Critique tutorial/recipe

I'd like a review of my new page
http://home.no.net/ingernet/tutorial.php

I like the contact form I made for myself so much
that I would like to share it with others. The
form generator I used is a bit tricky, and lots of
people may want their own form but don't know how
to make it. So I wonder - is my recipe easy enough
to understand for the average "webmaster"?
Does the form have what is required - what
"people" would expect from a form on a personal
homepage? Is it safe? I think (yes I know nobody
cares, but...) that a visitor shouldn't have to
fill in lots of fields in a form just to get their
message sent. 'Email address' and 'message' should
be enough.
Which mistakes regarding spelling and grammar have
I made this time? ;-)
I haven't presented correct, modern HTML syntax
because I'd like the code to be as easy to grasp
as possible. Is that stupid? The user will have to
add his/her own styling anyway.


--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

http://home.no.net/ingernet/tutorial.php
I like the contact form I made for myself ...

I don't :-)
When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link "Go
back to contact form ", everything is lost.
Invalid email-addresses are accepted.
Better: handle everything in the same page and apply some more validation to
the email-address
Example: http://www.nicoschuyt.nl/contact.php#Mailformulier


--
Nico
www.nicoschuyt.nl

Nico Schuyt wrote:

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

http://home.no.net/ingernet/tutorial.php
I like the contact form I made for myself ...


I don't :-)

OK! I posted it here to get feedback.

When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link "Go
back to contact form ", everything is lost.

True, that is the one thing that annoys me too.
How can I fix it?

Invalid email-addresses are accepted.
Better: handle everything in the same page and apply some more validation to
the email-address

Validation is done by sending a copy of the mail
to my visitor. If you don't get a verification, I
cant reply either.
What is the advantage of having it all on the same
page?
How can I validate the email-address before the
message gets sent?

Example: http://www.nicoschuyt.nl/contact.php#Mailformulier

Didn't see the light by looking at your form, I'm
afraid. Can you post some code snippets or
something? Please keep it as simple as possible...


--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen

Invalid email-addresses are accepted.
Better: handle everything in the same page and apply
some more validation to the email-address

Validation is done by sending a copy of the mail
to my visitor. If you don't get a verification, I
cant reply either.
What is the advantage of having it all on the same
page?
How can I validate the email-address before the
message gets sent?

Javascript.

If, however, you also want to accomodate users without JS who don't fill in the form correctly, you have to go to more trouble than
that. You need an invisible form in ok.php and a submit button which resubmits everything to the first form page. That one has to be
able to recognize the parameters and fill in the form fields appropriately.
Either all that, or instruct the user to use the back button Most browsers are smart enough to remember what was entered prior to
submission.

Mitja wrote:

If, however, you also want to accomodate users without JS who don't fill in the form correctly ...
instruct the user to use the back button

Clever, I'll do that.

Most browsers are smart enough to remember what was entered prior to submission.

Strange, in this case Firefox is the stupid
browser. Both IE and Opera manages to keep the
information...
Sorry if I snipped too much, but that was just too
much information at this point! I'll read up on it
later when (if) I get more experienced.


--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

Nico Schuyt wrote:

When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link "Go
back to contact form ", everything is lost.

True, that is the one thing that annoys me too.
How can I fix it?

This is not a "go back" function at all. It is a "go forward" to a new
instance of the form. Try it yourself. Get there and then look at your
browsers history. The original form is way back there
<---

Two choices:

1) Replace that link with "<p>Please use your browsers back function to
return to the form</p>. Browser support varies. Some of them might just
erase the data anyway.

2) In your "whatever.php" link in the error page rebuild the form as the
user submitted it, filling in the form elements with the values you have
squirreled away in session variables.

BTW your "you must have done something wrong" message is inadequate. If your
server side process has found something wrong then please tell me exactly
what is wrong. Don't make me guess. If I were presented with this error in a
production form I would simply leave the site.

I agree with Nico. I don't like it.

For ideas you could try googling for php mail scripts. There are thousands
of them out there, many of them do validation.

