Web design guys:Need advice again!!: Adding a "Contact Us" form on webpage.

[RSV_Ecosse]

I want to add an email form on a websites "Contact Us" page.

Just a simple one with Name, contact details and subject matter text.

I'm using Dreamweaver 8, can anyone point me in the right direction with either advice or links to a tutorial on how to add a simple contact us/email form?.

Many thanks.

[Duncan]

http://www.itsu.vt.edu/Workshops/Dre...HTML/forms.htm

[Duncan]

That explains the basics - quicker than I could typing it all here! LOL

Let me know if you have any queries and I'll try to answer, as will the guys on here who do it for a living!

D

[RSV_Ecosse]

Thanks Duncan, some interesting reading there.

To get one in place quickly, I used a WYSIWYG web app called Jotform

http://www.jotform.com/

Think its working ok, you can see it added into my m8's websites "Contact Us" page here:-

http://www.indagatio.co.uk/contact.html

Took a bit of working out what to put in what field etc, but I think its working fine now.

[um20]

That's a good link from Duncan. Failing that just search around on google and you'll find plenty of examples/tutorials.

I find helping people with web problems difficult in this kind of medium. Face to face it's a lot easier.

Have you tried your web host? A lot of them these days provide simple form handlers. Remember what you need here is something to handle the form submission, so you're looking at some kind of cgi or possibly a query string redirect to a handler page. Ultimately you need something to send the details in the form to, then that has to email you the details. I tend to use ASP/VB so I direct my form submissions to an ASP handler that says 'Thank you' etc. That page also sends me the form details using a VB email function supplied by the host.

One word of caution - site spammers are getting very good these days at making robots that complete forms automatically. So you might need to write some code that interrogates the form details before submission. If you don't you'll get lots of emails where the details in the form are things like name:www.redhotxxx.com email_address: www.redhotxxx.com!!!

[Duncan]

Form looks fine on the page. You done a test to make sure that it's sending the info?

Also, once you get your head around the code you'll probably want to put your own code on the page, as opposed to linking to the jotform you've made.

D

[um20]

On the last site I did for someone there is a contact me page:

http://www.davidallenconsultancy.co.uk/contact.asp

If you look at the source you'll see some simple javascript validation to make sure they complete all the form fields necessary. That doesn't make sure the details aren't spam though, that's done on the server side (so the pesky bots think they've been successful). One trick I like to use is to redirect spammers to some other site, e.g. google.

[RSV_Ecosse]

Thanks guys.

Yes Duncan, done a few tests and it looks like its working fine and as it should. I will replace it with something of my own coding once I have figured out how to implement it.

um20.....I have a Platinum package with EUKHost, I could have used php or ASP but wanted something quickly to stick on the page. So I did it the cheats way with the above page.....LOL!!!. I'm not that up on either php or ASP, so wanted something quick. Good point on the spam though, thanks for the heads up.

A couple of folk have mentioned that adding a jotform email form kinda creates some messy markup. What do you reckon?.

Will change it for something of my own doing soon, but in the meantime it will do.