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How to use Access Orlando hosted Domains' Mailback Form

The mailback form allows Domains hosted on Access Orlando to add comment forms to their sites. The information in the form is parsed and e-mailed to the user.

Access Orlando now uses a modified version of the CGI/Perl Cookbook script FormHandler. The old form mail script is still in operation and the instructions are located HERE. The new form mail script has many more functions and setup is less strict.

Only email address that end in @ao.net or @yourdomainname will be processed. If you want to send to another email address you will need to create a virtual email. Contact webmaster@ao.net if you do not have virtual email access for your domain.

In building your form, you need to supply the form action and necessary fields as specified below.


The Form Tag:

<form method="POST" name="MailBack" action="http://www.ao.net/cgi-bin/forms/FormHandler.cgi">
The name of the form is not important, it can be named anything. However, if you have more than one form on a page you should name them differently so there are no browser problems. The action must be this URL and the method is POST.

Necessary Form Fields:
======================

Field: recipient

Description: This form field allows you to specify to whom you wish for your form results to be mailed. Most likely you will want to configure this option as a hidden form field with a value equal to that of your e-mail address.

Syntax:
<input type=hidden name="recipient" value="info@mydomain.com">


The following fields are optional, but may assist you in making your form more user friendly.

Optional Form Fields:
=====================

Field: subject

Description: The subject field will allow you to specify the subject that you wish to appear in the e-mail that is sent to you after this form has been filled out.

Syntax:
<input type=hidden name="subject" value="Your Subject">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field: email

Description: This form field will allow the user to specify their return e-mail address. If you want to be able to return e-mail to your user, I strongly suggest that you include this form field and allow them to fill it in. This will be put into the From: field of the message you receive. If you want to require an email address with valid syntax, add this field name to the 'required' field.

Syntax:
<input type=text name="email">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field: redirect

Description: If you wish to redirect the user to a different URL, rather than having them see the default response to the fill-out form, you can use this hidden variable to send them to a pre-made HTML page.

Syntax:
<input type=hidden name="redirect" value="http://www.mydomain.com/thanks.html">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field: required

Description: You can require certain fields in your form to be filled in before the user can successfully submit the form. Simply place all field names that you want to be mandatory into this field. If the required fields are not filled in, the user will be notified of what they need to fill in, and a link back to the form they just submitted will be provided.

Syntax:
If you want to require that they fill in the realname and email fields in your form, so that you can reach them once you have
received the mail, use a syntax like:
<input type=hidden name="required" value="realname,email">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field: sort

Description: This field allows you to choose the order in which you wish for your variables to appear in the e-mail that FormMail generates. You can choose to have the field sorted alphabetically or specify a set order in which you want the
fields to appear in your mail message. By leaving this field out, the order will simply default to the order in which the
browsers sends the information to the script (which is usually the exact same order as they appeared in the form.) When
sorting by a set order of fields, you should include the phrase "order:" as the first part of your value for the sort field, and
then follow that with the field names you want to be listed in the e-mail message, separated by commas.

Syntax:
To sort alphabetically:
<input type=hidden name="sort" value="alphabetic">

To sort by a set field order:
<input type=hidden name="sort" value="order:name1,name2,name3,etc...">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field: field_names

Description: This is how the field name will be displayed in the e-mail. This way cryptic field names can be translated into easily readable field names. Also no field names may have spaces in them, this allows the placement os spaces between words.

Syntax:
<input type="hidden" name="field_names" value="first_name=Name&title=Title&address=Address&City_St_Zip=City, St, Zip&email=EMail&More_Info=More Info?&phone=Phone">
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Any other form fields that appear in your script will be mailed back to you and displayed on the resulting page if you do not have the redirect field set. There is no limit as to how many other form fields you can use with this form, except the limits imposed by browsers and your server.


Sample Form Using FormHandler Script:
(Note: This form has been disabled. Please use it to view the HTML code)

Recipient's Email: (this is your email address, normally this is a hidden field)


Name:

Address:

City, State, Zip:

E-Mail address:

Message:


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Access Orlando 300 Sunport Lane, Orlando, Florida 32809
Phone: 407-745-0097
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