Email Forms CGI

UAF's collection of CGIs contain a CGI program named email, which can be used for handling forms.

The email CGI accepts inputs from a form and emails the results to an address specified in the form. Upon successful completion of the task, it returns to the user a screen indicating the successful submission of the form and (optionally) a link to follow for additional information.

To invoke the email CGI, the ACTION= attribute in your <FORM> tag should read ACTION="http://cgis.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/email". The METHOD should be POST (a METHOD of GET will invoke an error message).

The program will decode INPUTs into Name = Value pairs in an email message and mail them to an indicated address. It recognizes seven INPUTs for its own processing purposes (all others will simply be decoded and reported in the email message). The six INPUTs the program uses are named mailto, name, mail, formname, nexturl, nextdesc, redirurl. The mailto INPUT is required, and indicates the address to which the form results will be emailed. The name and mail INPUTs are also required and will produce an error message to the user if not present. These two indicate the name and email address of the user submitting the form, but may be stuffed with dummy values (like N/A) and placed in TYPE="hidden" fields if an anonymous form is preferred. The formname INPUT will be placed into the beginning of the email message to indicate which form this message represents (a department may have multiple forms). I recommend that this INPUT be placed in a TYPE="hidden" field. You have 14 characters in which to identify the form. The nexturl and nextdesc INPUTs are for creating the anchor (link) on the results page returned to the user. The nexturl INPUT should contain the URL for your information or NEXT page, and the nextdesc should contain the text describing the link. I recommend that both of these belong in TYPE="hidden" fields. redirurl INPUT is a user defined results page. Please note that all of these INPUTs have a maximum length of 64 characters (except formname, which has 14 and mailto, which has 128).

On Monday, November 23, 1998 many new features were added. All the old functions work the same. The new functions are:

• You can require a user to put a value in a field. Any field name that begins with the two characters R- demarks a required field. (note - you must use a capital R). Previous versions of the CGI required name and mail fields. If you have a legacy form you need not change it, the CGI will recognize those two fields as R-name and R-mail.

• The Name = Value pairs are reported back to the user on the confirmation page. There is a new INPUT called userhide - if any value is assigned to userhide this feature is turned OFF. userhide can be a hidden input or you can make it a checkbox on the form. Any field name that begins with the two characters H- will not be reported to the user. (note - you must use a capital H).

• There is a new hidden field called errurl that allows you to make a page to direct users to from the errors page. If you leave this field blank this feature will have no effect.

• There is a new hidden field called formdir that you can use to give directions to the CGI. This new field is a string with up to 8 characters. If the formdir string contains:

  S or s

  your Name = Value pairs will be sorted by name with the required fields first

  D or d

  the name and mail pairs will be reported at the beginning of the message as always but they will not be duplicated as a Name = Value pair in the body of the message.

  E or e

  Empty fields will not be reported as a Name = Value pair.
  

For an example of how to use the updated email CGI, you may refer to http://www.uaf.edu/webauthors/testform/emailtest.html. Be sure to examine the source html file. Please note that the mailto INPUT in this example form has been left for you to fill in so that you may mail your tests to yourself. This practice is STRONGLY discouraged in any forms you create. The most flexibility you should build into the mailto field for your forms is a SELECT field, CHECKBOXes, or RADIO buttons with limited specific addresses. This CGI should not be used for a general mailer.

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Last modified 08/08/2006
by fxdjl@uaf.edu