How do I use formmail?

To use Aplus.Net’s formmail script, you need to create a form on one of your web pages.

The form action line should be <FORM ACTION="/cgi-sys/formmail.pl" METHOD="POST">

Aplus.Net’s script, formmail.pl, will do all the programming work for you. You alter the behavior of formmail by using hidden fields in your form.

Required form fields:

These are the form fields that you must have in your form for the formmail script to work properly: 

• Recipient field: This form field allows you to specify to whom you wish your form results to be mailed. Most likely you will want to configure this option as a hidden form field with a value equal to that of your e-mail address.

• Email field: This form field allows the user to specify their return e-mail address. This will be put into the "From:" field of the message you receive. 

Note: If you have a Unix-based hosting plan, this field is actually optional. However, for Windows-based hosting it is required.

Optional Form Fields:

• Subject field:The subject field will allow you to specify the subject that you wish to appear in the e-mail that is sent to you after this form has been filled out. If you do not have this option turned on, then the script will default to a message subject similar to WWW Form Submission.

Syntax:

• Realname field: The realname field will allow the user to input their real name. This field is useful for identification purposes and will also be put into the From: line of your message header

• Sort field:This field allows you to choose the order in which you wish your variables to appear in the e-mail that FormMail generates. You can choose to have the field sorted alphabetically or specify a set order in which you want the fields to appear in your mail message. By leaving this field out, the order will simply default to the order in which the browser sends the information to the script (which isn't always the exact same order they appeared in the form). When sorting by a set order of fields, you should include the phrase 'order:' as the first part of your value for the sort field, and then follow that with the field names you want to be listed in the e-mail message, separated by commas.

Syntax:

To sort alphabetically: <input type=hidden name="sort" value="alphabetic">

To sort by a set field order: <input type=hidden name="sort" value="order:name1,name2,etc...">

• Redirect field: If you wish to redirect the user to a different URL, rather than having them see the default response to the fill-out form, you can use this hidden variable to send them to a pre-made HTML page.
  

Syntax:

To choose the URL the user will end up at:
<input type=hidden name="redirect" value="http://your.address/to/file.html">

To allow the user to specify a URL he wishes to travel to once the form is filled out:
<input type=text name="redirect">

• Required field:You can now require certain fields in your form to be filled in before the user can successfully submit the form. Simply place all field names that should be mandatory into this field. If the required fields are not filled in, the user will be notified of what they need to fill in, and a link back to the form they just submitted will be provided.

Syntax: <input type=hidden name="required" value="email,phone"> (to require e-mail and phone fields).

• Env_report field: This field allows you to have environment variables included in the e-mail message you receive after a user has filled out your form. Useful if you wish to know what browser they were using, what domain they were coming from or any other attributes associated with environment variables. The following is a short list of valid environment variables that might be useful:

REMOTE_HOST - Sends the hostname making a request.
REMOTE_ADDR - Sends the IP address of the remote host making the request.
HTTP_USER_AGENT - The browser the client is using to send the request. General format: software/version library/version
Syntax: <input type=hidden name="env_report" value="REMOTE_HOST,HTTP_USER_AGENT"> (Remote host and browser).

• Title field: This form field allows you to specify the title and header that will appear on the resulting page if you do not specify a redirect URL.

• Return_link_url field:This field allows you to specify a URL that will appear as return_link_title, on the following report page. This field will not be used if you have the redirect field set, but it is useful if you allow the user to receive the report on the following page, but want to offer them a way to get back to your main page.

•  Return_link_title field: This is the title that will be used to link the user back to the page you specify with return_link_url. The two fields will be shown on the resulting form page as: <ul> <li><a href="return_link_url">return_link_title</a> </ul>

• Background field: This form field allows you to specify a background image that will appear if you do not have the redirect field set. This image will appear as the background to the form results page.

Syntax: <input type=hidden name="background" value="http://your.host.xxx/image.gif">

• Bgcolor field: This form field allows you to specify a bgcolor for the form results page in much the way you specify a background image. This field should not be set if the redirect field is set.

Syntax: <input type=hidden name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"> (For a background color of White)

• Text_color field: This field works in the same way as bgcolor, except that it will change the color of your text.

• Link_color field: This field changes the color of links on the resulting page. This works in the same way as text_color, and should not be defined if redirect is set.

• Vlink_color field: This field changes the color of visited links on the resulting page. It works exactly like the link_color field, and should not be set if redirect is set.

• Alink_color field:This field changes the color of active links on the resulting page. It works exactly like the link_color field, and should not be set if redirect is set.

Any other form fields that appear in your script will be mailed back to you and displayed on the resulting page, if you do not have the redirect field set.