Internet Web Hosting Support - CGIemail problems?

CGIemail problems?

cgiemail script is a CGI programming tag which enables an online feedback form on CGI activated servers. It accepts the results of a feedback form, and uses a template file to build and construct an E-Mail message containing those results. This makes it considerably more flexible than formmail.pl .

How to install a cgiemail script: (available on all Domainhost hosting accounts)

1. Generate an html feedback form for site visitors to use, including a "submit" and "reset" button. Give your input fields sensible names, like "email", or "firstname".

Two additional files are required to work in conjuction with the form:

template.txt an E-Mail template which gets automatically filled out and sent off.
confirm.htm an HTML confirmation message which is displayed when the visitor submits the information on the feedback form.

2. Adjust the feedback form's action tag to be as follows, and include the hidden input field:

<form action="/cgi-sys/cgiemail/template.txt" method="post" name="order">
<input name="success" type="hidden" value="http://www.yourdomain.com/confirm.htm>
(where 'yourdomain.com' is your registered domain with Domainhost)

For testing purposes, you may substitute the reference to 'cgiemail' with 'cgiecho', this will print out the feedback form results your browser screen without actually sending them by E-Mail.

3. Now you need to create the template.txt file. It can be created in a standard text editor (eg. WordPad or NotePad). Simply copy and paste the following text below into the text editor of your choice.

From: YourCompanyName <info@yourdomain.co.za>

To: [email] Cc: info@yourdomain.co.za

Subject: Submission of Form

For attention: [contactname]

Dear Client

Many thanks for your correspondence!

If you did not sign up with us, or feel that this message has been misdirected in any way, please let us know by writing to info@yourdomain.co.za.

Information Provided: Company : [companyname]

Contact Person : [contactname]

Physical Address : [adress]

Description : [description]

Phone : [telno]

Fax : [fax]

Email address : [email]

Web site address : [web_site_adress]

Amend the document as required, replacing all the E-Mail addresses with the relevant addresses to which the results of the feedback form should be sent.

Amend each of the form field descriptions to correspond with those specified in your own feedback form. Enter the corresponding "name" values (from your html code) for each field into the square [] brackets. Leave the square [] brackets in the template.txt E-Mail template (otherwise the references within will not get replaced with their values).

When the template.txt template is processed by the cgiemail script, it replaces all names in square [] brackets with the form values. If you want to preserve square brackets for some purpose, prefix them with a backslash, like \[ .

When you have completed the modifications to the file, save it as template.txt .

4. Now you need to create the confirm.htm file. It can be created in a standard text editor (eg. WordPad or NotePad). Simply copy and paste the sample text below into the text editor of your choice.

Transaction Successful !
A confirmation message will be send within only a few minutes to the contact e-mail provided.

Amend the document as required. When you have completed the modifications, save the file as confirm.htm . You might want to use a confirmation page you already designed in place of confirm.htm (i.e replace the reference to 'confirm.htm' in the cgiemail code with the name of your file instead).

5. You may wish to use alternative file names for either the template.txt or confirm.htm documents. If this is the case, please ensure that the corresponding references in cgiemail code refer to your preferred file names instead.

6. Once the above modifications have been completed, upload the three files in ASCII mode to your 'public_html' directory.

7. Test the form on your page!

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Note 1: The template.txt file MUST be uploaded in ASCII mode.
Note 2: If you would like to place these files in a different folder, be sure to change the path in the above cgiemail code accordingly. For example, if you want to put them in a subdirectory called FOLDER, amend the html code of the feedback form as follows:

EXAMPLE:

<form action="/cgi-sys/cgiemail/FOLDER/template.txt" method="post" name="order">
<input name="success" type="hidden" value="http://www.yourdomain.com/FOLDER/confirm.htm">