Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I Rock!

After a few hours of pulling out my hair, searching google, and every How-To-HTML website out there I finally figured it out.... how to actually make a Form work, specifically a Contact Us form, or even more specifically a Talk To Me form. I haven't incorporated it into the front end navigation yet, but feel free to test it out and let me know if its working. In case you missed it, that link is:

Talk To Me!

comments are cool too.

4 comments:

Elspeth said...

I'm so jealous! Want to write me documentation on how I can do it? (At least anything past Susan Kitchens' documentation, which I already have.)

Anonymous said...

I've made many a form. Do you mind me asking where you felt you kept having trouble? I've been thinking of starting a blog or a wiki with super simple blog/website tutorials. I've been sharing so many tips since Blogher that it would be cool to collect them all in one spot.

~Kat

JeSais said...

Interesting question.

First off, I pretty much understand the concept, that the within the HTML form you have to have code that calls the script which creates the Action (the sending of the email). I wasn't sure how to get this script or where to put it on my site.

My biggest problem was that I'm hosted at GoDaddy and their How To on how to use their own GoDaddy version of formmail is woefully un-informative, and I am a person that actually understands this stuff conceptually at least... but when I put the code on the HTML form per their instructions, it was missing a HUGE piece of the HTML action, the part where the code tells the script where to send the email. (input name="recipients" value="YOUR EMAIL@YOURWEBSITE.COM" type="hidden"

So when you click "submit" it goes nowhere!! Now if you're a cgi regular, this maybe such an obvious thing, but if you're like me, its not. Also, when I "installed" the GoDaddy script per GoDaddy's instructions it asked me the email I wanted the form info sent to, so I assumed that it somehow put some sort of customized script on my server for me. Uh yeah. Hello?? this is GoDaddy-- which I love for their prices, but service, customized service, is completely lacking.
Anyway, I resolved this by googling the the GoDaddy script name and scrolling through lots of the same questions, until I hit upon an answer that worked.

The second part of the problem was properly calling out the location of the script (it was missing a " / ") That one I was able to solve by looking at the source code for the Contact Us page for my work website (which I did not create, obviously) and looking to see what it had that I didn't. tedious.

Hope that answers your question.

Anonymous said...

LOL...Thanks!

I think at the first mention of GoDaddy I could just imagine what the trouble was. It's suprising how many tutorials (written by hosting or other tech specialists) leave out the most simplest of things. It's as if they assume you already know the basics.

Knowing how to research stuff on search engines is the best tool.