How do you get the data entered into forms

these things make me feel stupid

[Eric in Tennessee]

I created a form on my NON-Commercial site. The data that will be gathered is to help our service members and is not for any commercial use whatsoever. That being said, how do I get the data emailed to my email address.

Currently I am using a free hosting service that does not support: CGI, ASP, JSP, PHP, MySQL, ColdFusion.

I use Dreamweaver MX to build the pages, but I have never built a form before tonight and now that it is done, I think that maybe I wasted a bunch of time because it appears that my host doesn't support the langauges that are needed to actually get the data. Man that was long sentence!

Is there a way to have someone fill out the form, hit the submit button and have the data end up in my inbox?

I do sincerely apologize if this is an elementary question that I should already know the answer to, but as always I am still learning.

Thanks for the help,

eTN

Thanks for the verification of my fears. Tell me why I want to call you "Bruce" BMCgee?

[edited by: Eric_in_Tennessee at 5:14 am (utc) on Dec. 13, 2003]

[bmcgee]

Sounds like you might be out of luck. Your list makes it appear that your host does not provide you with ANY form of server side processing, which is necessary to get the data out of the form.

Furthermore, if they don't allow that, they likely don't give you access to any sort of Mail object (and you already said no CGI scripts), so you wouldn't be able to do anything with the data anyway!

You will need to change your hosting.

[monsterhosting]

You didn't say Pearl, do they let you use this?

[Robert Thivierge]

Check if they support FormMail or an equivilent form mail handler. The ISP I use for personal internet access gives me a free personal web page, which has no CGI, PHP,etc... but gives me a form mail handler (located outside my web space, but on the same domain). I've seen lots of free web hosts do this. You can ask your host and/or snoop around the web site, and see what others on the same service are doing.

Even if that's not available, there are services, which will give FormMail (or equiv) ability in exchange for a small monthly fee. They host the FormMail script (or equiv), and e-mail you the results. They might even give you some more options for accessing the data.

Of course nothing is better than getting a brand new web host. Your host sounds worse than some free ones.

p.s. Technically speaking, you could set-up a client-side "mailto:" POST form, which requires no server-side support whatsoever. But, it produces an ugly security warning to the user and may be disabled on some browsers. I used it once when it first came out (on Netscape), and never tried it again. I don't know what the current support for it is.

[robert adams]

do a search for "remotely hosted" scripts. You will find many places that will host the form for you and send you the results via email.

luck,
robert

[brdwlsh]

i am having a similar problem.
i would like to set up a simple form on a site that would send the results to a designated email address. the ugly security message does not concern me too much, i just need a form up until i get a handle on that CGI and PERL stuff. here is a simplified sample of my code-- i got it out of some book:

<FORM METHOD=POST ENCTYPE="text/plain" ACTION="mailto:[e-mail]">
Name: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="name" SIZE=30>
<p>
E mail: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="email" SIZE=30>
<p>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit">
</FORM>

the two fields and the submit button show up in the browser but when submit is clicked the email never gets sent, i get a dialog box that says 'connection error occurred'. the book i have says nothing about additional code for this action to work.
can anyone tell me what i am missing? it's probably something really obvious.
thank you

[Robert Thivierge]

brdwlsh, does clicking on a a typical mailto: link in a web page work for you? Maybe your browser's default mail app is not set-up ok (which often happens if you normally use a different mail client). I'm just guessing, since I don't know what you're using for browser/e-mail. Make sure you're browser's set to the correct default.

BTW, even if you're not familiar with PHP/Perl/etc..., I still suggest using a Perl mail handler script. To use FormMail.pl (or equivilent) you don't really have to know/understand the script, you just have to configure it (and many ISPs already have one configured, and ready-to-go).

[robert adams]

i am having a similar problem.
i would like to set up a simple form on a site that would send the results to a designated email address. the ugly security message does not concern me too much, i just need a form up until i get a handle on that CGI and PERL stuff. here is a simplified sample of my code-- i got it out of some book:

<FORM METHOD=POST ENCTYPE="text/plain" ACTION="mailto:[e-mail]">
Name: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="name" SIZE=30>
<p>
E mail: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="email" SIZE=30>
<p>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit">
</FORM>

the two fields and the submit button show up in the browser but when submit is clicked the email never gets sent, i get a dialog box that says 'connection error occurred'. the book i have says nothing about additional code for this action to work.
can anyone tell me what i am missing? it's probably something really obvious.
thank you

I assume that you changed the "[e-mail]" to the email address you want the mail to get sent to.
I put my address there and it sent me a message with what I put in the fields.
I also put it online and it does the same thing.

give it a try at:
[cyberosis.net...]

luck,
robert

[Go60Guy]

You might want to take a look at:

[scripthost.com...]

[brdwlsh]

it must be my browser--i'm viewing with explorer 5.2 for mac. the 'mailformtest' also was unsuccesful with IE, however, it did work with safari and mozilla. opera gave me a confirmation box, but i never received the mail. i tried explorer on a windows machine and it worked so its probably a mac thing.
go60guy recommended a site that offers some pretty neat stuff, i'm gonna use some of their code tomorrow.

thanks

[Go60Guy]

Yeah, I'm setting up a pretty elaborate form using Scripthost and it seems to work just fine.