&quot;Send to a Friend&quot; Feature.

"Send to a Friend" Feature.

LavaGuard

I'd like to create a feature that allows visitors to click a link from one of the flashes hosted at LG Flash Volcano to send the link and their specified message to the recipient. AS the movies have different ?ids, I'd need it to echo the certain name and link of the flash file, but I am a php n00b and have no idea of how to do it. can anyone help?

Davy

You've given me an idea for my next project now 🙂

You need to give us a little more info on the pages and the way you want to send these to friend. You also need to tell us how this flash site works operating on a database, etc?

nephicheng

You can approach this a few ways. One way you can do it is by having a database that stores the different ids and links to them. Then you can have a refer a friend link that contains the unique id to the database with the id and link so that when they click it, it brings them to a processing page. In the processing page it will receive the unique id and will query the database for that unique id. The query will return the flash file link and from there you can have them fill out a form for whom they are sending the link to and in the body of the statement output the link. Here is an example

Page with all the links:

Yourprocessingpage.php:

gets the uniqueid from $_GET vars.

query the database and retrieve the link to the flash file and its name.

then out in html a form that contains this information:
<input>sender's email
<input>recipient's email
<text>their message, generic message that tells the recipient to check out the name of the file and its link.

Hope this helps.

LavaGuard

Originally posted by Davy
You've given me an idea for my next project now 🙂

You need to give us a little more info on the pages and the way you want to send these to friend. You also need to tell us how this flash site works operating on a database, etc?

all the flash information is stored in a MySql database. on the view.php page, it echoes the information of the flash and links to the file, which has been uploaded by a user. But I need to create something that will when clicked open a form that will submit the details to a recipient designated by the user.

LavaGuard

Well.. here's my code.. and there's a few things that aren't quite right.

<?
$conn = mysql_connect("localhost", "lavagard_eviludy", "OMGSECRET");
$db = mysql("lavagard_lavagarden", $conn);

if (!empty($_GET['id'])) {}

$sql = "SELECT Title FROM Submissions WHERE id='".$_GET['id']."'";
$qry = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error());

if (mysql_num_rows($qry) == 1) {}  
    // check to see if it exists 
	// get the array from the table to output it 
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($qry); 

	?>

</head>
<body>
<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="$finalmail">
<INPUT NAME="sender's email" type="text" maxlength="450">
<INPUT NAME="$finalmail" type="text" maxlength="50">
<TEXTAREA NAME="UserMessage" Rows="10" Cols="65">
Hey there mate,
I wanted to tell you about a great flash movie I saw hosted at Lavagarden.com, called <?php echo ("$title"); ?>. If you're interested
in watching it, here's the link you'll need.
</TEXTAREA>

</form>

Basically.. I need to know how to get the bit where it e-mails the final result to the e-mail specified.. and how to echo the name of the flash.. for now.

Davy

Do you know if your server has a mail mod / server with it?

If not then there is no way you can email your visitor's 'friends'.

I'm not much good at script debugging but have a look at the manual for mail()

LavaGuard

I now have this:

as part of the page.. but how do I get it so that the php will work there... cos otherwise it jus links to somepage.php?id= and not with the correct id?

nephicheng

You need two separate functions for this process. One function is to echo out the information to a form. The second is to process the message and send it via email.

Heres some code that might clear things up, They will be two different pages to make things more simple.

Message processing page:
<?

$query the database selecting the NAME and LINK of the flash file;

$results = mysql_fetch_object($query);

<form action="SENDEMAIL.PHP" method="POST">
<INPUT NAME="SENDEREMAIL" type="text" maxlength="50">
<INPUT NAME="RECIPIENTEMAIL" type="text" maxlength="50">
<TEXTAREA NAME="MESSAGE" Rows="10" Cols="65">
Hey there mate,
I wanted to tell you about a great flash movie I saw hosted at Lavagarden.com, called <? echo $results->NAME; ?>. If you're interested
in watching it, here's the link you'll need. <a href="<? echo $results->LINK; ?> CLICK HERE
</TEXTAREA>
</form>

SENDMAIL.PHP processing page:

mail("$POST['RECIPIENTEMAIL']", "Check this out!", "$POST['MESSAGE']", "FROM: {$_POST['SENDEREMAIL']} plus any additional headers");

Then you can add a message that says your email has been sent or something to that extent.

LavaGuard

err.. I had everything sorted out about the 2 pages bit.. I just need to add PHP to this line so that the ?id= will work. AS every flash movie has a different id.. the page that submits the e-mail does too.

I have this line.

but as there are no PHP braces.. the .$id doesn't work.. and if I add a <? php brace at the starty of the line I get parse errors.. so I'm asking where to put it really.

nephicheng

To insert php coding in the middle of HTML you have to use an open php parser command and a closer as well. ie.

HTML
<FORM METHOD="post" ACTION="somepage.php?id=<?=$id?>&submissiontitle=<?=$submissiontitle?>">

to break this down, in the <? ?> is where the php parser gets executed. the <?= is just a simple way of echoing a line so the string will be "sompage.php?id=SOMEID&submissiontitle=SOMESUBMISSIONTITLE"

LavaGuard

Thanks a lot man.. it's good to know I finally got it working.