Support and Web Hosting FAQ: Email Form Generator

Email Form Generator

All users have access to an interface called the "Email Form Generator" within their account Control Panel. The form generator will create a sample HTML form containing nine commonly used field names such as contact, company, address, city, state and zip.

The interface below is a partial representation of that which will be presented when accessing the form generator. If you wish to rename any of the fields prior to creation of the HTML form, simply enter the desired name(s) in the column of fields as illustrated below.

field 1   required

field 2   required

field 3   required

In some instances, it may be desirable to force the visitor to make an entry in one or more fields. For example, one's company name may be optional, but you must have the address in order to process shipment of an order. As such, clicking the checkbox to the right-hand side of any field will make that field "required". If a visitor submits the form content and a required field is left blank an error message will be displayed which prompts the visitor to go back and make an entry. Although the form generator uses text fields only, you will have the opportunity to modify the sample form to meet your needs.

The form generator will prompt you for the names of the HTML form as well as a corresponding template. The HTML form (form.html) works in conjunction with the preinstalled script cgiemail. Cgiemail will retrieve the submitted form content and send it via e-mail to the webmaster@yourdomain.com in the format set by the template (mailtemp.txt) file. You will also be prompted for URL to jump to once the e-mail has been successfully sent. This is called the Success URL. If you do not enter a Success URL, the submitted form content will be echoed to the visitor upon submission.

Before clicking the "Generate" button, enter the name of the HTML form to be generated as well as the name of the corresponding template. You can use the default names if desired, but please note that the form generator will replace any other document by such names within the root directory of your web site.

The newly generated form can be accessed directly using the following URL:

     http://yourdomain.com/form.htm

You can download the HTML form and template from the root directory of your web site to make modifications. In general, any change which is made to the HTML form must also be made to the corresponding template. Instruction for modifying the sample form is available.