When creating a Contact Us form how do you get the form sent to an email account?

Hi Peter,

There are two ways.

The first is the basic, no-frills version in which you have "mailto:peter@yourdomain.com" as the ACTION value of the form. This will send all the fields and their values to the e-mail address specified. However, the web site user gets 1 or more security warnings and the form uses their default e-mail program to send the e-mail (eg. outlook), so if they haven't got one installed, it won't work. The e-mail is usually horribly formatted.

You'd be better off developing a server-side script (written in ASP/PHP/CGI etc.) to take the fields and values and e-mail them to a number of e-mail addresses of your choosing. This results in a much better formatted e-mail (however you like: text or html), and you can also show your visitors a nice 'success' page once the task has been done.

As David said in answer to your previous question. You'll need to have some kind of server side scripting language installed on your web site (eg. ASP or PHP). If you're using PHP, I'd recommend the included PEAR module 'Mail' as it's all set up to go. You just plug in the values into the class/function such as To, From, Subject and Body.

If you're stuck or want a quicker solution, I'd recommend free-to-use 3rd party Bravenet who provide the service for you.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Regards, Rich