The FormFeeder

The FormFeeder is a simple script that allows your users to submit information from a form via email. What is differant here from other such scripts is firstly, the fact that the FormFeeder includes features such as mail merge, and HTML templates for invalid submissions. Another feature is the ability to use the same CGI script for multiple forms on a host - the script is fully remotely controllable from any form on any given webserver.

Initial setup consists of setting up the following variables.

Script Variables

$SENDMAIL

Contains the absolute path to your sendmail program (probably something like /usr/sbin/sendmail)

$HTMLROOT

Contains the absolute path to your HTML directory (probably something like /home/username/public_html)

$HTMLAUTHOR

Wouldn't want to stop you from making yourself known :-) Whatever's in this variable is added to the META AUTHOR tags in all built-in pages...

$PERM_RECIP

Optional variable that allows you to overwrite the recipient form variable for security reasons

$PERM_SUBJ

Optional variable that allows you to overwrite the subject form variable for security reasons

All other variables are form-related, and are therefore passed via the form itself.

This section contains variables that can be included in the form to affect how the script will work

Required Form Variables

recipient

Contains the email address that the form should send to. Can be overwritten by the $PERM_RECIP variable from within the script

subject

Contains the subject of the email message that will be generated. Can be overwritten by the $PERM_SUBJ variable from within the script

Optional Form Variables

template

Contains the "URL" to a template document that will be shown after a successful submission. Although this path is from the root for the HTML, it is NOT a real URL, and therefore cannot point to a remote location. However, as an advantage to this, paths behind the HTML root can be used in the format "../foo/bar.html". For information on how the template can be used, see the template file commands section, below.

badinput

Same as the template variable, except this template will be used when incorrect (ie, insufficient) data has been submitted

nonrequired

This should contain a comma-seperated list (no spaces near the commas!!!) of form variables that will not be marked as "required" when checking to see whether the user entered information into all fields

mailfile

Same as the template variable, except that this template will be used as the body of the email message that is sent when the form input is validated.

htmlmail

Same as the mailfile variabe, except that this template is for sending HTML rich mail. This should be used in conjunction with the mailfile variable for sending a text-only mail for non-HTML-compatible mail programs, but is not necessary.. If mailfile is not provided, the text-only version will be automatically generated.

morepages

Setting this to true will cause the script to defer sending the email. This is useful for making multi-page forms with one submittal at the end.

REMOTE_ADDR

Including this as a hidden field will cause the user's IP to be included in the email

The power that makes FormFeeder so good, lies mainly in it's ability to let you easily create professional looking webpages in response to user entry. As of version 1.02, templates could be set up to contain embedded form output. In version 1.03, the badinput template was extended to allow logic tests to see what form input was added by the user and, more importantly, what the user omitted. The following list contains more detailed information on template file commands.

Template Commands

<!--##name##-->

Replaces the entire comment tag with the content of the input recieved with the name name

<!--##iffail(name)COMMAND##-->

Replaces the entire comment tag with COMMAND, if, and only if, the input name was a required input field and was omitted. If it is not changed, the reason why will be written to the HTML output in a comment tag. For badinput template only

<!--##ifpass(name)COMMAND##-->

Same as iffail command, except that COMMAND will be done if the input name contained user input. For badinput template only

Copyright (c)2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 - Issac Goldstand - All rights reserved

Due to the fact that I've switched licenses, no versions earlier than 1.02 are available.

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