MailForm Profi-Dokumentation

Table Of Contents

• Overview
• Installation
• Changes, Features, and Corrections
  
  

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Overview

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MailForm Pro is a CGI program that reads HTML fill-in form input, formats it into a readable message, and then sends it to the specified E-mail recipient. All you need to do is modify the HTML form with your mail form input fields and mail preferences.

Feature Summary:

• Simple installation and configuration through HTML INPUT tags.
• Messages or URLs can be specified for successfully (and unsuccessfully) delivered E-mail messages.
• Ability to use a template file to provide greater control over the format of the generated E-mail message.
• Ability to send a copy of the generated E-mail message to the requestor.
• Uses the NT event log to record status, error, and trace messages.
• Has the ability to attach files to the generated E-mail.
• Support for international (ANSI) characters.
• Supports the creation of custom responses for user interaction.

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Installation

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Configuration

The following tags are specified in the INPUT directives in the HTML document. Place them in your document as close to the FORM directive as possible. This is especially important for the email_field_separator and email_template tags. Note that some tags are dependent on the released level of MailForm. All of the tags are specified in the NAME item. Items with ":" are also specified entirely within the NAME item (for example, NAME="email_option:copy_to_sender"). A note on file/URL locations: for tags which specify file names, either a complete path in which the drive, directory, and filename are specified can be used, or a relative (local) path can be used. The relative paths are relative to the directory in which MAILFORM.EXE is located. Web server virtual directories are not recognized. DOS ".." syntax can also be used (for example, "..\DIR\FILE.TXT"). For tags which specify URLs, either a complete URL (with "http" etc.) can be used, or a relative (local) path can be used. Relative paths are relative to the directory in which the HTML document is located. Relative paths can include web server virtual directories (which must include a leading forward slash).

At a minimum, you need "email_from", "email_to", and "email_subject", and you will probably want to specify your server with "email_server".

default_email_from

E-mail address of the sender when "email_from" is not filled in.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="default_email_from" VALUE="defaultname@myserver.com">

email_attachment

Specifies the name of the file that is to be BASE64 MIME-encoded and sent along with the generated E-mail as an attachment. The name of the attached file is logged if the "logging:activity" tag is used. For easy security, you can limit the user's selection of files by using this tag within a radio button or list box. Complete security can be provided by NT but this requires more effort by the system administrator. Some file types are identified by the file's extension and the control information seen by the browser is set to take advantage of the browser's automatic processing capability. Files with the extensions GIF, JPG, TIF, and TXT are recognized. "Generic" control information is used for all other files. See also "email_attachment_style".

<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="email_attachment" VALUE="C:\DIR\FILE1.TXT" CHECKED>
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="email_attachment" VALUE="C:\DIR\FILE2.TXT">
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="email_attachment" VALUE="C:\DIR\FILE3.TXT">

 

email_attachment_style:inline

Modifies the method of handling the file named in the "email_attachment" tag. This is the default style and this tag can be omitted if this is the desired style. An "inline" attachment is processed directly by the E-mail recipient's browser (for example, the picture associated with a GIF file is displayed directly).

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_attachment_style:inline" VALUE="">

email_attachment_style:separate

Modifies the method of handling the file named in the "email_attachment" tag. A "separate" attachment is not processed by the browser and is simply presented to the E-mail recipient as "part 2", typically within a frame listing the file's name and type.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_attachment_style:separate" VALUE="">

email_charset:iso8859

Causes the generated E-mail message to use the ISO 8859 (ANSI) character set rather than the 7-bit character set. Used for international language support.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_charset:iso8859" VALUE="">

email_field_separator

String inserted in between the field names and values in the generated E-mail. Default is " : ".

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_field_separator" VALUE=" : ">

email_from

E-mail address of the sender.

<INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="email_from" VALUE="myname@myserver.com">

email_option:copy_to_sender

Indicates that a copy of the generated E-mail is to be delivered to the one filling out the form.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_option:copy_to_sender" VALUE="">

email_subject

E-mail subject.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_subject" VALUE="Some E-mail">

email_server

Domain name or IP address of SMTP server. Default is "localhost". See "email_server_option:ip_address" to specify an IP address.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_server" VALUE="myserver.com">

email_server_option:ip_address

Indicates that "email_server" contains an IP address.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_server_option:ip_address" VALUE="">

email_template

Specifies the location and name of the file containing the template which describes the format of the generated E-mail. The file should contain the desired INPUT field names surrounded by percent signs ("%"). All other text in the file will be inserted as-is. Field names are not case-sensitive. See the beginning of this section for information on how files may be specified.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_template" VALUE="C:\CGI-BIN\TEMPLATE.TXT">

