UUNET MailForm Readme

The form

Contents of the Mail result from the form. For each input field there is an entry in the Mail. The field name in the Mail is identically to that field names in the form. Additionally some generic fields must be indicated, with which the GCI SCRIPT is configured.

• The form starts with the following line, which sets the call of the GCI SCRIPT as an action:

  <form action="/cgi/feedback" method="POST">

• With the help of the form the eMail address to those, which form data are to be sent, the Subject those which can be produced eMail, the complete URL or the file of the acknowledgement page and if necessary the complete URL or the path of the page are transferred to the feedback script.
  For this there are pre-defined names, which are not allowed to use elsewhere and which with the help of the hidden attribute (<input type="hidden "... >) in the form have to be indicated, so that these configuration information don't appear on the page. The appropriate value attribute contains the appropriate value.

  _myemail_
  Your eMail address (e.g. abc@mycompany.de). New:< If the contents (value) of the field ends on .csv, not a Mail, but a CSV file (colon separated values) will be produced.

  _subject_
  The Subject of the Mails, which are produced from this page. (e.g. order)

  _confirm_
  The file name of the acknowledgement page, on which the user can check its inputs again.

  _thanks_
  The URL or the file name of the final page. You can indicate alternatively an absolute path, a logical or a complete URL including server designation. The GCI SCRIPT detects independently, over which concerns itself it with your specification, and sends to the WWW Browser a Redirect on this page.
  (Examples: http://www.myserver.de/MailformOK.html, or simply /MailformOK.html. Alternatively also a local file name can be e.g. /home/www/conf/thanks.html.)

  _myself_
  The complete URL or the file name of the page. This specification is necessary to be able to output the appropriate error messages for the obligation fields.
  It can be also omitted, if the page is in the DOCUMENT ROOT
  (/ home/www/data) directory. Then the GCI SCRIPT finds the page independently through the environment variable of HTTP_REFERER.
  (Examples: file:/home/www/data/Mailform.html.)

• Example fields for a form. You find a detailed example on the Mailform.html page. Mailform.html .

  <input type=text name="Street" size=20 maxlength=40>

  results in the Mail an entry a form of:

  Street: <input street name>

  If you should insist on the fact that the user absolutely fills out a field, then you place to the field name an M_ in front (M_ is for mandatory). For the above example it looks like this:

  <input type=text name="M_Street" size=20 maxlength=40>

  The Mail entry remains the same as above!
  In order to be able to indicate to the user that he/she forgot something, an error message can be adjusted in the form. This occurs as follows:

  <!---ERROR M_Name
  Now here can be written quite normal HTML code
  e.g. You forgot to fill out the name field! -->

  This text will appear only in the event of an error in exactly the place in which it is located in the form. Replace M_Name with that variable name, to which the error message applies. If you do not like to indicate an error message for each necessary field, then you simply omit the variable name. The error message then is displayed, as soon as (any) a field remains empty which however must be filled out.
  If there is an input field, which carries the name Email (consider the exact way of writing!) then this input becomes related as senders of the Mail.

  If you like that fields remain filled out, if the user forgets to fill out a field then you must still insert VALUE = " " in the INPUT day, behind the NAME attribute. An example to clarify:

  <INPUT NAME="Surname" VALUE="">
  Fields, which fulfill this criterion, keep their contents, the others are reset

  Try out absolutely also for this the example form!

The acknowledgement page (optional)

The acknowledgement page is called, if on the form page the field were set
_confirm_. Contents of this field are the file name of this page.
The page must be a normal HTML page with special substitute symbols, which are then replaced to variables' contents by the CGI script. A substitute symbol has the form @@Variablename. Please note that also on the acknowledgement page the GCI-call (with <FORM>) and the other control fields for the feedback-CGI must be available (_myemail_, _subject_, etc.); only _confirm_ control field may not be available again, of course.

Files

The package consists of the following files:

• feedback (Perl script)
• Mailform.html (example form page)
• MailformOK.html (example acknowledgement page)
• MailformDoc.html (this documentation)

The directories

Files must be situated in the following directories on your server:

• feedback -> CGI directory
  (e.g. /home/www/cgi/)
• Mailform.html -> Document directory
  (e.g. /home/www/data/)
• MailformOK.html ->Document directory
  (e.g. /home/www/data/)

Requests

The following software must be installed on your server:

• Perl (Version >= 5.001)
• CGI.pm (CGI Perl Library ab Version 1.53)

Configuration

The following things are to be configured:

• The Perl path
  In line 1 of the script Mailform the path has to be indicated where Perl can be found (version 5.001 or higher), e.g.

  #!/usr/local/bin/perl

  (on UNIX machines to determine with: whereis perl)

• The used Mailprogram (e.g. sendmail)
  This must be done in the script Mailform in the following paragraph (quite above in the script):

   
          
  ##
  ## Config
  ##
  
  $MAILER='/usr/sbin/sendmail -t';

  Please enter here the complete path! (on UNIX maschines to determine with: whereis sendmail)

• The DOCUMENTROOT directory of the server
  This must be done in the script Mailform in the following paragraph (quite above in the script):

          
  ##
  ## Config
  ##
  
  $DOCUMENTROOT='/home/www/data/';

  Please enter here the complete path!