Flexmail
Syntax
General Information
The Flexmail plug-in will activate any time the server
receives a request for a file with a name ending in ".flx".
The Flexmail plug-in takes any form data received from the
client and processes it according to your instructions in
the flex file. In the flex file, you can:
- Make sure that certain fields have to be filled out,
and return an appropriate error message if they are left
blank.
- Send email that is formatted in any way you like.
- Return a customized response to the user, including
information they provided in the form.
- Instead of returning an HTML page to the user, you
can redirect them to another URL.
- Save the form data in either a text-and-tabs data
file or a free-form text file
Example flex files for various applications are included
with both the demonstration and full versions of Flexmail.
FORMS
There are a few things to remember when building forms
for use with flexmail:
- always use the POST method
Example: <form action=file_name.flx
method=post>
- give every element a name. If you don't name an item,
its value won't be returned to you for processing.
Example: <input type=text name="name"
size=35>
- element names should only contain alphanumeric,
non-whitespace characters. You can use dashes or
underscores in place of white space.
Example: <input type=text name="my_name"
size=35>
REPLACEMENT
Any string of non-whitespace characters surrounded with %
signs in your flex file will be replaced with an item from
the form. For instance, if your form has the following input
box:
Enter your email address: <input type=text name=email
size=40>
The following code within your flex file will be replaced
with the contents of that field:
Built-In Variables
There are a few "built-in" items that Flexmail provides
to give you some information about the client accessing the
Flex file. Use these tags with %...% around them:
- _Date the date of the to any given execution
of Flexmail
- _Time the time of the to any given execution
of Flexmail
- _Referer contains the HTML file that the
person used to get to this Flex file.
- _UserName contains the log-in name of the
user, provided s/he had to use a username to get to this
area of your server.
- _UserAgent is the type of browser being used.
- _Address is the host name or IP address of the
user's computer
- _FlexID is a number unique to any given
execution of Flexmail
<MAIL>...</MAIL>
The MAIL tag specifies the email output to send, based on
the form data. It must be followed by an RFC823-compliant
header. You *must* leave a blank line between the mail
header and the body of the message. The message can be as
long as you like, and can include information imported from
the form.
Example:
<MAIL>
To: me@some.org
From: webmaster@www.mydomain.com
Subject: Flexmail is Cool
Hey! This stuff really works!
The user's comment was %comment%.
</MAIL>
If you don't want to send email from a Flex file, simply
omit the MAIL tag alltogether. To send more than one email
message, use multimple MAIL tags. To send the same message
to more than one person, put the extra address on the To or
Cc lines of the email header. eg:
<MAIL>
To: me@some.org, you@some.other.org
From: webmaster@www.mydomain.com
Subject: Hello
This message will go to more than one person.
You must separate the multiple addresses with
a comma and a space.
</MAIL>
Note: Previous versions of Flexmail used a
SERVER attribute in the MAIL tag. This is no longer a part
of the Flexmail syntax, and Flexmail will ignore the SERVER
attribute.
<RESPONSE>...</RESPONSE>
The response tag contains the HTML that will be returned
to the user. Like the MAIL tag, it can contain replacement
items from the form.
Example:
<RESPONSE>
<center><h1>Thanks</h1></center>
Thank you for filling out our customer-feedback
form. You said:
%comment%
</RESPONSE>
In this example, whatever the user entered into the form
item named "comment" will be included with the response they
see.
<REQUIRE>
The reqire tag specifies any fields that must contain
data before the form will be processed. For example, you
might require that users fill out the element named "email"
in order for the form to be processed.
Example:
<REQUIRE email>
To require more than one field, simply add it to the
require tag:
Example:
<REQUIRE email name>
If a <REQUIRE>'d field contains no data, the
<mail> and <response> tags are ignored and the
contents of the <error> tag is returned instead.
<ERROR>...</ERROR>
This tag contains the HTML that is to be returned if any
fields listed in the <require> tag are empty.
<SAVECUSTOM "file"
[MODE]>...</SAVECUSTOM>
This tag allows you to save free-form data, using both
text you specify and data from a form. You could, for
instance, create on-the-fly HTML documents from form data.
In this example, a form with fields for a subject, name, and
comment could be used to create a guestbook:
<SAVECUSTOM "bigfile.html" APPEND>
<hr>
<strong> %subject% </strong> <br>
by %name% <p>
%comment%
<p>
</SAVECUSTOM>
There are three MODEs that you can use with the
SAVECUSTOM tag. The mode controls how the file is created:
- APPEND is the default. If the file already exists,
then the data is simply appended to the end of the file.
If the file does not already exist, then it is created
and the data is written to it.
- UNIQUE will gurantee that your file is given a unique
filename and will not overwrite or modify any other file.
- NEW will cause the new data to replace any old data
that was already in the file. If the file does not exist,
it is created.
The file specification can indicate any file in any
folder within the flex file's parent folder (eg:
"subfolder/mydata.txt"). You can not save data to a file
outside the flex file's parent folder.
<SAVEDATA "file">...</SAVEDATA>
This command allows you to save form data in a
text-and-tabs format to the file you designate. Unlike other
Flexmail commands, SAVEDATA doesn't use the %...% syntax to
indicate where form data should be substituted. Instead,
Flexmail will replace any characters it finds with form
data, and replace all white space with tabs.
For example, if you had a form where a user entered their
name, address, city, and state, you could save that file
with the following lines in a Flex file:
<SAVEDATA "mydata.txt">
name
address
city
state
</SAVEDATA>
The file specification can indicate any file in any
folder within the flex file's parent folder (eg:
"subfolder/mydata.txt"). You can not save data to a file
outside the flex file's parent folder.
<REDIRECTTO HREF="URL">
Instead of returning an HTML response to the user,
redirect the user to another URL. You can use either a full
URL, or a relative path.
<REPLACE>x</REPLACE>
Sometimes it is not convenient to use the %...% notation
because it can interfere with some URL-encoded information.
You can select a character other than % as the delimeter
using the REPLACE tag. The following line will change the
delimeter from % to ~ (tilde).
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