I'm trying to help my daughter create a contact form for her company's website.
I worked for many years on websites (html, xml, css, flash, photoshop, a little AI, and a little Javascript); no experience with anything server-side.
What I need is a suggestion on the best method to implement a very simple contact form (name, email, message, and submit button).
I need to be able to test it locally.
My daughter will need to make it work on their server, and I don't know if it's a private server or if the site is hosted.
From what I've seen, these contact forms seem to be some combination of html, php, javascript, Ajax, Bootstrap, and jquery.
Is all of that necessary?
I tried one of these program cocktails early this morning, but couldn't test it. Then I read that it wouldn't work locally.
I also read that I shouldn't use php mail because of security concerns.
Is that true?
Is there a method that can be tested locally, wouldn't require too much server tweaking, and doesn't pose security problems?
Thanks so much,
Debbie
Install MailDev to test in local. You can find some tutorials on the Internet to do contact forms in PHP.
See more here :
http://tangledindesign.com/how-to-create-a-contact-form-using-html5-css3-and-php/
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Thank you in advance for reading this. Here is the situation. I have been working on a online guitar shop using Magento CE 1.7 for several months. I greatly underestimated the cost of the site and I know that is my fault not the client who by the way is a great guy. There where many issues that took a lot of time including having to move it from a testing server to the real domain, many logo tweaks etc. I am almost done with it and really need to “stop the bleeding” so to speak however there is one feature that he really wants that I am at my whits end with.
Its a custom order form for guitar pickups. He had one on his old site that was don’t in ASP and besides not knowing ASP we are now on a Unix server.
His requirements are “the ability for someone to choose a category (ie: 7-string, Strat Replacement, Tele Replacement, etc) , and then have it be able to only show options that are applicable to what that selection. I want customers to be able to see descriptions of each pickup somewhere on this page. I also want people to be able to see what the covers/colors look like when they choose that.”
I was able to use the way back machine to at least show you guys what he wants, here is the link http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120127233223/http://www.axepalace.com/pickup_order.asp
Here is my attempt to create it with a product with lots of options. http://axepalace.com/pickups/bare-knuckle/bkp-order-form/bare-knuckle-pickup-order-form.html
So could anyone please give me some feedback / suggestions. My sanity would really appreciate it!
Just looking for some help/suggestions with this. I require my own server for an upcoming project that will be hosting users websites. I want to build a control panel the user can log into and modify their website which will be stored elsewhere on the server. This all seems easy enough, It's just managing domains and emails that confuse me.
What should I look for to manage domain names and point them to the correct website and also what would be the best way to manage email accounts/set up new ones etc. I want to avoid cPanel/WHM if possible, I'm looking to control most things through the control panel I will be building. So any suggestions on this would be useful as well, as I will be wanting to add email accounts through php (Can be done using a shell I assume?).
I will also be wanting to measure bandwidth used on the websites contained in each users directory, any suggestions on making this possible?
I'm really looking for some suggestions on what software to use to set this up, any advice would be really helpful!
Thanks,
Graeme
It sounds like you've got a lot of creative room. May I suggest a web framework? Django. With it you can build out a nice control panel, it's template system is clean and concise. It's also based on Python and thats why I suggest it. If there is a python module for it, you can use it in Django... so things like altering, creating, etc. local data/files is a breeze. you simply us Python (you can even forget it's "django"), crunch your data and then spit it out (into django... out to templates.. to display to the user).
You'll likely want AJAXY biznazz, their is a nice Django App for that, Dajax. Django has a rich and helpful community and tons of resources. Just hop on GitHub.com and search for Django, You'll find tons of stuff.
Im building a DNS Control Panel with it. Which sounds like a minimal version of what you're doing.
I'm creating a site for a video store and it needs to be CMS. I'm doing this for free so I need to use a free CMS like Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla.
Do I need a new CMS, a plugin or some PHP of my own?
What I need:
User accounts
Categories
Custom post
Here's the site as it stands with WP: http://sundancevideo.ca. Right now an experimental site to try to work this out.
What I've done now, is created a "Draft" that includes a template table with images and text and so on. The user would then have to copy everything, past into a new post and replace necessary. This really isn't working well. As you may notice by the condition of the posts.
What I would prefer is if it was integrated into the WP UI. Like a field for "Description" and field for "Image" where they can upload the images as necessary. This would then generate post, with a table including all the information and images, for as many movies that were added in the UI.
I would suggest taking a look at PodsCMS as a great way to implement real CMS functionality in to WordPress. It allows you to create various content types, relate these content types, and more importantly live outside of the "WordPress bubble".
You'll find a fairly good codex and user guides (the ones authored by Johnathan Christopher are a great start). There is a solid API for this in the event that you need to integrate Pods in to an existing plugin or one you are creating. There are also developer and user contributed packages for Pods and there is even a YouTube video package you may want to check out.
PodsUI (soon to be merged with PodsCMS) allows you to create administration menus in WordPress very easily and allows you to pretty much make it look and feel how ever you want.
Flutter is a dead project and while it may be a little more user friendly than PodsCMS it lacks in in development, support, and over all usability.
Feel free to drop in the Pods Chat or # them on Twitter.
As for the user accounts you should read up on WordPress user roles/capabilties and also check through the WordPress PHPxref. A lot can be done in the way of using WordPress' current user system and you can even add other meta information for users if needed.
If you want a full CMS backend then you can't use Wordpress without extensive customising. You might want to check out pods cms for Wordpress which is an extension to attempt to turn Wordpress into a CMS. However, I have tried using it before and you will still be left with a confusing UI for your users. It will allow you to do the custom fields you want, however.
