Help with Email Form Improvements

ikerson

I created a php form, which relays the results to my email account. The code is based mainly on examples in The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver with CSS, AJAX, and PHP. The page gets the job done. But, it's a little rough around the edges. There are three problems:

1) The form is resent if the user hits reload before navigating away from the page.

2) If Javascript is turned off and the user enters an invalid email address, the form is not sent, all the information is cleared, and the user is not given any sort of notice of what just happened.

3) Every so often, emails are dropped -- I don't receive them. I have gotten complains from users and I have experienced this problem myself during testing. (This may have more to do with a problem with my host than a problem with the code. I have opened a ticket with my hosting company.)

The page can be viewed at http://www.westchesterenglish.com/registration.php and the code is attached.

sneakyimp

1) the resending of POST data can be avoided by redirecting to another page in your form handling code. This forum does exactly that when you submit a post. It says "thanks for posting" or whatever and then displays a meta refresh tag which redirects you to the new post.

2) Sounds like you need to put some validation in your PHP code that handles the form submission. It is both a security hazard and bad design to rely on javascript entirely for validation of your form input. you should make your form handler check for a valid email address.

3) Sending email reliably can be a very trick business. There's a detailed discussion of it here.

ikerson

1) Redirecting to a new page occurred to me a couple hours after I put up my post. It really seems like the best solution. Thanks for the meta refresh tag tip.

2) The form handler does check for valid email addresses. The problem is it simply does not send the information and resets the fields when it determines an email is invalid. I can correct these problems with additional PHP, though. Just need to put the work in.

3) The link to "Email - Best Practices" is excellent.

Malvina

1) You can avoid the POST data reseding if you will redirect your form handling form to another page.
2) You should put validation in your php code which handles the form submission
3) Sending e-mail can be business cheating.
More detailed you may search here:

MOD EDIT: External link to commercial product removed. Please do not post links to these types of websites in the future.

sneakyimp

Just ban the guy. He obviously just copied my response and put spam in it.