell" <webmaster@clarkecomputers.com.au> wrote in message
news:4361c3cc$0$21701$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
> In our last episode, MTC <freightshkr@earthlink.net> pronounced to
> alt.www.webmaster:
>
>
> Sounds pretty straight forward.
>
>
> Have you tried your host? Most usually have a basic form handler script
> available.
>
> Otherwise it will depend what server-side language(s) you have available
> to you. But there are plenty around. E.g. for PHP:
> http://hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_a...sors/index.html
>
> --
> Mark Parnell
> http://clarkecomputers.com.au

Thanks for the information!

My host does have a form generator. It's the one that requires that the
visitor click a link that takes them to the form on another page rather than
having it incorporated on my main page.

I checked out the link you offered. As it's obvious I know very little about
this, my next question would be: is having the visitor automatically sent to
another page something common to these scripts? The descriptions seem only
to make reference to how the collected information is handled.

Tina - AxisHOST, Inc.

2005-10-28, 6:40 pm

"MTC" <freightshkr@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:GGm8f.1264$m81.398@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> "Mark Parnell" <webmaster@clarkecomputers.com.au> wrote in message
> news:4361c3cc$0$21701$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
>
> Thanks for the information!
>
> My host does have a form generator. It's the one that requires that the
> visitor click a link that takes them to the form on another page rather
> than having it incorporated on my main page.

Are you sure? You should be able to use the form code on any page that you
wish.

--Tina

Alan Little

2005-10-28, 6:40 pm

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of MTC
of alt.www.webmaster make plain:

> As virtually every website of any consequence has this, I feel a bit
> foolish not being able to figure out how to do it.
>
> Anyway, I want to put a sign-up form on the main page of my site that
> will collect the visitors name and email, then send them to another
> webpage ("thank you" page, download page, etc.) once the information
> has been submitted. I've looked everywhere I can think of for a script
> or something that will do this with no results.
>
> The closest I have been able to come is a form generator that creates
> a form on a seperate page (that can't be edited) that the visitor has
> to click a link to get to.

If I understand correctly, your main issue is with how to have the form
itself included in your page. There are plenty of form generators, but if
you want it included in your page, you're probably going to have to get
your hands a little dirty and cut-and-paste the form code. You're
probably better off just learning how to create a form in HTML -- it's
quite easy, really.

Once that's done you need something on the back end that receives the
form contents and does stuff with it. There are lots of scripts for this;
I of course recommend Phorm.

--
Alan Little
Phorm PHP Form Processor
http://www.phorm.com/

trevor

2005-10-28, 6:41 pm

>
> At least, if all else fails, I can take comfort in the knowledge that
> I have assisted you in validating your existence and sleep well
> tonight.

since you were so kind as to have provided that wonderful night's sleep by
assisting me to validate my existance, try the one indicated here:

http://www.stargeek.com/php_email_tutorial.php

nospam@geniegate.com

2005-10-29, 6:32 pm

In: <PNi8f.1056$2y.861@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>, "MTC" <freightshkr@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Anyway, I want to put a sign-up form on the main page of my site that will
^^^^^^^

A signup or just a regular form? Signups are a bit trickier, as you need to make
sure the visitor doesn't just bypass it. 'Course, doing that means that they'll
have to sign up to get to your content. Search engines don't "sign up", so your
content would be isolated from spiders (probably not what you wanted)

See the URL in my sig for a package that does signup forms. It validates the email,
etc..

>The closest I have been able to come is a form generator that creates a form
>on a seperate page (that can't be edited) that the visitor has to click a
>link to get to.

Can't you just rip the form code it generates, embed it in your main page and
then have the form POST to the script? Guess I'm trying to understand what
you mean by "can't be edited", often it's just a matter of copying the generated
HTML to another page and posting the form from there.

I do something like that on a survey at: http://www.geniegate.com/demo.php

Ripped the generated HTML code, inserted it into a separate document and then
(in my case) adjusted it to be redirected back to itself.

Be careful of any hidden form variables.

Jamie
--
http://www.geniegate.com Custom web programming
guhzo_42@lnubb.pbz (rot13) User Management Solutions