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Web Design: Forms and formmail.pl

To place a form on a Web page within your site you need to write some HTML code including the <form> and related tags.

An HTML <form> is simply a set of tags that a browser will display as fields and buttons allowing visitors to your Web page to enter information and press buttons etc. However the browser cannot process this information. All a browser can do is gather and pass on the information. In order to use the information entered into an HTML <form>, the information must be passed on (submitted) to another program. Vicnet has installed the formmail.pl program on our servers for this exact purpose. formmail.pl recieves the information passed to it form the browser, processes the information into the format of an email and then sends the email.

If you have never written HTML <form> code before, it is a good idea to get some background on the topic. Vicnet Customer Service advises that reading chapter 17 of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) HTML 4.01 specification is highly recommended before you start writing your own HTML <form>s.

To use formmail.pl, your HTML <form> code must contain a link to the location of formmail.pl on the Vicnet servers. Your HTML <form> code must also contain certain fields with certain names.

Below is the basic code required for writing an HTML <form> within a Web page that links to the formmail.pl program on Vicnet's server. On the left hand side is the code you need to write. On the right hand side is a preview of what the code will look like when viewed in a browser.

This HTML...	will produce this...
Start the form
<form method="post" action="/cgi-bin/common/formmail.pl">
Which address should the feedback be sent to?
<input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="user@example.com" />
What is the name of the person sending this feedback?
What is your name?<br/> <input type="text" name="realname" />	What is your name?
What is the email address of the person sending this feedback?
What is your email address?<br/> <input type="text" name="email" />	What is your email address?
Provide a space where people can type in their feedback
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this site?<br/> <textarea cols="15" rows="3" name="blah"></textarea>	Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this site?
Provide buttons for people to click
<input type="submit" value="Send" /> <input type="reset" value="Reset" />
End the form
</form>

Please note: if you want the information from the <form> sent to a non-Vicnet address, you may need to request that the address be added to our list of accepted formmail recipients.

Other options

If you would like to configure your form in more detail the full options can be found at Matt's Script Archive: FormMail: Readme.

Troubleshooting

Missing Referrer Error Message

It would appear that your web browser is not returning the address of the page that contains the form you just filled out or is returning something not expected by the Vicnet formmail script. This generally occurs when you are running "Internet Privacy" or "Internet Security" products. Examples of this kind of software are "Norton Internet Security" and "Norton Personal Firewall". Both these packages block the referring information by default.

Please check the configuration of these packages on your computer and make sure that they are NOT blocking the "Referring page", "Referrer", "Referer" (sic) or "HTTP_REFERER" information. How to check this and make the necessary configuration changes should be mentioned in your security application's documentation.

This referrer blocking behaviour violates generally accepted internet standards and is therefore not advised in the majority of circumstances.

If problems should persist, please consult the Vicnet Customer Service website.