Can an cption cahnge the email destination

Attila7

I am using a simple php/html form to accept vacation change requests from my co-workers. This has proven to be very reliable and popular. Recently other shifts asked if they too can use this form. I added in a variable field for the 3 shifts. Currently all requests go to all 3 shift stewards. Can something be setup so that each shift field selection will be sent to a differant steward?

I am also having an issue with the timestamp, since my host upgraded to the newer php my timestamp is off by an hour for half the year. I'm thinking it has something to do with daylight saving time but we do not use DST, our clocks never have to be adjusted. Any ideas?

<?php
$date = date("y/m/d HⓂs ");
if(isset($Submit))
{
if($name != "" && $email != "" && $shift != "")
{
$message = "AV Change Request<br><br>

Name: $name<br>

Email: $email<br>
Shift: $shift<br>
Sent: $date<br><br>

Requested Week 1: $rqone<br>
Requested Week 2: $rqtwo<br> <br>

Relinquished Week 1: $rlone<br>
Relinquished Week 2: $rltwo<br><br>

Comments: $comments";

$headers = "Content-Type: text/html\n";
$headers .= "From: $email\n";

mail("example1@example.com,example2@example.com,$email","AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

header("Location: avresp.htm");
}
else
{
$error = "y";
}
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>AV Change Request</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/BLE_510.css">
<meta name="Description" content="AV Change Request">
<meta name="Author" content="Attila">
</head>
<body>
<h2>  AV Change Request</h2>
<p> Use this form to submit an AV change request.<br>
 Fields marked with an asterisk () must be filled in.</p>
<?php
if($error == "y")
{
echo "<h2>You must fill in your Name, Email, and Shift.</h2>";exit;
}
?>
<form name="avch.php" action="avch.php" method="post">
<table width="460" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="120">  Name</td>
<td width="50"> </td>
<td width="120">E-mail</td>
<td width="50"> </td>
<td width="120">Shift</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>  <input type="text" name="name" size="20"></td>
<td> </td>
<td><input type="text" name="email" size="20"></td>
<td> </td>
<td><select name="shift">
<option value=""></option>
<option value="Days">Days</option>
<option value="Evenings">Evenings</option>
<option value="Nights">Nights</option></select></td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<table width="500" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5">
<tr>
<td width="300">  Week(s) Requested</td>
<td width="16"><input type="text" name="rqone" size="1"></td>
<td width="16"><input type="text" name="rqtwo" size="1"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="7"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>  Week(s) Renounced</td>
<td><input type="text" name="rlone" size="1"></td>
<td><input type="text" name="rltwo" size="1"></td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<table width="440" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td>  Comments</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>  <textarea rows="5" name="comments" cols="50"></textarea></td>
</tr>
</table>
<table width="440" border="0" cellpadding="30" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td><div align="left"><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="Submit" class="button"></div></td>
<td><div align="left"><input type="reset" name="Reset" value="Reset" class="button"></div></td>
<td><input type="button" value="Week #'s" class="button" onClick="window.open('/bids/avwn.htm','','scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=500,height=500')"></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p class="SmallText">  copyright © 2005</p>
</form>
</body>
</html>

etully

Change this line:

mail("example1@example.com,example2@example.com,$email","AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

to this:

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com"; }
elseif ($shift=="Evenings") { $mailto = "example2@example.com"; }
elseif ($shift=="Nights") { $mailto = "example3@example.com"; }
else { print "You must select a shift"; exit; }
mail("$mailto,$email","AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

etully

As for the timestamp problem, I suggest that you start by complaining to your hosting service. It's their job to make sure that that works right. You could try to put PHP code in place to make allowances for the incorrect time but you're paying good money for hosting - there's no reason for you to have to jump through hoops to allow for their mistake. Besides, if you DID write in an allowance, then it just going to break again someday in the future when either (A) you switch to a new host, (😎 the host actually fixes their timestamp, or (C) someone wants to buy a copy of your code and install it on their machine somewhere else.

