Form setup

contact_forms

Hi Guys,

I was told to ask you guys here fro htmlforums.com.
I only some basic HTML only enough to make simple pages.
I now have bought Linux web hosting and it has php. The problem is I don't know how to set the page up correctly and the HTML on this form so it will send the information typed into it to an e-mail @mydomain.com.
I have saved the file as .php with the HTML for the page that this file will be on.
Currently when you click the send button a box appears on the screen that reads: this form is being submitted using e-mail and will not be encrypted for privacy.
How do I go about setting it up on my webhosting so this will not happen. And what changes would I have to make to this form so it will work correctly.

I have seen forms on other websites and instead of MAILTO they have <FORM ACTION="contact.php" METHOD="post">

This is my first time to have webhosting I used to have free webhosting which did not support PHP.

I have this contact form:

<p><div align="center">
<div style="border:1px solid #ffcc00; width:255px; margin-bottom:5px;background-color:#ffcc00;">
<form action="MAILTO:info@mydomain.com"
method="post" enctype="text/plain">
<div style="background-color:#ffcc00; padding:3px; font:12px arial; color:black;"><b>Online Contact Form</b></div>
<div style="padding:10px; font: normal 12px Arial; text-align:left;">Your name :<br />
<input type="text" name="Name" size="34" style="width:230px;" /><br />
Your e-mail:<br /><input type="text" name="e-mail" size="34" style="width:230px;" /><br>
Name:<br /><input type="text" name="Name" size="34" style="width:230px;" /><br>
Name :<br /><input type="text" name="Name" size="34" style="width:230px;" />*<br>
Name:<br /><input type="checkbox" name="Name" size="34" style="width:15px;" /><br>
Name:<br /><input type="checkbox" name="Name" size="34" style="width:15px;" /><br>
Comments:<br>
<textarea COLS=35 ROWS=7 name="Comments/Questions"></textarea><p>

<div style="background-color:#ffcc00; padding:3px; font:10px arial; color:black;"><b>* Optional</b></div>

<div align="center">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value=" Send ">
<input type="hidden" name="usernum" size="1" style="border: 0px solid black; height: 0px; width: 0px;" value="2471385214"
/><input type="hidden" style="border: 0px solid black; height: 0px; width: 0px;" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="2000000"><input
type="hidden" style="border: 0px solid black; height: 0px; width: 0px;" name="cpv" value="2" />
<input type="reset" name="reset" value=" Clear "></div>
</form>
<div align="center"

Any help would be great. 🙂
Thanks again guys,
Contact_Forms 🆒 🆒

justsomeone

Hmmm...

Renaming your file from .html to .php has had no effect. This just instructs your webeserver to search through the file for PHP commands to execute them, but your file doesn't have any PHP commands, so it does nothing, and just passes on the page as straight html.

Your form action is a "mailto:" link. This instructs your visitor's browser to open their email program and open up the "create a new message" dialog. This all happens on your visitor's PC and has nothing to do with the webserver. This is why you get the popup warning.

As you suggest, the alternative is to target something like a PHP program on the server, instead of the mailto: link on the client. That's what "contact.php" refers to.

What this means is that you need to have a php program on your server called "contact.php" or something similar which will take the form information and email it to you. For a simple function, this gets quite complicated as contact forms are regularly targetted by spammers to abuse your server to send their mesage to theit victims.

For this reason, you need to go carefully to work.

But this contact form generator is as good a place as any to start...

contact_forms

Thanks for helping a fellow Dubliner justsomeone 🙂 🙂

Should the php program on my server called contact.php or simular be on my server already or do I have to make it myself.

Sorry about this I know very little about having webhosting or PHP.

Thanks again
Contact_Forms 🆒

Houdini

Yes the action points to a file somewhere (not necessarily on your own web site but usually it would) where the results of the web form are dealt with in some fashion. each field when filled in will have a value. An ezample from the code in your first input field is has a name of 'Name' and whatever information the user puts in that field would be the value of 'Name'. Say you placed Charley Brown in the name field then $Name would = Charley Brown. This is where the file that is in the action="somefile.php" would do something with the information, and it could in fact mail the information to yourself or someone else all information gathered by the program.

Just for fun create a file and name it process.php and in the action= make it say action="process.php". Then put the process php in the same directory where the file that the form is in.

<?php
echo "The form was filled out by $Name at the email address of $e-mail";
?>

You need to amend your form though because you have two other text fields with the name of "Name" and you have two check boxes with the name of 'Name" this will not work you need to name your fields something unique so that any value assigned to that name will also be unique. Checkboxes however should all have the same name but different values because they go into an array so you would name a check box like interest[] value="sports' or interest[] value="fishing" and so on.

justsomeone

contact_forms,

contact.php is a PHP program/script. It probably doesn't exist by default on your server - you will need to create/install it. Just like you would have to create/install any PHP program you need.

The link I provided in my last post should help you create it. Just click on the underlined reference to "contact form generator".