POP email

[dasygirl128]

I know that you have to have a POP email in order to have forms filled out on your site and then emailed to you. Can anyone refer me to a site on how to do this?

[Scuba]

Go to www.server.com
Over there you can create a form for your site.
they will host the form and operat it, and all the data the site visitors input will be emaild to you.

the best part is that it is FREE <IMG SRC="smilies/cool.gif" border="0">

[geeksRus]

if you want to do it yourself check here:
Html forms

[Scuba]

Only you will need CGI support or somthing similar.....

My server for example dont offer it <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

[KoWind7]

you don't need a pop3 account..any email address will do. the cgi forms work much, much better, but you can do simple stuff with html.

for the action you put mailto:[email protected]

I use a yahoo account when testing forms...


Edit : I didn't see geekrus's post. Excellent site for html help.

[antonye]

Originally posted by KoWind7:
you don't need a pop3 account..any email address will do. the cgi forms work much, much better, but you can do simple stuff with html.
for the action you put mailto:[email protected]

Nooooo!

You never, ever, ever, write forms like that!

This will popup an email window in the user's standard email program containing the data that is to be sent. This allows the user to edit, mess around with or not sent at all. Also, if the user doesn't have a registered email program (for example they may use Hotmail instead) then it doesn't work. They may also not send the email for a couple of days or just delete it. It's also very unproffessional!

Sending email in Perl/PHP/ASP is very easy and doesn't take much to learn - you can do it in one or two lines in all the above. If you don't have (server) scripting then get some space on a site that does or do a Google search for a site that offers free email forms, like the one Scuba suggested in the second post.

HTH,

[KoWind7]

Originally posted by antonye:
<STRONG>

Nooooo!

You never, ever, ever, write forms like that!

This will popup an email window in the user's standard email program containing the data that is to be sent. This allows the user to edit, mess around with or not sent at all. Also, if the user doesn't have a registered email program (for example they may use Hotmail instead) then it doesn't work. They may also not send the email for a couple of days or just delete it. It's also very unproffessional!

Sending email in Perl/PHP/ASP is very easy and doesn't take much to learn - you can do it in one or two lines in all the above. If you don't have (server) scripting then get some space on a site that does or do a Google search for a site that offers free email forms, like the one Scuba suggested in the second post.

HTH,</STRONG>

And for simple forms this is a problem? If all I'm asking is for an email address and maybe a comment, this type of form works very well.

As far as it poping up with the default email program, yes, that can be a problem, but not a huge one if you're not doing credit cards or anything that needs to be secure...

Also, most people don't have the time, inclanation, desire, or whatever to learn CGI/Perl/etc.

As far as it being unprofessional, do you think it matters how "professional" it is on a person's web page, where they use the form as a comment gatherer? For a business, yes, I would agree that you'd have to use something better.

[antonye]

Originally posted by KoWind7:
And for simple forms this is a problem?

Yes - for any form this is a problem because it's crap. If you're going to do a form like that, you might as well just provide a mailto: link and tell them what to write in the email.

The whole point in having a form is so that people just have to hit the submit button and it goes. There's no messing with the user's email account, you will be able to capture 100% of those who want to fill your form in and if you've taken the time to learn how to write a form like that, you may as well spend the same amount of time learning the one line it would take in PHP so do the same.

If you start writing forms like this now, it will lead to bad habits which you may continue to use in the future.

I've been creating web sites since 1993 (before Netscape existed!) and have never written a form like that!

[KoWind7]

Originally posted by antonye:
<STRONG>

Yes - for any form this is a problem because it's crap. If you're going to do a form like that, you might as well just provide a mailto: link and tell them what to write in the email.

The whole point in having a form is so that people just have to hit the submit button and it goes. There's no messing with the user's email account, you will be able to capture 100% of those who want to fill your form in and if you've taken the time to learn how to write a form like that, you may as well spend the same amount of time learning the one line it would take in PHP so do the same.

If you start writing forms like this now, it will lead to bad habits which you may continue to use in the future.

I've been creating web sites since 1993 (before Netscape existed!) and have never written a form like that!</STRONG>

Chill out dude....I was pointing out that you DON'T need a POP3 account, any account will do. I was also pointing out that it CAN be done with mailto tags.

If YOU don't like to do it that way, that's fine, but don't go around telling ME that it's a dumb way for creating a simple form.

Most people do not have time to learn Perl/CGI/ASP/Java or any other type of language that would make the form more "professional". How about YOU post the code needed so people can avoid using mailto? That would be more helpful than you berating me for doing things the simple way...

[antonye]

What's the point in posting the code when Scuba has already pointed to a perfectly good example site in the second post that answers the original poster's question?

All I did was point out that the way YOU recommended doing it was a very poor way of doing it (go ahead and read my post again) and that it would take just as much effort to learn how to do this in a scripting language as learning the mailto: method.

But obviously you just like arguing, so here's some links to examples of sending emails and web forms in PHP or ASP.

[KoWind7]

Originally posted by antonye:
[QB]
All I did was point out that the way YOU recommended doing it was a very poor way of doing it (go ahead and read my post again) and that it would take just as much effort to learn how to do this in a scripting language as learning the mailto: method.

[B]

the mailto method =

-!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"-

-html-
-head-
-title-Untitled-/title-
-/head-

-body-
-form method="post" action="mailto:[email protected]"-
Name : -input name="Name" type="text" value=""--p-
E-Mail : -input name="Email" type="text" value=""--p-
-input type="submit"-
-/form
-/body-
-/html-


Pretty simple eh? And using the POST method does not open the user's web broswer.


