NSC - Formmail Perl Script
FormMail is a pre-packaged, secure and versatile PERL script installed on www.nsc.ca to handle all html Form outputs.
You tell FormMail what to with your form submitted fields via "hidden" fields like "recipient" , "subject" and "title". You tell FormMail which fields the user must enter via the "required" hidden field. A typical example, the form definition part of the Mobility Cup Sailing Companion Registration Form, is included at the end.
To prevent distribution of SPAM mail by outside sources, FormMail will only send an email to users within the nsc.ca domain. Furthermore, I have modified the code to accept username without the "@nsc.ca".
If you are going to use FormMail, contact me first.as I may save you a lot of work!
form Configuration and Usage (Extracted from FormMail doc)
See how the hidden 'recipient' input in the example below told formmail who
to send the mail to. This is how almost all of formmail's configuration
works. Here's the full list of things you can set with hidden form inputs:
recipient - The email address to which the form submission
should be sent. If you would like it copied to
more than one recipient then you can separate
multiple email addresses with commas, for
example:
<input type="hidden" name="recipient"
value="you@your.domain,me@your.domain">
If you leave the 'recipient' field out of the
form, formmail will send to the first address
listed in the @allow_mail_to configuration
variable (see below). This allows you to avoid
putting your email address in the form, which
might be desirable if you're concerned about
address harvesters collecting it and sending
you SPAM. This feature is disabled if the
$emulate_matts_code configuration variable is
set to 0.
subject - The subject line for the email. For example:
<input type="hidden" name="subject"
value="From the feedback form">
redirect - If this value is present it should be a URL, and
the user will be redirected there after a
successful form submission. For example:
<input type="hidden" name="redirect"
value="http://www.your.domain/foo.html">
If you don't specify a redirect URL then instead
of redirecting formmail will generate a success
page telling the user that their submission was
successful.
bgcolor - The background color for the success page.
background - The URL of the background image for the success
page.
text_color - The text color for the success page.
link_color - The link color for the success page.
vlink_color - The vlink color for the success page.
alink_color - The alink color for the success page.
title - The title for the success page.
return_link_url - The target URL for a link at the end of the
success page. This is normally used to provide
a link from the success page back to your main
page or back to the page with the form on. For
example:
<input type="hidden" name="return_link_url"
value="/home.html">
return_link_title - The label for the return link. For example:
<input type="hidden" name="return_link_title"
value="Back to my home page">
sort - This sets the order in which the submitted form
inputs will appear in the email and on the
success page. It can be the string 'alphabetic'
for alphabetic order, or the string "order:"
followed by a comma separated list of the input
names, for example:
<input type="hidden" name="sort"
value="order:name,email,age,comments">
If "order:" is used you must supply the names of
all of the fields that you want to be in the body of
the mail message.
print_config - This is mainly used for debugging, and if set it
causes formmail to include a dump of the
specified configuration settings in the email.
For example:
<input type="hidden" name="print_config"
value="title,sort">
... will include whatever values you set for
'title' and 'sort' (if any) in the email.
required - This is a list of fields that the user must fill
in before they submit the form. If they leave
any of these fields blank then they will be sent
back to the form to try again. For example:
<input type="hidden" name="required"
value="name,comments">
missing_fields_redirect - If this is set, it must be a URL, and the user
will be redirected there if any of the fields
listed in 'required' are left blank. Use this if
you want finer control over the the error that
the user see's if they miss out a field.
env_report - This is a list of the CGI environment variables
that should be included in the email. This is
useful for recording things like the IP address
of the user in the email. Any environment
variables that you want to use in 'env_report' in
any of your forms will need to be in the
@valid_ENV configuration variable described
above.
print_blank_fields - If this is set then fields that the user left
blank will be included in the email. Normally,
blank fields are suppressed to save space.
A Typical form Example
Here is an example of how to post to FormMail, using the hidden fields to instruct FormMail what to do.
The FormMail PERL script was modified by Dan Servranckx in Apr 03 to accept partial email addresses (without @nsc.ca) to prevent email harvesting. For each recipient, FormMail will automatically add "@nsc.ca" if there is no "@" in the recipient email address. Note that the recipient is actually a short list:
<form method="POST" action="/cgi-sys/FormMail.cgi">
<span class="form">
<input type="hidden" name="recipient"
value="mc-registrar,mc-registrar2">
<input type="hidden" name="subject"
value="MC2003 Registration - Companion">
<input type="hidden" name="title"
value="MC2003 Companion Auto Registration">
<input type="hidden" name="print_blank_fields" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="return_link_url"
value="/mobilitycup/english/registration.htm">
<input type="hidden" name="return_link_title"
value="Back to Registration Page">
<input type="hidden" name="required"
value="First_name,Last_name,Address,City,
Province/State,Country,I_am_a_sailing_companion_for,
email,Home_phone_no">
</span>
... the form "body" goes here ...
<br />
<span class="form">
Please click the Submit button <strong>only once</strong>, then wait.
It's a big form and the form handler will need a few minutes to process it.
</span>
<br />
<span class="form"><input type="submit" value="Submit">
<input type="reset" value="Reset"></span>
</form>
