Contact and Quote Form Basic Steps

HTML form setup in Allwebco web templates

Step 1.) Check for cgi-bin
If you DO have a cgi-bin folder in your hosting FTP login proceed to the next step. If you do NOT have a cgi-bin in your hosting login see Form Setup Overview.


Step 2.) Edit the HTML page
Open the "contact.htm" or "quotes.htm" page and replace "your-web-domain.com" in 3 spots (see highlighted code below) with your domain. Use Notepad, a plain text editor, or edit in HTML source view.

<form method="post" action="http://your-web-domain.com/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi">
<input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="info@your-web-domain.com">
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="http://your-web-domain.com/thanks.htm">

You must use an email from your domain like "info@your-web-domain.com".


Step 3.) Download the FormMail script
In the "contact.htm" or "quotes.htm" in the step above you may need to edit formmail.cgi to formmail.pl. You should be able to use either extension, pl or cgi. You can freely re-name "FormMail.pl" as long as the contact.htm uses the same exact name.

• Download from the FormMail website
• Alternate FormMail download
• Alternate FormMail script support page

Hosting is case sensitive so edit the HTML page with your exact script name. formmail.cgi is not the same as FormMail.cgi


Optional: Adding extra security (recommended)
To add more security and prevent auto-hacking of your form script, rename the downloaded "FormMail.pl" to a unique name like "rsender.pl" or something similar. You can name the file any name. Edit the "contact.htm" or "quotes.htm" with the exact name of your re-named script as shown below.

<form method="post" action="http://your-web-domain.com/cgi-bin/rsender.pl">


Step 4.) Edit and upload the FormMail script
Once you download FormMail from the links above, follow the included directions for setup. The FormMail pl or cgi script needs to be edited with your domain in the "@referers" line. Once edited, upload the script into your "cgi-bin" folder and CHMOD it to 755.

• See: Quick form setup

You will need FTP software like CuteFTP to upload and CHMOD the script.


Step 4B.) Install FormMail (alternate)
If your hosting company provides formmail, you can install it in your control panel. If your hosting company provides a different "contact form script" you should be able to generate a form in your control panel and add or replace the hidden code in the template contact.htm or quotes.htm. Your hosting company may provide a working contact form sample that you can copy code from to use in the template form pages.


Step 5.) Setup your e-mail
Create an email account in your hosting control panel for the email you used in the form (step #2 above). You can optionally redirect the email you create to another email like your Gmail or Yahoo account.

• See: Redirecting your e-mail

Other options
See the links in the sidebar on this page for other options to make the template forms work.

Notes: FormMail is the CGI script that makes the contact form work. Talk to your hosting company and see if they can add that for you or, if you have a cgi-bin and can install that yourself. If not see if they have a "contact form script" and sample contact form page that you can use.



Related Topics:
Adding fields to the contact or quote form
E-mail help and redirection
Setting up the contact form with another script
Setting up the contact form using FormMail PHP

Links:
Alternate FormMail Script Support