Creating a simple feedback form

[xtremenovice]

Hi,
Just built my first simple website with xara extreme and I really need to create a simple Web feedback form on one of the pages.

Can this be done in xara?

My site is hosted on linux. I have very limited experience in coding by hand I'm afraid!

Please help!

[raynerj1]

Xara does not do forms... You will also need some type of script on the server to take the form data and email it to you or process the form data however you want.

[xtremenovice]

Hi,
Thanks for the response!

What's the best (read easiest!) to do this.

Could I export my xara site, import to dreamweaver and add the form there.

Can dreamweaver produce the neccesary script to copy to my host server?

Regards,
Tim.

[gwpriester]

Tim

This is sacrilege in this forum, but if you are comfortable in Dreamweaver then create the whole site, forms and all, in Dreamweaver.

I iuse NetObjects Fusion for putting together my websites. But, I create all my graphics in Xtreme. It is the best use of both programs.

While you can create some pretty cool sites in Xtreme, it is a lot easier in a dedicated web page creation application.

[pauland]

Xtreme Novice, most web hosts provide example mailing form scripts for use on the server. Using google you should be able to find some sample web forms that you can modify.

Using Dreamweaver is not going to magically write a mail form for you - you still need to understand how forms work in html. Forms can be produced just using notepad, so don't go and buy Dreamwever to solve this problem!

My feeling is that if you produce a specific mail form page with little in it using Xtreme. It should be possible to edit it by hand to add the form.

Paul

[RTK]

The most common (ancient...) script on the Web is this one: http://www.scriptarchive.com/formmail.htm However, most hosts are removing it (if they haven't done so already) as the spam abuse is brutal. Sure, you can do it yourself, but you will have to keep renaming it every other day as the spam bots pick it up quickly.

Some sort of captcha is probably in order, as it will only be a matter of time before you are flooded. Also realize that forms encourages laziness... unless you are automatically processing a lot of data sent to you - perhaps a 'traditional', polite and well-formulated email will be more efficient for you?

Dreamweaver can help you create your forms... It will not create any back-end scripts. Forms are easy... the script is not.

Risto

[The Doc]

If I need to put forms on a web page I use the coffeecup web form builder which is simplicity itself to use http://www.coffeecup.com/form-builder/ If you are having the completed forms emailed you can include a keyword in the subject line and then set a filter in your mail browser so all submitted forms are saved within a specified folder which saves you sorting them from your normal email.

[xtremenovice]

Tim

This is sacrilege in this forum, but if you are comfortable in Dreamweaver then create the whole site, forms and all, in Dreamweaver.

I iuse NetObjects Fusion for putting together my websites. But, I create all my graphics in Xtreme. It is the best use of both programs.

While you can create some pretty cool sites in Xtreme, it is a lot easier in a dedicated web page creation application.

Thanks everybody for your comments.

I am not really comfortable in any web software yet, I just assumed Dreamweaver was the default choice!

I wanted to create a simple site (home, about, services, gallery, contact for a small construction company.) I quickly realised that web templates, and my hosts online site builder were not going to provide the creative freedom I wa looking for so I downloaded trial versions of dreamweaver, expression web and some free wysiwyg programs. Then I read a very complimentary review of Xara Xtreme, stating that it can export to html! Immediately after installing Xtreme I was off, designing layouts for my first page with total freedom! Then buttons, rollovers and links, all in a couple of hours with no web design experience, fantastic.

I appreciate now, that xtreme's web site capabilities (whilst very easy to use, and in my non-code understanding opinion produce great results)) are limited, so will try a demo of Net Objects Fusion as suggeted to add more functionality and elements to my site.

Thanks again for all your comments.

What's the protocol in this forum, could I post a link to the site to get some feedback and suggetions? Should I do that here or in a new thread?

Regards,
Tim.

[gwpriester]

Post in a new thread, Tim.

Risto is bang on about forms. I had forms in all of my 13+ years of tutorials and other Xara Xone content and they were being used by web bots to send spam out using the recipient's e-mail address. It was a real mess and I ended up just deleting the form page from several hundred sites. It was a real mess.

You could have a simple e-mail link and ask people to e-mail you with a description of what they need done. Or better still, provide a phone number and ask visitors to contact you for a free estimate.

There are some forms websites (for example http://fs8.formsite.com/) that you can find via a Google search where you create a form which you can link to from your website. These form sites charge a monthly fee based on how much service you are using. But they all have the thing where the visitor has to key in a set of characters to submit the form which prevents the web bots from hijacking your form.

[ckh]

I've been using a free php formmail script for quite a while that is quite good at what it does. It's updated quite often, prevents it from being used for sending out spam, and has quite a few features. You can download the script or use the configuration wizard which will ask some questions and tailor it for you.

The script is very well documented and has a lot of examples. It doesn't create the form itself, but, processes the information on the form. I normally create the forms in Dreamweaver and use this script to process the information.

http://www.tectite.com/formmailpage.php