Dreamweaver Question - Forms?

[ygibb]

Now this will sound pretty elementry to some folks. I'm just starting Dreamweaver, and I'm trying to develop forms. I have everything down except the "Action" needed to process the entered fields and email the results to me. I know about the Hidden Fields which tell where to email the results and what page to bring up once "submit" is pressed...

Where do you create the app that will process the info? How do I? Is that the Cold Fusion? Is it just uploaded to my host?

Help?!

 

[rogersmj]

This is a very open-ended question. There are a number of options to choose from. I do everything in PHP, and I recommend you avoid ColdFusion because the number of hosts that support it is very small (possibly because the server for it only runs on Windows, last I heard). Regardless, you're going to need some sort of server-side script to handle and process the form data. There are tons and tons of examples around the web on how to do one in PHP, for example. Check those out and if you have more specific questions I'd be happy to help.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Now this will sound pretty elementry to some folks. I'm just starting Dreamweaver, and I'm trying to develop forms. I have everything down except the "Action" needed to process the entered fields and email the results to me.

Ask your host. Typically, most shared Web servers have one or another standard forms processor installed. The filenames, locations and commands will be specific.

 

[nightelf]

You dont need to have a hidden field to set to which email send the form. You can have that part in the script that process the form. This way is more private.

A PHP script if the best option. You can find some free scripts on Internet. You only need to modify the script to include your fields, set the email and upload.

 

[ygibb]

Thanks for the quick responses! How do I create a php script? Is that just a simple text file with a .php extension? Is there a php creator?

 

[rogersmj]

PHP can be written in any basic text editor, but it has to be executed on a server that has the PHP parser/engine on it. If you want to learn it, just Google search for a tutorial. There's millions. It's literally the most popular scripting language on the web. In your case, you could easily find a pre-made emailing script and just change a couple variables to correspond to your form.

 

[ygibb]

I usually use Yahoo as my web host. Looking closer, Yahoo Smallbusiness web hosting actually has a PHP editor on it. Ha! There I go! I've tested a few. Unfortunately, I'm not getting the emails once submitted. I'm changing the email variable to my address, but still not coming thru. I'm sure I'll get it eventually. I'm probably missing something obvious.

Is there anyway you could show me an example here if I wanted the fields:

Name:
Address:
Email:

and results to "ygibb@yahoo.com" If I had a good example that's all I'll need to move forward.

Steve

 

[CanadaRAM]

I usually use Yahoo as my web host. Looking closer, Yahoo Smallbusiness web hosting actually has a PHP editor on it. Ha! There I go! I've tested a few. Unfortunately, I'm not getting the emails once submitted. I'm changing the email variable to my address, but still not coming thru. I'm sure I'll get it eventually. I'm probably missing something obvious.

Is there anyway you could show me an example here if I wanted the fields:

Name:
Address:
Email:

and results to "ygibb@yahoo.com" If I had a good example that's all I'll need to move forward.

Steve

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/webhosting/php/
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/webhosting/addons/forms/

 

[rogersmj]

Well, the most basic way to test your server to make sure it can send mail properly is to put this single line in a PHP file and then access it through a browser:

<? mail("youremail@yourdomain.com","test message","This is a test"); ?>

If that doesn't work, then something's wrong with your server.

If that does work, then you can continue on to processing form variables.

 

[ddekker]

php

Look arounf hotscripts.com for some script that does what you need and then you can examine their code and learn from it...

good luck and have fun

DD