Sierra Web Design: SWD Mailer

Form Mailer

Disclaimer
Please read this FAQ and understand this product fully before attempting to use it on your site. Contact us at webmaster@sierraweb.com or (702)833-9500 with any questions.

The Sierra Web Form mailer is a simple CGI script that you can invoke from within your site. It will send the enumerated visible and hidden form fields within an email message to the specified email address.

Here is what the html code for a simple form would look like:

<form ACTION="/scripts/sierraweb/swdmailer.pl?brianh?webmaster@sierraweb.com?http://www.sierraweb.com/mailer.html"METHOD="POST">
<input name="title" type=hidden value="Test SWDMailer">
<p>
<strong>Your Name:</strong> <input NAME="Name" size="20"><br>
<strong>Your Email:</strong> <input NAME="email" size="50"><br>
<strong>Message:</strong><br>
<textarea name="msg" rows="4" cols="50"></textarea> </p>
<p><input TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE="Send"> </p>
</form>

If you take a close look at the form tag above you'll notice there are three values after the "swdmailer.pl" string that are separated by question marks. These are the fields you will customize when you use the script on your site. Here's another look at the form tag:

<form ACTION=/scripts/sierraweb/swdmailer.pl?<arg1>?<arg2>?<arg3>" METHOD="POST">

The three arguments have the following meaning:

<arg1>	This is an arbitrary string that is used as part of a temporary filename used by the email utility. Use up to 8 characters, preferrably part of your domain name. For example if your domain name is JOE.COM, use the string JOE.
<arg2>	This is the formal email address where the form contents will be mailed to. Such as JOE@JOE.COM
<arg3>	This is the URL of the page people will use to return to your site from the emailer response page. Try the example form below to see how this is used. For this example let's say we want the user to re-enter the site through HTTP://WWW.JOE.COM/INDEX.HTML

Using the above examples our <form> tag would now be:

<form ACTION=/scripts/sierraweb/swdmailer.pl?JOE?JOE@JOE.COM?HTTP://WWW.JOE.COM/INDEX.HTML" METHOD="POST">

Pretty easy, huh? Now there are just a couple more things to keep in mind. There are three special <input> tags that the script looks for while processing. These are:

<input name="Name" etc...> - will use the Name field on the reply page.
<input name="email" etc...> - will use this field for the reply address.
<input name="title" etc...> - will use this for the email subject, with the Name field appended. This is commonly a hidden field.

Another tip is that the swdmailer.pl program will enumerate all fields- both hidden and visible, and it enumerates them in the order in which they appear on the page. You can use hidden form fields to place a row of dashes between blocks of fields so that your email is easier to read. Be sure to give each hidden form field a different name or it will append them all together in one big lump.

Try it below to send us a comment about this script:

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