[godavis4]

First of all let me say thanks to all of you who run and maintain these forums as well as all who contribute to these forums. It is, I can already tell, a great service to those like me who don't know where to start!

I am truly a newbie to all of this web coding/programming. I used to do MS-Foxpro programming years ago and have fallen away when it went the way of "object-oriented" programming. Now I wish I'd kept up. Anyway, I'm trying to do something that I think is probably "elementary" yet I need some guidance. Right now I have to put up a simple HTML screen that captures basic information about a visitor in a SINGLE page site. This information needs to be saved, lets say to a text file residing on the web server, (right now it doesn't have to be a database although later it could be a database ?Foxpro? maybe) and then sends the visitor who filled out the form, a predetermined email message as an immediate followup to their filling out the screen form.

Right now I have some HTML code that was given to me. I've attached the sample code. The best I can do is, using "common sense", -- logically modify sections, cutting and pasting logical modifications into this code. I'm not yet an HTML maven. I have this page displaying fine when I preview (of course with the proper embedded images present) but I don't know how to set it up so that when a visitor fills out the screen and clicks the button - all the followup steps described above in the previous paragraph are performed. (saves their info to file and sends them an preset email message)

I'm sorry if I'm stating this to simplistically, but this is the best I know how to describe what I need.

Again, thanks in advance for any help.

--Gary

[hyjacked]

You can do most of it with html, but at some point you are going to have to go to another scripting language.

You can get as far as you did with html, but you would more in order to save the data as well as send the email.

Depending on what your sever supports, you might want to look into asp or php. both should be able to do what you want.

a note about your html file, I didn't look through it all, but I did notice one thing you would need to change.
<FORM action=~submit_target~ method=post>
on that line, you need to change "~submit_target~ to another page. This other page would process the entries, save them to a txt file or database, then send the email.

I don't have time to go into it more right now, but I hope that gives you a start anyways.

Best of luck.

[godavis4]

Originally Posted by hyjacked

You can do most of it with html, but at some point you are going to have to go to another scripting language.

You can get as far as you did with html, but you would more in order to save the data as well as send the email.

Depending on what your sever supports, you might want to look into asp or php. both should be able to do what you want.

a note about your html file, I didn't look through it all, but I did notice one thing you would need to change.
<FORM action=~submit_target~ method=post>
on that line, you need to change "~submit_target~ to another page. This other page would process the entries, save them to a txt file or database, then send the email.

I don't have time to go into it more right now, but I hope that gives you a start anyways.

Best of luck.

Thanks, this is the type of guidance I need. Concerning PHP, can I keep all the work done already and then take some PHP code and attach it and use it to call this HTML form. I am somewhat "lost" on what to do. Is there a sample of this solution that you can suggest to me. When you said in your message..., "one thing you would need to change.
<FORM action=~submit_target~ method=post>
on that line, you need to change "~submit_target~ to another page. This other page would process the entries, save them to a txt file or database, then send the email." How would I do this?

Thanks for your patience in responding to my dilemma!

--Gary

PS -- What's the best way for me to learn this stuff?

[hyjacked]

Yes, you can keep all of your coding so far. All you would need to do is with any page that will have PHP in it, rename the file from, for example, index.html to index.php. Then inside the file all the html will still work as it did before, but when you want to add in PHP code, surround the PHP code with <?php code_goes_here ?>

The best way to learn it would be to begin by reading a bit about PHP. I started with the manual at http://www.php.net
Read some of that first then when you feel comfortable with php in general, start looking into how to process the entries and send the email.

Hope this helps.

[godavis4]

Originally Posted by hyjacked

Yes, you can keep all of your coding so far. All you would need to do is with any page that will have PHP in it, rename the file from, for example, index.html to index.php. Then inside the file all the html will still work as it did before, but when you want to add in PHP code, surround the PHP code with <?php code_goes_here ?>

The best way to learn it would be to begin by reading a bit about PHP. I started with the manual at http://www.php.net
Read some of that first then when you feel comfortable with php in general, start looking into how to process the entries and send the email.

Hope this helps.

Yes this is a great help, I've gone to the link and have started reading and will attempt to apply your suggestions. Thank you!

--Gary