E-Forms EZ
©1998 by James Carr
http://www.azwebpages.com/e-forms
Overview
E-Forms EZ is a Windows EXE (executable) designed to be run on a
web server. It will process the contents of a form to send
customized e-mail to whomever you choose. You will be able to
format the message any way you want including HTML! E-Forms EZ
will automatically insert the values from your form wherever you
choose in the message body. E-Forms EZ will also show a
customized response page to the caller after the message has been
sent. E-Forms EZ can also save the results of a form submission
to a file.
You must install e-forms.exe on your web server in the directory that is set up to execute scripts (usually /cgi-bin or /scripts on most installations). You may have to use FTP to move the file to your web server. If you are using FrontPage, please read about how to set up your FrontPage webs for use with E-Forms EZ.
Note: The web server must be running on a Windows based computer. It will not run on Unix (no Unix version is planned).
There are three basic elements required to use E-Forms EZ: The form the user fills out (Feedback Form), the page he sees after the mail is sent (Response Page), and the body of the message that will be sent (Message Text).
Optional elements include:
Required Fields - forcing the user to fill out
certain required fields. If those fields
are missing the Info Missing Page will be
displayed.
Receipt Message: sending of a secondary Receipt
Message back to the user after the primary message has been sent.
Saving Results: saving the results of a form
submission to a file on disk.
Default Settings: saving default settings in e-forms.ini
can speed the creation of new forms.
Feedback Form
This is the HTML form that the user will fill out. On this form
either in visible or hidden input fields you must have several
key fields and a Submit button. There are other fields that can
be used but are optional. The values of the fields here determine
how the message will be sent and what page the user will see
after the message has been sent. See List of
Fields for details on all the fields. Open ez-demo.htm
for an example.
Response Page
This is the HTML page which will be displayed to the caller after
he clicks Submit and the message is sent. You can insert macros
on this page to represent the values of fields defined by your
Feedback Form. Open ez-response_page.htm for an
example.
Message Text
This is the text file which contains the message to be sent by E-Forms
EZ. You can insert macros in this file to represent values of
fields defined by your Feedback Form. If you do not specify a
name for this file, the message will be created dynamically with
one field listed per line. Open ez-message_text.txt
for an example..
Info Missing
Page (optional)
If one of the following fields is blank when the form is
submitted: mail_to, smtp_server, smtp_port or
any field you create with _req as the last four
characters of the field name - the Info Missing Page is shown to
the user.You can require that the user fill out certain fields
you create on your form by adding _req to the
field name. You can insert macros in this file to represent
values of fields in your form. Open ez-info_missing_page.htm
for an example.
Error Page (optional)
If there is an error processing the request, this page will be
displayed to the user. You can insert macros in this file to
represent values of fields defined by your feedback form. Open ez-error_page.htm
for an example.
Receipt Text (Optional)
After the message has been sent by E-Forms EZ, it can also send a
Receipt message to the user who filled out the form. This is a
second and separate message you can send to the user as a
courtesy or confirmation. If you do not set a value for the
receipt_text field, no receipt will be sent. Open ez-receipt_text..txt.for
an example.
Results File (Optional)
You can save the results of a form submission to a file on disk.
By default the results are saved one field per line in a text
file. If you create a template file, you can customize how the
results are saved. Open ez-results_file_template.txt for
an example.
Default Values
You can save default values in e-forms.ini and
place that file on your web server along with e-forms.exe.
If a form is submitted without a value for a field, the program
will look in this file to find the default value.
How it Works
The caller views your Feedback Form and fills out the info. He
clicks the Submit button, which runs e-forms.exe (the action for
that form). The program reads the information submitted by the
form and creates the e-mail message. All macros in the Message
Text and Response Page files are replaced with their values as
set in the Feedback Form. E-Forms EZ then sends the message and
displays the Response Page to the caller.