If you want full control over the UI, you will have to use either your own PHP or Drupal. Which one depends on how complex the project is and how much experience with Drupal you have had. If it is simple and your Drupal experience is limited, definitely go with your own PHP because Drupal is hard to learn. I think it would take you more time to learn Drupal than it will be to get a simple interface going with PHP.
I think this post will be helpful, depending on your experience, if you go with your own code.
i don't have particular suggestion for you custom need. Except beware for how much you give permission for your member. Please make sure they were a contributor and not author. In wp, the contributor role has no ability to publish. They have ability to post something just as a review. Thus, Administrator can review them and then published if it appropriated.
The problem with this situation is when you need them to upload things. The member with contributor role has no ability to upload video, image, or song. You have to custom this.
But if you only need their snippet or HTML link to the video (probably in youtube), then you don't have to change default wordpress role.
sorry if i mislead by your question. just trying to help as much as i can
I guess it depends on your shop's needs. I understand wanting to use wordpress, and you can do it, but at this point it almost makes people think... 'why?' If youre just going to use paypal and have a few products it might be a good idea but I think carts like zencart and oscommerce that are much better suited to store's needs. Though they are a little older. Magento and opencart are more modern, and all free. Though I've only ever used zen cart. None of these are terribly hard to set up. I guess You could always have you wordpress from page and use a link to your carts store menus.
MODx is brilliant for customisability - it was designed from the ground up to be extensive. It runs on PHP and MySQL.
You can create your own templates, add fields to those templates that appear in the UI when someone wants to create or edit a page based on that template. It has widgets for different data types, like images, dates etc that your users can use to add data to a page.
You also have full control over the HTML because you write the templates yourself. If the core code doesn't do what you need, you can write snippets in plain PHP to change the behaviour.
I've used it on a few projects over the past 3 years and I love it. I'd recommend MODx Evolution (v1.0.3) as that's stable. There's a brand-new rewritten version (Revolution 2.0.0) which is a release candidate at the moment, so you might want to have a play with that instead.
I reckon once you know MODx enough to create the site design, it'd be fairly easy to implement an off-the-shelf shopping cart into it (there may even be a MODx plugin that already does this.)
I'm nearing the completion of migrating our existing website to a CMS and I've just finished creating all the various contact forms. The CMS I'm using has CAPTCHA built into it's form builder, which is great, but the only method available is the "decipher-the-noisy-image" method.
This approach works well, but it limits access for people who might have reading or sight disabilities. I've worked around this by having a "help" page which allows those with disabilities to contact us by telephone and I'm considering having a single-field form which says "Send us your email address and we'll contact you". Accessibility is of particular importance to me as a web developer, but from an organisational perspective; so is reducing the amount of form spam we receive.
So what I'd like to know is, has anyone in the community had any experience with other CAPTCHA methods and how have you managed to make them accessible to people with disabilities?
As a blind person I find that recaptcha is one of the better CAPTCHA services out there as far as an audio option. The issue with using sms as the only alternative is the fact that many visually impaired users don't have cell phones that allow them to read text messages.
A good captcha, like reCAPTCHA, usually includes an audio CAPTCHA. Also I have seen a site that will
send a SMS message and you enter the code in the sms (Google-gmail will do this).
I am very interested in this because I am implementing a CAPTCHA in jQuery right now.
Many sites, including this one I believe, have an option to play noisy audio with embedded spoken numbers, as an audio equivalent to the traditional CAPTCHA image.
I find the result pretty spooky, actually. Reminds me of numbers stations.
As Michael said, audio with each character of the CAPTCHA text spoken for better or worse is a common option provided. If your CMS is PHP-based or if PHP is available on the hosting infrastructure you are using anyway, here's an open source CAPTCHA application with an audio download option:
http://www.phpcaptcha.org/
I've implemented a production site with phpcaptcha, and it works as advertised.
I'm new to programming, and my only area of expertise is web design/simple development on platforms like wordpress/expression engine. (Yea, you guys can laugh).
I have a new client who currently receives medical faxes through an online form (the user fills out a form concerning their prescriptions and once submitted, it faxes the info).
I'm completely redesigning their site, and I'm not sure how online faxing works.
Has anybody dealt with internet faxing? How does it work? Does/can it go through email?
And is it possible to send a fax through a form with javascript/php or route it through email?
Don't pay for it! All you need is a modem on the server and a standard phone line. Then set up a fax print driver under your os (you can do it on windows and unix).
The unix way is mgetty/sendfax : http://mgetty.greenie.net/doc/mgetty_3.html#SEC3
The Windows way : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306657
There are other ways but unless you can't get a phone line you'd be mad to pay fees for it.
Would it not be helpful to look at how it is currently being done, that way you can learn a thing or two about the process before trying to go do it again? That way you can find if it is using any special libraries or techniques or services to send the fax and you can then either duplicate the code or use it as a template to get started on your own solution.
All of what your asking is possible. I would recommend finding a service provider who can send the fax for you. They all have different interfaces requirements and pricing. I used to use DataOnCall which is now called Fax.com
They had a web service which we would post the document to be faxed plus additional information. They were a preety reasonable service. This was several years ago so I can't speak how they currently fair.
Take a look at eFax's SDK. I haven't used it, but it looks like it might be useful to you.
Yes, you can send faxes via email through several services; this link seems to have some useful information. I worked at a company previously that did this same sort of thing, and while I don't recall the exact service we used, most of them are very similar, and they work reasonably well.