The PHP method -

<?php
//BE SURE TO CHANGE THE 3 LINES BELOW TO USE YOUR OWN
//ADDRESS, NAME and DATA FILENAME
//THE DATA FILE MUST ALREADY EXIST AND BE WORLD WRITEABLE
$webweaver = "[email protected]";
$wwname = "Laura Henry";
$filename = "visitors.dat";

if (file_exists ($filename))
{

mail($webweaver,"Visitor to PHP Example Form page",
"$user_name -$user_mail- just visited your site and submitted the form
at <A HREF="http://www.auburn.edu/helpdesk/php/form.html."," TARGET=_blank>www.auburn.edu/helpdesk/php/form.html.",</A>
"From: $user_name -$user_mail-");

mail($user_mail,"Thanks for visiting","Dear $user_name,\n
We appreciate your visit.\n\n$wwname\n-$webweaver-",
"From: $wwname -$webweaver-");

echo "-p-Your name: -b-$user_name-/b--br-
and e-mail address: -b-$user_mail-/b--br-
have been sent to the webweaver, -b-$wwname-/b-,
and a response has been e-mailed to
you.-p-
Not only that, you've been added to our records!-/p-";

// record the visitor info
$user_info = $user_name . " - " . $user_mail . "\n";

// open the file in append mode
$handle = fopen ($filename,'a+');

fputs($handle,$user_info);

//close the file
fclose($handle);

}
else
{
echo "-b-The file $filename does not exist and needs to be created for
this to work.-/b-";
}

?-
-p-
-a href=http://www.auburn.edu/helpdesk/php/form.txt-Click here to see
the PHP source code-/a-.
-p-
-a href=http://www.auburn.edu/helpdesk/php/visitors.dat-Click here to see
the data file-/a-.

Now, the PHP method is very similar to C/C++, so yes, many tech type people will have no problem with it. However, Grandpa Joe who wants to put up a web page about ear wax isn't going to have a clue. Not the simplest setup either. Alot harder to debug if you're not a prgrammer type person...


BTW, the only reason I'm arguing is because you're telling me I, or someone else, is wrong to do it this way. I am attempting to show that it can be done in a simple fashion...

[KoWind7]

Originally posted by KoWind7:
<STRONG>

Pretty simple eh? And using the POST method does not open the user's web browser.
</STRONG>

should read =

Pretty simple eh? And using the POST method does not open the user's email program.

[KoWind7]

And that's not to mention that many web hosts (free and ISP's) don't allows CGI, PHP, etc...For that kind of stuff you have to pay...

[rebelj]

Originally posted by antonye:
<STRONG>What's the point in posting the code when Scuba has already pointed to a perfectly good example site in the second post that answers the original poster's question?

All I did was point out that the way YOU recommended doing it was a very poor way of doing it (go ahead and read my post again) and that it would take just as much effort to learn how to do this in a scripting language as learning the mailto: method.

But obviously you just like arguing, so here's some links to examples of sending emails and web forms in PHP or ASP.</STRONG>

This is the reason that this will be my final post. I've been working on computers since floppy disks were the size of dinner plates. The one thing I have learned in all these years is that there is no right or wrong to setting up a interface - you use just enough to do what is needed - anything else is unneccessary overhead which will probably cause problems down the road. KoWind answered the original question with a appropriate answer for the level of functionality that was requested - nothing more, nothing less. But you, antonye, persist in flaming him because its not your way. Be quiet and open your ears - you might learn something!

Farewell all, been nice knowing you.
RebelJ

[SNAFU]

Hmm I can't seem to remember what we're arguing about, but I do understand where KoWind is coming from. Here is an example HTML script I used for a website I made a couple years back. I don't care if you like it or not. 100,000 emails came though this form, so you can kiss my a$$ if you don't like it.

HTML
HEAD
TITLE>
INFO REQUEST/TITLE
BoDY
CENTER
/HEAD
CENTER
BR>To contact us:


<TABLE CELLPADDING=10 BORDER=2>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><TR>
<TD>Phone: </FONT>
<TD>E-mail: <A HREF="mailto: [email protected]">
[email protected]</A></FONT>
<TD>Fax:</FONT>
</TR></P>
</TABLE>


OR


complete the form below.


<TABLE>
<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="/cgi-bin/formmail.pl">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="recipient" VALUE="[email protected]">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="subject" VALUE="Response Form">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="redirect" VALUE="http://www.blahblahblah.com/sent.html">
<TR>
<TD>Name:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="realname" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>Company:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="company" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>Position:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="position" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>Mailing Address:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="address1" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="address2" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>Telephone No:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="tel" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>E-mail address:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="email" SIZE=50>
<TR>
<TD>Fax No:
<TD><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="fax" SIZE=50>

<TR>
<TD>Requesting information on:
<TD><TEXTAREA NAME="request" COLS=50 ROWS=4>
</TEXTAREA>
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="spacer.gif" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1>
<TD><INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Send Form">
<IMG SRC="spacer.gif" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=6>
<INPUT TYPE=RESET VALUE="Clear Form">

</TR>
</FORM>
</TABLE
<FONT FACE=ARIAL SIZE=-1>
<A HREF="lah blah blah.com/main.html" TARGET="mainframe">[HOME]</A>
<A HREF="blahblahblah.com/welcome.html" TARGET="mainframe">[WELCOME]</A>
<A HREF="blah blah blah.com/products.html" TARGET="mainframe">[PRODUCTS]</A>
<A HREF="blah blah blah.com/form.html" TARGET="mainframe">[CONTACT US]</A>

<A HREF="mailto:sales@blah blah blah.com">[E-MAIL]</A
</FONT
</CENTER
</BODY
</HTML