E-Forms EZ
©1998 by James Carr
http://www.azwebpages.com/e-forms
Quick Start With Your Own Form
If you are using FrontPage, please read about how to set up your FrontPage webs for use with E-Forms EZ.
Important: The e-forms.exe program must be placed in a directory on your web server which is set up to execute scripts. This directory is usually mapped to /CGI-BIN or /SCRIPTS . This directory must be set up to have permissions to execute programs/scripts..
First, change the action for your form to use e-forms.exe.
Open your form in your HTML editor. You must change the action of your form to use e-forms.exe (modify the Form Properties or the raw HTML). For example, FrontPage will expect you to run a Custom ISAPI, NSAPI or CGI Script. Click the Options button to set the Action for the form. You might use action="/cgi-bin/e-forms.exe" assuming that you used the /cgi-bin directory on your web server. Replace /cgi-bin with /scripts if that's what your web server uses. You may have to manually edit your HTML code to enter this property.
If you are using FrontPage and have placed e-forms.exe in a subdirectory below another directory, be sure to enter the full path to the program (/computers/cgi-bin/e-forms.exe).
The Encoding Type should be multipart/form-data and the method POST.
Second, you must tell E-Forms EZ where to send the e-mail.
If you have a field where the user enters the e-mail address to send the message, change the name of that field to mail_to. If you want to "hard wire" the address where the e-mail is sent, then add a hidden field called mail_to. In some HTML editors you may have to edit something called Form Properties to add a hidden field. In other editors you may need to manually enter the HTML code yourself. A hidden field tag has three settings: Type (called hidden), Name and Value. The name of the hidden field to add is mail_to. The value of this field is the address to which you want the e-mail sent. The HTML code might look like this:
<input type="hidden" name="mail_to" value="carrprog@azwebpages.com">
Third, add a hidden field called smtp_server to your form.
An SMTP server is the program that actually sends the e-mail. E-Forms EZ simply prepares the message much like how Outlook or Eudora prepares an e-mail, then hands it off to the SMTP server to do the dirty work of finding the recipient. The value of the smtp_server field tells the program what mail server to use to send the message. If you are unsure of what value to use, check the account settings for your e-mail software (in Outlook select Tools, Accounts from the menu). If that doesn't work, contact your web hosting company. If you are still stuck and just need to run a few tests, you can use ours at smtp.azwebpages.com. The HTML code would look like this:
<input type="hidden" name="smtp_server" value="smtp.azwebpages.com">
Fourth, test your form!
Save the changes above, then test your form by loading it from your web server (you can't test a form by using File, Open from your browser). E-Forms EZ will send the information from the form to the e-mail address you supplied with mail_to field. Since you have done no customization at this point, the program is using default formatting and will include all of the fields submitted with your form.
What if you receive an error?
Check this page for help in resolving errors.
Customize, Customize, Customize!
You can now customize every aspect of the forms submission process. Take a look at all of the features of E-Forms EZ. You will find that you can:
Be sure to run the E-Forms Wizard! This program will help you create the files you need to get the most out of E-Forms EZ!