PHP form issues

[doodlebee]

I have an e-mail form where the end user needs to select where the e-mail needs to go. The client wishes for this to be a required field, so if no option is selected from the dropdown box, he doesn't want the email to send, and an error message needs to display.

I have this working one way or the other (meaning: I can have the dropdown box switch to different e-mail addresses per user selection and it will send; or I can make it required to select an option from the dropdown box, and an error will display if no option is selected) - but it won't do both. If I try to make them function together, the error is displayed if nothing is chosen from the dropdown box, and a "Thank you" page appears - but the e-mail never comes to my inbox. If I remove the required fields stuff - the email comes through just fine.

In my PHP file, I have this for the dropdown box stuff:

switch($mailto) {
case "sales":
$mailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "partners":
$mailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "support":
$mailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "other":
$mailto = "[e-mail]";
}

There is no "default" set, because if I set one, then the required thing doesn't work.

In the HTML document (called in as an include from the PHP file) I have this:

<b <? if ($mailtoerror!= "")?> >What is the nature of your inquiry?</b>
<select class="form" name="mailto">
<option value="" selected></option>
<option name="sales">Sales</option>
<option name="partners">Customer Support</option>
<option name="support">Partners</option>
<option name="other">Other</option>
</select>

Would anyone know, from looking at this, why the e-mails won't come through when I try to make the field required? (Or should I just show you the entire files?) It's as simple as removing "selected" from the blank option value to get the e-mail to come through - but if I don't have it there, then the "requiredness" of the field is gone.

Any help would be appreciated 🙂

[kubis]

switch($mailto) {
   case 'sales':
      $mailto = '[e-mail]';
   break;

   case 'partners':
      $mailto = '[e-mail]';
   break;

   case 'support':
      $mailto = '[e-mail]';
   break;

   case 'other':
      $mailto = '[e-mail]';
   break;

   default: 
      //send nothing
   break;
} 

and then somewhere in the code

if(is_set($mailto)){
    // run the mail function
    mail($mailto......
}

[blanius]

why not set the values in the options for the form instead of in PHP? Then you can do both easy.

[doodlebee]

Thanks! It's still not working - but I see where you're going with that, and I'm playing with it right now...

Blanius - Yes, that would be easier. But the whole point of doing it this way was to completely avoid putting email addresses on the content that would actually show (trying to avoid email harvesting - I know it's not foolproof, but it helps to put it in the PHP file rather than directly on the page)

I'm gonna keep on trying though 😉

[doodlebee]

Got it! I'm going to post it here for future reference - in case anyone else comes along and needs this thing.

As stated before, I was looking ot have a dropdown box in my form that, when the user selected a dropdown option, that particular selection would send to an e-mail address that was supposed to go with it. This also had to be a required field in my form.

So, here's what I did:

in the HTML document, in the form, my dropdown looked like this:

<b <? if ($mailtoerror != "") ?> >Please select</b>
<select class="form" name="mailto">
<option value=""></option>
<option value="one" name="one">Option 1</option>
<option value="two" name="two">Option 2</option>
<option value="three" name="three">Option 3</option>
<option value="four" name="four">Option 4</option>
</select>

Then in the PHP code:

if($action !="sendmail"){
include ("contact.html"); //the html layout of the page
exit;
}

if ($action == "sendmail") {
//leaving out the other required fields stuff, as it's not important to my point here
$mailto = $_POST['mailto'];
switch ($mailto) {
case "":
$mailtoerror = "1";
$send = "no";
break;

case "one":
$emailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "two":
$emailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "three":
$emailto = "[e-mail]";
break;

case "four":
$emailto = "[e-mail]";
break;
         }


    if ($send ==  "no") {
		$error = "1";
    		include ("contact.html");
		exit;
				}


$message = nl2br("Name: $firstname $lastname
                  Phone: $phone
                  e-Mail address: $email
                  $comments");

$message = stripSlashes($message);
$mailheader = "From: $name <$email>\nContent-Type: text/html";
mail("$emailto","$subject","$message","$mailheader");

I was so happy when it worked! Hope this helps someone else so they don't have to go through my headache!