Formail PHP or Perl version?

[demalpas]

I want to put a new form onto our site www.morethanmowers.co.uk and am confused as to whether I should be using formmail.php or formmail.pl/cgi.

I am familiar with formmail.cgi having used it before but have no knowledge of formmail.php or indeed of php at all - having used only Perl for all of my web efforts.

Can one use either script - does it matter?

Thanks for any guidance ...

Mike de Malpas-Finlay

[Darren B]

formail.pl is standard on linux servers, some hosts dont use formmail.php or rather dont have it installed.

I guess your not using actinics form then?

You can add you own forms easily to actinic. I have done a number of times, and i use a standard php form. 100's on the internet some paid some free depends really what info you want to collect

[fergusw]

I am familiar with formmail.cgi having used it before but have no knowledge of formmail.php or indeed of php at all

I would suggest sticking to what you know - at the end of the day both methods result in the same outcome.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Have you considered the from design software from Machform which is also very good.

Discussed here:
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?p=249767

[Goz]

Machform is very good - thanks to Gabe for the heads up on that. I use it now on all the sites I build.

Very flexible. But needs a MySQL database.

[demalpas]

Hmmm - thanks for your comments. Since then, I have been trawling through the community files and it seems that many users have been having quite "unnecessary" problems with something that, surely, should be simplicity itself.

It must (or should) be obvious to the Actinic developers that creators of web sites that use Actinic will almost always want to create at least one form additional to the standard 'Contact Us' form. Yet despite this clearingly obvious need, there is no mention of how to create an extra form in any of the Actinic literature - including the Advanced Users' Guide. I am ready to fall on my sword if I am wrong and have missed this!

I was looking for something on the lines of "to create a form which when submitted will produce a 'customised response to the submitter' and which will submit an email to the site owner with the values of the form fields" - take the following steps:

Step 1
Step 2
etc.
Step Final

such that when these steps (which must be crystal clear - i.e they must contain no gaps or assume unreasonable technical knowledge) have been implemented the form will work.

Surely, this is not too much to ask.

Having asked a question on how to submit a form, I am so far unable to do so.

I hope not to have offended anyone who has tried to help. I am a simple soul who needs simple and clear/unambiguous instructions.

Thanks if anyone still wants to help!

[RuralWeb]

will almost always want to create at least one form additional to the standard 'Contact Us' form

I dont agree with this statement - I dont even use the actinic form in most of my sites TBH

[leehack]

I think you are being a little unfair there to be honest. They provide you with a contact form and they provide you with an article in the AUG on how to add or extend its uses. It's an all round ecommerce package you are using after all, not a web design package. If it was a feature that was highly sought after it would either be in there already or have a wish list item with a good few votes. I think i've seen it mentioned twice in the forum in 3 years. Gabe recently provided a link to a site where you can create your own forms but one can only imagine how complicated that is to add to a piece of software.

There are far better things for them to be adding to the package than this type of thing. You already have brochure pages where you can add your own forms and the web is plastered with tutorials on how to do them. You may even find that the prompts on a product or customising the checkout questions will suffice for your needs.

[Darren B]

I added a php form here http://www.casupply.co.uk/acatalog/Twinson-Decking.html

simple to use and implement, as i said there are 100's of free scripts on the internet

[RuralWeb]

I did one once and all I did was use a Dreamweaver extension (loads about) to create the form and paste it into a brochure page - job done

[leehack]

I think the biggest problem people face is trying to add the form into a product page and therefore falling foul of the nested form tags error. Add it to a brochure page embedded into a text only fragment and job done.

[demalpas]

Well Mal - you wouldn't would you? You are an 'expert' actinic user and programmer'. My posting was aimed at all those who are not expert users and who find the Actinic documentation seriously lacking.

I say this as someone who managed a software usability lab for a period during a 25 year career with IBM.

Good luck to you if you know how to create forms for use with Actinic. I was hoping for some simple guidance for those not so lucky as to know how to do it with Actinic.

Thanks anyway for your comments.

[RuralWeb]

who rattled your cage then. All I said was that I've never needs to do it in over 70 builds so your statement that it is a common requirement is not correct as lee confirmed. So why would it need to be in the user documentation if it was common then it would have been added to the aug or on a wish list. If your that concerned start a wish list and see how many votes you get for it I also told you how to do it as did gabe in his thread so what's your problem.

[Goz]

Gabe recently provided a link to a site where you can create your own forms but one can only imagine how complicated that is to add to a piece of software.

I use this a lot now and the most complicated bit is ensuring you have a MySQL database in place. The installation is a doddle using the installation wizard - the authors will even install it for you. To create a form you then simply log on to machform on your server, create a form and add fields to it. You choose a field type and can drag and drop fields around the form. You can also edit the CSS. Define your email options - one person; multiple people; choose from a drop down list. Define whether you want captcha, recaptcha or take your chances.

Once the form is complete, you press a button to generate code and then copy and paste into a fragment in Actinic.

You can have as many forms as you want on the domain.

The submissions are kept in the MySQL database and are exportable to Excel/CSV.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I also found the MachForm staright forward and worth the small cost involved.
My only advise would be to use the iframe method and not the PHP as I was unable to get it to work, although someone with more experience probably could