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Building forms is a most important
skill as you will be able to collect all sorts of information
with them. I have used them to do surveys, to gather
information on what clients like and also customer profiles.
You can also enrol people into your newsletter and so on.
I have
two options for you here.
There is a nice little tutorial
you can use at the Form
Tutor which will teach you how to build your own forms. It
has become a paid service but offers a lot for the money if
you want to go down that way. I have lots of free tutorials so
I leave the choice to you. Many of the ISP providers will have
tutorials on forms as well. Each supplier may use different
formats, so ask your ISP for the relevant information.
PHP Forms
PHP forms are
very easy to use and work by sending the information to a
script that validates the information and then sends it to
your nominated email address. It is so easy and very
efficient. Just go
to this web site and follow the directions and you
will have a php web form set up on your web site in minutes.
Third
party forms.
The second alternative is to
use one of the services on the Internet to process these
requests for you. One I have used and find very good value, in
fact free, is a company called Bravenet. You can have a form
like the one below (sample only) or create your own in a
matter of minutes and then customise for your own
requirements.
And then this is
what you will get back in your e-mail.
********************************************
* Bravenet. E-mail Form Processing *
********************************************
You have received a posting from your web page:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Date/Time of Posting = Aug 07 2000 / 02:25:38
IP Address: 24.192.0.194
userid = msincome
webpage = From_My_Excellent_Site
name = Your Name
where = Your Country
replyemail = youremail@youraddress.com
pizza_eating = withfork
apples = yes
peaches = yes
fav_color = #DC143C
comments = I really like Bravenet Web Services.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for using Bravenet Email Form Processing!
--------------------------------------------------------------
| Well, it
is really that simple. Just go to Bravenet
and you can get the instructions and code to have a
form on your page almost instantly. You can put it
in your contact.htm page. There is one small thing
we have not discussed yet and that is inserting
HTML. You will notice that some files save as HTML
and others as HTM. This is a server legacy and it
really doesn't matter how you save the file as long
as you do it consistently. I suggest you use the
html extension. Bravenet will send you the code in
an email and you can also get it when you create the
form. Once you have your code for the form from
Bravenet, open up your notepad and copy it into a
new page and save to your desktop. |
INSERTING
THE HTML SCRIPT
Open up your
composer and open the contact.htm page. Now in the cell to the
right at the end of the text type "jack". Why
"jack"? Because we can find it in the html
code as it will be unique.
Open up your file
from Bravenet in your notepad and in edit "select
all" and copy. Now go to the edit menu in your composer
and choose edit and html Source. If it asks you for an editor
just choose your notepad file in accessories. You will see the
code that actually makes up your page. Frightening isn't it.
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Do a
search for "jack" or scroll down till you
find it and highlight the word. Now paste the code
(Ctrl + V). Click on save. In your browser it will
say the file has been changed and do you want to see
the update. Say yes. Now your form is on the page.
Always test your work. Click on the preview tool and
fill in your form to see if you get back an e-mail.
If you don't, then you can go back and check your
work. Read all the instructions at Bravenet to
customise your form. |
Email
Tip
A little secret
for you regarding e-mail. Open your composer up again,
highlight your "e-mail" in your contact page, then
go to link and enter the "mailto:" script. The word
"mailto:" will automatically open your visitors
default email program. You can pre-design your response
with the ?subject= script. Example: I place an add in an ezine
called more profits, then I can put a script like mailto:staff@msincome.com?subject=more
profits. If you click on this link you will see that your
default e-mail program will open and the subject and my email
address has already been filled out with "more
profits", so I know where it came from. You can do this
with your home page e-mail link also and call it "home
page". The script would be mailto:your
email address?subject=Home Page. Replace the red
italics with your actual email address. You would then do this
in all the other pages.
We are
nearly ready to publish these pages. It is time to prepare
them for the search engines so we need to make some
meta tags.
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