Collecting data from forms

Question

I am a convert from MS Expression Web to DW and loving it. I
am still learning the ropes however of this app.
I have figured out how to create HTML forms and used some
Spry in the process. I add a submit button and tested it. No errors
occurred so I figured I am fine so far, but how do I config the
form to email me the results of what my site visitors enter? I got
it to post to a another page, but that does not send the info to
me. So how do I do that part?
Thank you.

Answer 1

does the hosting for this site have a control panel or
CPanel?
If yes- look in there for icons for cgi-library or script
library. Most
CPanel sites have "formmail clone" installed with a link to
instructions on
how to use it.
if the hosting can use PHP scripting, i suggest this script:
phpformmail
1)go to
http://http://developerkarma.com/projects
-->phpformmail
download it.
extract the ZIP file.
**More detailed instructions are in the docs folder.
**These shortcut instructions are for version 1.07 of the
phpformmail
script.
2) open formmail.php in dreamweaver
Make the following changes (in code view, turn line numbers
on)
2a)
line 4,
define('CHECK_REFERER', true);
change to:
define('CHECK_REFERER', false);
reason: too many people use a firewall or Norton security to
restrict this.
2b)
Line 43
$referers = array('www.example.com', 'example.com');
change to the domain name of your web site.
reason: this probably isn't needed since we just turned the
referrer
checking off. but change it anyway.
2c)  *this is to hard-code the recipient address into
the php
file, where it is totally invisible *
Line 46
$recipient_array = array();
change to:
$recipient_array = array('me' =>
'[email protected]');
**of course, replace [email protected]  with
the email address
you want to receive the form data. Also note the single quote
marks.
reason: this sets the email address the form results will be
sent to.
You can also make a list of possible recipient alias values-
see the readme
in the docs folder.
2d) give the script a default "From" address to use.
Go to line 41
Change:
define('FROM', null);
to:
define('FROM', 'Example Name <[email protected]>');
substituting your name and email address.
3) now do a File-->Save As and save this file to within
this Local Site
folder. save it as anythingyouwant.php
4) in dw's File Panel, find anythingyouwant.php and upload it
to the remote
site.
5) Now open your form html file in dreamweaver,
5a)click the mouse into the form area, and select the
<form> tag on the
lower left margin of the design window.
In the Property Inspector, it should now show the properties
of the <form>
tag. In the Property Inspector, to the right of the ACTION
line, click the
folder icon and browse to and select the anythingyouwant.php
file
you've saved to within this site.
5b) now click within the form area and go to dw
menu-->Insert-->Form
Objects-->Hidden Field
This inserts a hidden form field.
In the property inspector, change the NAME/ID of this field
to: recipient
And the VALUE of this field to: me
the code should look like:
<input name="recipient" type="hidden" id="recipient"
value="me">
This tells the script to use the "me" recipient_alias value
as the email
address to send the form to.
5c: Do you have a form field to collect the user's email
address?
If yes, if this field is named exactly "email" then the
script will use the
user's email as the reply to in the outgoing email
6) Save and upload the form page.
Try the form from the website.
Note also- If you have any form fields that can accept
multiple values, like
a set of checkboxes or a select list, they need to have a
name/ID that endes
in pipebrackets- such as my_form_field[] so the script
processes that
field as an array
Alan
Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/