FrontPage forms and confirmation URLs

Server side includes don't work...

[aus_dave]

I'm redesigning a client's site that uses FrontPage forms in a few places. I'm not using FrontPage but my testing server is a Linux box that has FrontPage extensions installed.

I can get the forms to submit, log to a text file and send me an email. However, I have a problem with the confirmation URL page as it won't display any of the server side includes.

The URL of the confirmation page is:
domain.com/_vti_bin/shtml.dll/form.htm but the content is the same as my confirm.htm. Confusing!

Does anyone know a possible solution to this other than hard coding the include files into the confirmation page?

[jimbeetle]

If when you say "server side includes" you mean the Frontpage "include page" feature then you must do one of two things: a) FTP the pages then open the live web in FP and do a 'recalculate links' (or whatever it's actually named), for the extensions to refresh the content of the pages, or b) use FP to publish the site.

The FP 'include page' isn't actually SSI. If you have an 'include page' that's included in say ten other pages, when the include page is changed FP rewrites each of the other ten pages. They are then served as straight html without any other calls.

(If you just change the include page and publish the site with FP to an FP-enabled server it only uploads the changed include page then rewrites the other pages on the server.)

If you just FTP the pages the extensions have no way of knowing that any changes took place. And with all of the little control files FP uses I think forms are also one of the features that need FP to publish *or* you just be sure to ftp all the files then refresh the live copy of the web after opening it in FP.

Hope that makes sense.

Jim

[pageoneresults]

Try using absolute url references instead of relative. This applies to the includes and any external file references.

<!--webbot bot="include" u-include="http://www.example.com/navigation/footer.asp" tag="body" -->

P.S. If you don't use absolute urls for your external file references, they typically won't render, especially style sheets.

jimbeetle brings up a good point too. You will probably need to recalculate hyperlinks so that all references to the includes are updated. I'm not sure as I do all of my editing live through IE.

domain.com/_vti_bin/shtml.dll/form.htm

That is a script that the confirmation form uses. You only see that url once the confirmation page is presented. To avoid this, you can bypass the FP forms and use asp or whatever other language you are using.

[aus_dave]

Thanks a lot for your replies :).

For header, footer etc. I am using standard HTML includes like shown, and they work fine everywhere else:

<!--#include virtual="/header.htm" -->

I used pageoneresults' suggestion of coding the confirmation URL as an absolute (with http:// etc.) and it has worked a treat!

I use Dreamweaver and my knowledge of FP is limited. I would usually use a formmail.php script to do this hence my questions.

The confirm emails arrive with the generic domain@server 'email from' header. Any idea which FP form field can be set to change this? Most of the info on the net is of a fairly basic nature (would be a good topic for a page on someone's site :)).