cakephp pre-fill email form with address - forms

Question

I have a list of email addresses on a page and I would like to add the functionality so that when an email address is clicked it opens up an email form with that email address already pre-filled in the recipient field. How can I do this?
This is the form I have already;
<?php echo $this->Form->create('Email', array('action'=>'email_send.php'));
echo $this->Form->input('email',array('label'=>'To: ')); //i want the email address i clicked on to be automatically placed here.
echo $this->Form->input('message',array('type'=>'textarea','label'=>'Message: '));
echo $this->Form->end('Send'); ?>
Also if anyone has any tips on how I'll structure the email_send.php file and the best way to pass variables and perform validation I could use a hand with that too.

Answer 1

In cake, you could achieve it a little like this.. obviously improvements can be made but it's an example:
EmailsController.php (controller)
function list_emails() {
$this->set('emails', $this->EmailModel->find('all', array('fields' =>
array('id', 'email'))));
}
list_emails.ctp (view)
echo '<ul>';
foreach($emails as $email) {
echo '<li>' . $this->Html->link('Email: ' . $email['EmailModel']['email'],
array('action'=>'process', $email['EmailModel']['id'])) . '</li>'; ?>
}
// generates a list of emails in the format:
// Email: foo#foo.com
echo '</ul>';
EmailsController.php (controller)
function process($email_id = null) {
if(!$email_id) {
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'show_emails')); // no id specified
}
// check if the form has been submit, otherwise, get the info for the view..
$this->EmailModel->id = $email_id;
$email = $this->EmailModel->read();
$this->set('email', $email);
}
and the information is now available to you in your process view.
// echo $this->Form->input('email',array('label'=>'To: ','value'=>$email['EmailModel']['email']));
but it's a lot of work really. And don't forget the value can be always be changed; making this a bit pointless

Answer 2

Try this code:
in controller
$this->set('email',$email); //$email is the mail address from database
in view
echo $this->Form->input('email',array('label'=>'To: ','value'=>$email));
or
you can put email in '$this->request->data' array it will automatically populate in view like this:
you should add this in your controller
$this->request->data['Email']['email'] = 'YOUR_EMAIL_FROM_DATABASE';