[RESOLVED] Help with php mail function -- Message Portion

hitcttd

Hello everyone!

I'm new to the forums so i'm hoping that i'm posting in the right place.

Here's what I want to do -- I'm working on a very simple evite function for a site i'm building. From this site, there is a part where you can send an invitation to visit the site. two things!

First of all, is there anyway i can use a custom message that the inviter types in, AND an html message that i preset? So when the recipient receives the email, there is a brief message from their friend, and then an html message that everyone gets. Is there a way to put the custom text into the html formatting???

Secondly, if the first can't be done easily, is there a way i can put a live hyperlink in my message? In my preset message there is a URL that only sometimes shows as a live hyperlink. I think you have to be using outlook or a mail program to see it as a clickable link... Webmail applications i about think offer the same functionality.

Anyway help would be appreciated!

EDIT: So far i have MOST of the functions working. The only snags are the two mentioned above...

You can visit the site at

www.liquidmediahawaii.com/newhope

Thanks guys

NogDog

For the message stuff, add a <textarea> element to the form. At the point in the message body where you want the user's message to appear, simply insert the applicable $_POST array element for that input. (You'll probably want to validate it first to ensure it is not too long, then sanitize it for output by running it through [man]strip_tags/man.)

If you want to ensure that URL's are treated as hyperlinks, then you'll need to send your message as HTML. See Example 1101 on the mail() page for an example of how to do that.

hitcttd

Thanks for the relpy!

I had already entered a text area part. At this point a user can enter a custom message... I also went through the link you gave me and it was helpful...

Here is my question then, how do i take the custom message and wrap it in html? Can i call that POST into my html messsage?

Do you know what I mean?

Thanks!

NogDog

$messageHtml = "<html><head><title>Invitation</title></head><body>
<p>Standard message text here.</p>
<p>".nl2br(strip_tags($_POST['message']))."</p>
<p>Rest of standard message text follows here.</p>
</body></html>";

hitcttd

i love you now...

thanks so much

Great site!

bradgrafelman

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.

hitcttd

Okay, maybe i spoke too soon... I went home and tried the new code... Everything still works, except the html tags all show up in the email sent... The formatting tags don't format, they just show up as text...

Was I suppose to do something else in the script?

Thanks again guys!

Thanh

EDIT

Here is what the final sendmail function needs to look like for it to work

mail($to,"$from has sent you an eVite!", $completemsg, "From: $from <$sendermail>".
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n" .
"Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1");

figured that one out with a few searches...

Thanks again for all your help

hitcttd

Okay, update:

I got everything to work.

The html email cannot be formatted? By that i mean, I added <font face> tags to specify color, size, etc. As soon as those changes are made, the page will not load placing an error on that line... unexpected t string... i'm supposed to be able to use full html coding no?

Gettin' there, slowly...

What do you guys think?

bradgrafelman

I think you'll have to show us some examples of code that's breaking, but my guess is that you're not escaping quotes that you used as string delimiters. Example:

// broken:
$string = "This is a "string"!";

// not broken:
$string = "This is a \"string\"!";

EDIT: By the way, I unmarked this thread as "Resolved" for you.

hitcttd

Here is the code for entire send mail function...

I've come to find that you can use simple tags like <i> and <b> You can't seem to specify font color and even add hyperlinks? As soon as you add those tags the script folds...

Thanks for your ongoing help

<?				
				if(isset($_POST['submit']) && $_POST['sender'] && $_POST['recipient'] != "")

{


// Set Variables
    $to = $_POST['recipient'];
    $from = $_POST['sender'];
    $subject = $_POST['sender'];
    $sendermail = $_POST['sendermail'];
    $message = $_POST['msg'];
    $completemsg = "<html><head><title>New Hope Ewa Beach eVite</title></head><body>

// HTML MESSAGE
<b>".nl2br(strip_tags($_POST['sender']))." Has sent you the following message:</b><br>

<p>".nl2br(strip_tags($_POST['msg']))."</p><br><br>


<p>“You are your family are invited to the exciting Grand Opening of New Hope Ewa 
Beach at Campbell High School on August 19. &nbsp;<br>There will be outdoor bands, 
free food, shave ice, bounce houses, sports and an inspiring message. &nbsp;<br>For 
more information go to www.newhopeewabeach.org<br></p>

// END OF HTML MESSAGE

</body></html>"; 

//Send email 

mail($to,"$from has sent you an eVite!", $completemsg, "From: $from <$sendermail>\n" .
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n" .
"Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"); 

echo "Your invitation has been sent!";

}

else{
echo "Please fill in all fields before submitting...";
}

?>

hitcttd

Does anyone have any thoughts on why this is so?

Thanks!

bradgrafelman

Show us an example of how you tried to add such tags.

hitcttd

<p><font face="Verdana" style="font-size: 8pt" color="#0066FF">".nl2br(strip_tags($_POST['msg']))."</font></p>
<font face="Verdana" style="font-size: 8pt" color="#0066FF"><br><br></font>

Also <a href="www.newhopeewabeach.com">click</a>

doesnt work either...

T string error on both...

Thanks!

NogDog

If you are trying to put that HTML text into a PHP variable as part of a double-quoted string, then you either need to (a) change the quotes in the HTML elements to single quotes, or else escape the double quotes with reverse slashes:

$msg .= "<p>This is <a href='single.quotes' title=\"escaped quotes\">a test</a>.</p>";

hitcttd

Things seem to be working, thanks for all of your time... Just to clarify:

I can use html as long as i replace all double quotes with single quotes?

Thanks again!

bradgrafelman

No... you can use HTML as long as you don't break the string in PHP.

I gave an example above, and you can learn more about it in the manual: [man]string[/man].