Building Email Request Forms at www.wsu.edu
IT UNIX Systems

There is a cgi script available on the www.wsu.edu servers which you can use to create email request forms. The program is FormMail. FormMail can be used on the default port (80) and the public_html port (8080).

The only field required by FormMail is the "recipient". You use "recipient" to include the email address of the person to receive the form request. This is the second line in the example below. Notice also that this field is of type "hidden". A hidden type means that the customer will not see that line of information on their form (unless they use "view source".)

In the following FormMail example, what will be emailed to username@wsu.edu is a collection of information gathered on this form.

  • the person's name (realname),
  • Network ID (NID),
  • email address (email),
  • the name they want to call the new discussion list (list_name),
  • and a short abstract about the list (list_abstract).

The user will need to fill in these fields before submitting the form. The field names (email, realname, etc.) are all arbitrary names.

The line with name="required" indicates that the fields "email, realname, list_name, list_abstract" are required. If the customer leaves any of these 4 fields out, they will get an error message. The field NID is optional, and does not need to be filled in.

The five lines after list_abstract are also "hidden" entries. They are not required to use FormMail, but they are helpful in sending the recipient more information about the request.

Here is the sample forms request:

<form method="PUT" action="http://www.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/FormMail.pl"> <input type=hidden name="recipient" value="username@wsu.edu">
Please enter your Network ID, your email address, the name of the list you want, and a brief sentence or two abstract of the list. After you enter that information, press SUBMIT.
</p> Your Name:<br>
<input type=text name="realname">
</p>
Your optional WSU Network ID (NID):<br>
<input type=text name="NID">
</p>
Your email address:<br>
<input type=text name="email">
</p>
Requested name for this list:<br>
<input type=text name="list_name">
</p>
List Abstract:</br>
<textarea name="list_abstract" rows="3" cols="70"> </textarea>
</p>
<input type=hidden name="env_report" value="REMOTE_HOST">
<input type=hidden name="sort" value="alphabetic">
<input type=hidden name="required" value="email,realname,list_name,list_abstract">
<input type=hidden name="subject" value="Listproc Application for a New List">
<input type=hidden name="title" value="Listproc Application for a New List">
<input type="submit" value="SUBMIT">
<input type="reset" value="RESET">
</form>

Here is an example similar to the above input:

Please enter your Network ID, your email address, the name of the list you want, and a brief sentence or two abstract of the list. After you enter that information, press SUBMIT.

Your Name:

Your WSU Network ID (NID):

Your email address:

Requested name for this list:

List Abstract:

Terse Option

At WSU our FormMail.pl has a "terse" option available. This will strip out a lot of the verbose printing that is sent with the email request to recipient. The "terse" option is handy when you want to send the email to the recipient of "pager". Simply add the line:

<input type=hidden name="terse" value="true">

Other options

Go to the FormMail README for more details and options to use with this form submittal program. Here are some other examples of using FormMail.

This page has been accessed times since April 24th, 1996.


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Revised February 05, 1997. Copyright © 1996-1997 Washington State University.
URL: http://www.wsu.edu/UNIX_Systems