Thank you for your quick response David.
I did not intend using cgi, but since NONE of the three options attached to
the SUBMIT button worked (Publisher Help doesn't help) and it wasn't easy to
get specific help by some luck and a lot of trying I was able to make the
'use a program from your ISP' work.
I am not familiar with FrontPage extensions or how they work, but I do know
that the web server has them installed for me to use - if I knew how. All I
know is that when I follow the instructions within Publisher I stop at a
WEBBOT-SELF error.
Also when selecting 'send data to a file', the default name is
FORMDATA.HTM - what form should this file take to accept the data and WHERE
should it be directed?
So I get so far and everything halts. I don't want to get further bogged
down in questions of whose responsibilty it is to help - Microsoft or a
third party but it seems to me that since many people using Publisher to
publish to the Web will encounter these problems. SOME sort of answer or
even hints (examples of settings that have worked for others) would finally
help me to get moving and better use the software.
What I WANT to do is have data submitted to my site that accumulates on a
single file if necessary rather than have individiual emails sent. The
ideal would be then for that data to be interfaced with some form of
database for easy searching either at the server or at home by a way of
linking the data to Access.
Your thoughts please
Colin
Publisher uses FrontPages's form processing components (web-bots) and the
FrontPage server extensions for the server side processing. This is covered
on the FAQ - www.davidbartosik.com/faq.htm ( I recommend bookmarking it )
For a more in depth look refer to
http://www.davidbartosik.com/pub2002/pub2002_22.htm
As stated in the FAQ using a form in Publisher is really very simple as long
as the following steps are taken...
1. design the form.
2. set the form's processing properties.
3. have FP extensions installed.
4. publish the web in the http protocol.
99% of customer form failures are due to 1 of only 2 things... either FP
server extensions are not installed or the web was not published in http.
I recommend you review my upload tutorial on www.davidbartosik.com/ppt.htm
for discussion of http publishing.
As for using a data file, I've not known anybody that used that, it's always
an email that's used. If an .htm file is the default value I'd assume that
is so you can view the data online. I'm sure you can change the actual name
as you'd desire. I'd also assume that other file formats are supported.
Since this is the FP server extensions we're talking about doing the work I
would suggest you visit the FrontPage forum at
microsoft.public.frontpage.client if you'd want to inquiry as to what file
formats the server extensions support. I myself would guess they support
writing standard file formats like .csv and .txt, a .csv you could import in
Access easily enough. Since the server extensions are a Microsoft product I
could hazard to guess they might also support Office product extensions. And
there's no harm in testing...for example... set it to mydata.xsl for
example, load it, submit some data and log into the server and see if you
got a valid Excel file.
--
David Bartosik - MS MVP
for Publisher help:
www.davidbartosik.com
enter to win Pub 2003:
www.davidbartosik.com/giveaway.aspx
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06-18-04 - 12:14 PM 