Attila7

Thanks etully, I will give that a try.

Attila7

Got it coded in and it works perfectly, exactly as I had hoped!

Another issue has cropped up, the day shift has an option that the other shifts don't have. Can another option field be added in that only shows up or is accesible when Days is selected from the shift field?

etully

One way to do that is to use Javascript. You sent the onChange event to trigger a function. The function checks to see if you selected Day shift. If so, then it enables the extra option field. Else, it disables the extra option field.

An easier way to do it is to make two pages, one for day shift people and one for others. The day shift page has the extra option.

Attila7

I currently have mutiple forms for other things such as choice of job, I was thinking that a multiple function form would cut down on the number of forms currently offered. However it is sounding like it will be more difficult so I will stick to what I have for now. Thanks again for your help and advice etully.

Attila7

Can this be further enhanced to send seperate message headers? evening shift would display "Eveningshift AV Change Request" and so on instead of all saying "Av Change Request"?

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com"; }
elseif ($shift=="Evenings") { $mailto = "example2@example.com"; }
elseif ($shift=="Nights") { $mailto = "example3@example.com"; }
else { print "You must select a shift"; exit; }
mail("$mailto,$email","AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

etully

Attila7, Please read that block of code carefully. If you understand how and why it works, then you will easily be able to modify the email's subject line based on this shift.

Jourdain

as i am bored i have done it for you:

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com"; $addtitle="Dayshift"; } 
elseif ($shift=="Evenings") { $mailto = "example2@example.com"; $addtitle="Eveningshift"; } 
elseif ($shift=="Nights") { $mailto = "example3@example.com"; $addtitle="Nightshift"; } 
else { print "You must select a shift"; exit; } 
mail("$mailto,$email", $addtitle." AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

Enjoy, but as etully said, you should have been able to spot this yourself!

[an even simpler method would have just been to append $shift to the title string, but this allows you to change the wording appended at will, or even make the whole message dependant on which shift is selected]

Attila7

Thanks Jourdain I will try that as I was not getting very far the way I was going about it. I did not know about the addtitle command and could not get by a syntax error as shown below.

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com","AV Change Request",$message,$headers; }

Being new to this stuff I tend do a lot of trial and error, mostly error as you can see, but I am willing to learn and try. A push in the right direction or a suggestion is very much appreciated.

This forum is a good resource and the guys are super, often there are several ways to do something and a few differant solutions or suggestions results in what I was hoping to achieve.

etully

Attila, We need to go back a step. $mailto and $addtitle are not commands.

Jourdain and I made them up. They are variables.

We could just as easily have used $x or $y or $george_bush_can_sniff_my_bum

I frequently use variables like: $number_of_rows_in_the_table

You picked "shift" as the name of the field in your form, so that became the name of the variable in the PHP script. So I did an if statement like this:

if ($shift=="Days") { }

What that does is compare the value of the variable to "Days". If they are the same, then whatever commands appear in the curly braces will happen.

So the way Jourdain and I wrote it was this:

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com"; $addtitle="Dayshift"; }

If $shift has a value of Days, then assign this string to the mailto variable and assign this string to the addtitle variable.

Now that we have two variables with values, then we can execute our mail command:

mail("$mailto,$email", $addtitle." AV Change Request",$message,$h ...

see how $mailto and $addtitle fit in there? The values of those variables go into the mail command.

Attila7

I see now how this is going. The only fixed values are "if" "elseif" and mail which appear to be handlers, the rest can be whatever I choose as long as they are the same in both elseif and mail.

One error I am getting is the title on the received email, it is picking up the 7th line on my form ($message) instead of the mail values. I tried removing the 7th line but that generated a syntax error in the Email line?

etully

You wrote:

I see now how this is going. The only fixed values are "if" "elseif" and mail which appear to be handlers, the rest can be whatever I choose as long as they are the same in both elseif and mail.

That's exactly right. You might call them reserved words?