--
Cheers
Richard.

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

Nico Schuyt wrote:
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

http://home.no.net/ingernet/tutorial.php
I like the contact form I made for myself ...

I don't :-)
OK! I posted it here to get feedback.

When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link
"Go back to contact form ", everything is lost.

True, that is the one thing that annoys me too.
How can I fix it?

Like this (when everything is handled in the same page):
<input size="34" name="strEmail" value="<?php echo $_POST['strEmail']; ?>">
<textarea rows="6" name="strVragen" cols="58"><?php echo $_POST['strVragen']
?></textarea>

Invalid email-addresses are accepted.
Better: handle everything in the same page and apply some more
validation to the email-address

Validation is done by sending a copy of the mail
to my visitor. If you don't get a verification, I
cant reply either.

Result is that I am disappointed or angry and you can't contact me

What is the advantage of having it all on the same
page?

- easier in maintenance of page+script
- visitor doesn't have to click 'back'
See what happens when you submit my form incompletely

How can I validate the email-address before the
message gets sent?

Something like:
if (!$strEmail=="" &&
(!eregi("^[_\.0-9a-z-]+@([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]+\.)+[a-z]{2,3}$", $strEmail))) {
$error="Invalid!";}

Example: http://www.nicoschuyt.nl/contact.php#Mailformulier

Didn't see the light by looking at your form, I'm
afraid. Can you post some code snippets or
something?

Just did :-)

Please keep it as simple as possible...

Well, it isn't simple :-) (when you want things like attachments; plain text
alternatives etc)
I built it myself. Next time I use the experience of others:
http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/

--
Nico
www.nicoschuyt.nl

rf wrote:

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen wrote:

Nico Schuyt wrote:


When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link "Go
back to contact form ", everything is lost.

True, that is the one thing that annoys me too.
How can I fix it?


This is not a "go back" function at all. It is a "go forward" to a new
instance of the form. Try it yourself. Get there and then look at your
browsers history. The original form is way back there
---

I understand; Mitja has already made me aware of that.

Two choices:

1) Replace that link with "<p>Please use your browsers back function to
return to the form</p>. Browser support varies. Some of them might just
erase the data anyway.

Done that. Firefox will erase. :-(

2) In your "whatever.php" link in the error page rebuild the form as the
user submitted it, filling in the form elements with the values you have
squirreled away in session variables.

Uh, help? May I go for no. 1?

BTW your "you must have done something wrong" message is inadequate. If your
server side process has found something wrong then please tell me exactly
what is wrong. Don't make me guess. If I were presented with this error in a
production form I would simply leave the site.

Yes, it's rude, I'll remove that sentence. But
it's only 2 things that may be wrong. How hard can
it be?

I agree with Nico. I don't like it.

For ideas you could try googling for php mail scripts. There are thousands
of them out there, many of them do validation.

That's exactly what I did initially. I found one
that was so simple that I could use it (obviously
too simple). I am at a very early stage, please
bear with me!


--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen <Inger (AT) neseblod (DOT) invalid> wrote:

How can I validate the email-address before the
message gets sent?

You can't verify that an email address is correct, at best you may be
abe to see if the syntax of an address entered conforms to some
definition, however this is guaranteed to fail given the lose way that
the applicable rfc is adhered to across mail servers.

--
Spartanicus

Nico Schuyt wrote:

http://home.no.net/ingernet/tutorial.php

When someone types a large message, submits and then clicks the link
"Go back to contact form ", everything is lost.

This problem is hopefully solved now - I just
changed from php to htm and point to the Back button.
New URL for my form is
http://home.no.net/ingernet/cont.htm

Well, it isn't simple :-) (when you want things like attachments; plain text
alternatives etc)

I don't want attachments, just a message in plain
text, and the email address of my visitor (if he
is willing to or capable of providing it).

I built it myself. Next time I use the experience of others:
http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/

That's one of the pages that just make me gasp for
breath! Does it have to be that difficult? Do I
need all that just to get email to my inbox?!


--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen