Form mail not working cgi...

Question

Hi all
been trying this for 3 days now! i had a site and used php -
easy! but changed site that uses cgi.
instructions: download formfile... done.
save it to cgi-bin folder - dont have one, so created one...
thats probably not the right thing to do??
moved formail file to cgi-bin
changed all relevant data.
changed my 'competition.html' form with all relevant data.
Uploaded cgi-bin folder and competition form...
I get" Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration
and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator,
[email protected] and inform them of the time the error
occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the
error. More information about this error may be available in the
server error log"
My host (so very unhelpful) tells me to check permissions are
set to 755 - but i cant do that... no right click action here..
using dreamweaver 2004.
help!!! where am i going wrong??
thank you

Answer 1

a common reason for an internal server error in a Perl script
on a linux web
server is to edit with an app that uses Windows line returns.
It could also be that you haven't set the file permissions.
There was a dw extension called "set permissions" You could
google for it or
use some ftp client or your hosting control panel to set the
file
permissions.
If your remote server is a linux box, you could start with a
fresh copy of
the Perl script, and go into dw preferences->code format
and select Unix
linebreaks. Then make the needed changes to the config
section, upload it,
set permissions.
OR- can you use php on this hosting?
If yes-
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/