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What is VForm?
- VForm is an HTML form feedback handler.
HTML lets you set up pages with input fields, allowing users to supply
information to you, these are known as web forms. However, HTML by itself
does nothing with that information; some sort of helper program (also known as
a CGI program) is required.
VForm is such a program. It takes the user-submitted information, and e-mails it
to one or more e-mail addresses that you provide. Optionally, you can setup a
'response page' which is displayed after the information is submitted, to say
'Thank-you for the information' or whatever you like.
Note: Please read through all of the documentation provided here to see how
VForm can help with your form needs.
VForm's Features
As a general-purpose HTML form feedback handler, VForm has many
configuration options: VForm can mail the supplied form information to one or
more e-mail addresses. At least one address is required (otherwise, VForm
wouldn't be doing anything useful).
VForm will generate an easy-to-read e-mail message containing the form
information. Click here to see an example of what VForm would e-mail to you
from your web form.
If there are any fields on your form that you need to receive in order to do
something meaningful, you can define those fields as being 'required', and VForm
will remind the user of blank fields until they have been filled out.
If you are accepting credit card payments via your web form, VForm can check
the structure of supplied credit card numbers to see whether they are random
strings of numbers or not. VForm understands Visa, MasterCard and American
Express numbers, but it does not check with a bank for available funds.
After the form information has been submitted, VForm can display a list of the
information provided, or you can have it display as an optional, customized
'response' page. You can even have VForm redirect the user to any valid URL if
you wish.
If you create an optional reponse page, you can include the contents of form
variables in the page using HTML comments like . Provided the variable name
appears identically in the form and in the response page (the names are case
sensitive), whatever the user enters in the form will appear in the response
page.
Activating VForm
Here is an example FORM tag demonstrating how to activate VForm for your web
form:
<form method=post action="/cgi-bin/vform">
If you have designed a customized response page, you can activate VForm like
this:
<form method=post action="/cgi-bin/vform?/~username/response.html">
Please note the '?' in the action string. Everything following the question mark is
part of the URL for your response page, relative to the web server's document
root. For example, if your web site's URL is "http://vvv.com/~username/" and
your response page is called "response.html", then the action string above is
correct.
As another example, if your response page is called 'thanks.html', and it is
located in a directory called 'responses', the action string would be:
<action="/cgi-bin/vform?/~username/responses/thanks.html">
Configuring VForm
There are two ways to configure VForm's operation, and both methods can be
combined if necessary:
1. VForm understands special field names within the form itself.
The advantage of this method is that all of the configuration can be
included along with the form, so that there is only one file to edit.
Click here to see the special field names and examples of their use.
2. If you have a customized response page, VForm understands special HTML
comments within that page.
The advantage of this method is that your destination e-mail address can
be hidden from users (valuable if you only want form responses going to
those addresses), and users do not need to reload the form page
whenever you make changes.
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