You wrote:

One error I am getting is the title on the received email, it is picking up the 7th line on my form ($message) instead of the mail values. I tried removing the 7th line but that generated a syntax error in the Email line?

Cut and paste your code. I suspect that you used a comma where you should have used a period (dot). Jourdain used a little shortcut that might have thrown you off. A dot means "add these two strings together". If you use a comma instead, it would mess up the mail command.

Attila7

This is line 7 that is being picked up as the title or header

$message = "(Union Name) AV Change Request<br><br>

This is the code that I have in the mail section, I would like to tile or header to appear as "Dayshift AV Change Request". Dayshift should change to Evengshift or Nightshift depending on which option is selected.

if ($shift=="Days") { $mailto = "example1@example.com"; $addtitle="Dayshift"; }
elseif ($shift=="Evenings") { $mailto = "example2@example.com"; $addtitle="Eveningshift"; }
elseif ($shift=="Nights") { $mailto = "example3@example.com"; $addtitle="Eveningshift"; }
else { print "You must select a Shift"; exit; }
mail("$mailto,$email", $addtitle." AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

etully

Did you cut and paste all of line 7 ?

This
$message = "(Union Name) AV Change Request<br><br>
must end with a "; like this:
$message = "(Union Name) AV Change Request<br><br>";

The syntax for the mail command is:

mail ( TO , SUBJECT, MESSAGE [, Additional Headers ] );

Don't confuse the subject line with headers. Headers are a behind the scenes thing that the recipient can't see. It doesn't mean a title at the top of the email message and it doesn't mean subject line.

So in this example:
mail("$mailto,$email", $addtitle." AV Change Request",$message,$headers);

The TO is "$mailto,$email"
The SUBJECT is $addtitle." AV Change Request"
The MESSAGE is $message
and the optional headers is $headers

The mail command won't work if you put in a variable that has no value. For example, if $message is <nothing> then you are trying to run this command:

mail ( TO , SUBJECT , , Additional Headers );

See the "nothing" in between the subject and the headers? That's not going to work.

Attila7

Sorry to so confusing, I guess it is a title message that I want to appear at the top of the email. The closing " that you are asking about is after the name and content etc. To save board space I didn't recopy the page as it is the same as my first post except for the mail part which I changed to the code that you suggested with the addtitle change.

I removed the union name in the original post for privacy reasons and I put it back in brackets to keep it differant than the mail line.

Attila7

I see what is happening now, the "Av Change Request" from the mail line is the subject line of the email, that works perfect! I was looking for it in the body of the email, at the top. Would I have to replace line 7 with the if and elseif variables to get it to change according to the shift that is sending the request?

I tried this line but it did not add the shift to AV Change Request?

$message = $addtitle."AV Change Request<br><br>

etully

You wrote:

I tried this line but it did not add the shift to AV Change Request?

$message = $addtitle."AV Change Request<br><br>

Let's examine this line of code very carefully:

$message = $addtitle."AV Change Request<br><br>

The computer is going to create a variable called $message.
It is going to give $message a value. That's what the = sign means.
Here's the value that it's going to give to message:

The current value of $addtitle followed by this text: "AV Change Request<br><br>"

What is the current value of $addtitle when the program gets to line 7 ? Hint: The program starts running on line 1 and works its way down to the bottom of the script.

Attila7

Oops, I really really overthought that one, tried to make it a lot harder than it was? I moed the if and elseif from the mail area up above line 7 and it worked fine, the mail section continued to function as well. Guess the silly computer needs a value before it can enter it?

I'm sorry if I'm wearing out my wlcome here but you are so good at this etully, and I think I'm even learning a thing or two?

Another thing that would help is to get rid of the blank fields. There are more than 2 requested week boxes and 2 renounced week boxes on my working form. Often times a guy will only ask for 1 week but the received email shows the one week requested plus all the other weeks blank. Is there a way to instruct the form to only print the fields to the email that are filled in?