email_to

E-mail address of the recipient(s). A comma-delimited list will cause all addressees in the list to receive the E-mail.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="email_to" VALUE="yourname@yourserver.com">

failure_message

Message to be displayed for unsuccessfully delivered E-mail.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="failure_message" VALUE="Oops">

failure_message_url

URL of file to be displayed for unsuccessfully delivered E-mail. This can be either a full URL (as in the example) or a partial URL if the document to be displayed is on the same server.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="failure_message_url" VALUE="http://www.xyz.com/failure.htm">

logging:activity

Creates an entry in the event log for each invocation of MailForm Pro; showing the values of 'email_from', 'email_to', and the caller's IP address. Also logs the name of an attached file if the "email_attachment" option is used. Without any logging options, error messages are the only items placed in the event log.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="logging:activity" VALUE="">

logging:inhibit

Inhibits logging. No messages are logged. Overrides logging:activity and logging:trace.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="logging:inhibit" VALUE="">

logging:trace

Creates entries in the event log which are a record of the SMTP dialog that occurs when E-mail is transmitted. Do not use this option in version 2.4 dated prior to 1997/4/22.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="logging:trace" VALUE="">

require_message

Message to be displayed when the user does not supply a value for a "require:" field.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="require_message" VALUE="A required field was left blank">

require_message_url

URL of file to be displayed when the user does not supply a value for a "require:" field. This can be either a full URL (as in the example) or a partial URL if the document to be displayed is on the same server.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="require_message_url" VALUE="http://www.xyz.com/require.htm">

success_message

Message to be displayed for successfully delivered E-mail.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="success_message" VALUE="E-mail sent">

success_message_template

Specifies the location and name of the file containing the template which describes the format of the generated HTML for successfully delivered E-mail. The file should contain the desired INPUT field names surrounded by percent signs ("%"). All other text in the file will be inserted as-is. Field names are not case-sensitive. See the beginning of this section for information on how files may be specified. This tag overrides the "success_message_url" tag.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="success_message_template" VALUE="C:\CGI-BIN\SUCCESS.TXT">

success_message_url

URL of file to be displayed for successfully delivered E-mail. This can be either a full URL (as in the example) or a partial URL if the document to be displayed is on the same server. This option does not function in the evaluation version. This tag is overridden by the "success_message_template" tag.

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="success_message_url" VALUE="http://www.xyz.com/success.htm">

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Changes, Features, and Corrections

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The following items describe the versions of MailForm Pro and the features and corrections that are present in those versions. All of the items described below are enhancements over MailForm Lite:

• 2.0: Ability to send a copy of the generated E-mail to the originator.
  
  
• 2.0: Enhanced control over the format the generated E-mail message. This feature can be used, for example, to create a '.CSV'-formatted message.
  
  
• 2.1: Log entries are placed in the NT event log instead of a flat file.
  
  
• 2.1: Field names specified in the template file are case-insensitive.
  
  
• 2.2: Ability to handle multi-line messages received during an SMTP dialog.
  
  
• 2.2: Ability to handle template replacement of multiple occurrences of the same token, as well as the ability to use all of the "special" INPUT values such as "email_from", "email_to", etc.
  
  
• 2.3: Ability to attach files to the generated E-mail.
  
  
• 2.3: Improved error message text.
  
  
• 2.4: Added "default_email_from" tag.
  
  
• 2.4: Leaving blank an HTML INPUT field with the "require:" prefix will cause an event log record to be created.
  
  
• 2.4: Added "email_charset" tag.
  
  
• 2.4: Added "success_message_template" tag.
  
  
• 2.5: Added a simple mechanism to use the filename portion (excludes the path and extension) of the name of an attached file in an E-mail template. Do this by replacing %email_attachment% in the template file with %file:email_attachment%.
  
  
• 2.5: Added "email_server_option:ip_address" tag.
  
  

----- Items below this line are only present in the beta version, but the beta version is available by request.

----- Items below this line are not available at all at the present time.

• 2.6: MailForm Pro available as a COM object.

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SMTP Error Codes

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221 -- Service closing transmission channel.

251 -- User not local. Will forward.

252 -- Cannot verify user, but will attempt delivery.

450 -- Mailbox unavailable (busy, etc.)

451 -- Local error in processing.

452 -- Insufficient system storage.

500 -- Command unrecognized.

501 -- Syntax error.

502 -- Command not implemented.

503 -- Bad sequence of commands.

504 -- Parameter not implemented.

550 -- Mailbox not found.

551 -- User not local.

552 -- Exceeded storage allocation.

553 -- Mailbox syntax incorrect.

554 -- Transaction failed.

 

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