with a web page. That's the
essential nature of formmail.
Everything has its essential
nature. The essential nature
of FormMail is a partnership.
When I say FormMail, I
really mean FormMail programs
in general. FormMail programs
are a class of program's on
the World Wide Web.
I write more about this here:
What Is Formmail?
So basically, getting FormMail
to work is all about getting
a relationship to work.
As with so many relationships,
FormMail is a partnership. It
is a partnership between a web
page that has a form on it and
a program that processes that
form.
This relationship can be defined
in steps:
- A web visitor sees your
form on your website. - Your web visitor fills
out the form.
Oftentimes, this form will be
a contact form. Perhaps you've
asked the web visitor to supply
name and address information so
that you can mail the web visitor
more information through the mail. - After the web visitor fills out
the form, the web visitor presses
the submit button at the
bottom of the form. - Once the form is submitted
it is sent to FormMail
as name-value pairs. - FormMail retrieves the information
as fields that are name-value pairs.
For example, the name of the web
visitor might be John Smith.
FormMail sees this as a name field
that has been filled out by the
web visitor.
Typically, the name of the field
is name and the value that
is placed into the field is
John Smith, for example.
This is what is meant by a name-
value pair. This is what
FormMail sees.
FormMail sees as many name-value
pairs as it takes to complete the
form.
Here's are some possible name-value
pairs:
- name=John Smith
- address=123 main st.
- city=auburn
- state=maine
- FormMail takes the
name-value pairs and places
them into an email - FormMail then sends the
email to you as the website
owner.
This, in brief, is how FormMail
works.
Ed Abbott
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