Customized Email response

[Just Me]

I am hoping someone has done this before...

I have a list serve that I would like to make a web front end to for signing
up. The list serve is configured to email the subscriber for email
confirmation.

I would like the form to ask for name, email. Take this information, and
have Microsoft Front Page send the email to the list serve, in the following
format:

SUBSCRIBE my_list Joe Smoe (Note List Name from FP is my_list and name is
Joe Smoe)

Unfortunately, the problems I am seeing is that the list serve replies to
the email it receives, namely the front page server (webmaster account) and
the verify process can not occur. I think I can get around this by either
having the form email an link to the person at the email address specified.
The link could be to a page that directly submits the registration without
any validation.

How can I automatically send an email to a person at an address that they
specify in a form? Can I customize this email with specific information
(like a Dear Joe Smoe)?

My goal is to avoid having people send emails that require exact syntax for
signing up for the list serve.

Any help would be appreciated.

mailto:[email protected]
I hate spam. Please remove the doubled letters in the domain extension when
replying.

 

[Jim Buyens]

-----Original Message-----

I am hoping someone has done this before...

I have a list serve that I would like to make a web front
end to for signing up. The list serve is configured to
email the subscriber for email confirmation.

I would like the form to ask for name, email. Take this
information, and have Microsoft Front Page send the email
to the list serve, in the following format:

SUBSCRIBE my_list Joe Smoe (Note List Name from FP is
my_list and name is
Joe Smoe)

Unfortunately, the problems I am seeing is that the list
serve replies to the email it receives, namely the front
page server (webmaster account) and the verify process
can not occur. I think I can get around this by either
having the form email an link to the person at the email address specified.
The link could be to a page that directly submits the
registration without any validation.

How can I automatically send an email to a person at an
address that they specify in a form? Can I customize
this email with specific information (like a Dear Joe
Smoe)?

My goal is to avoid having people send emails that
require exact syntax for signing up for the list serve.

Any help would be appreciated.

Typically you have to program this in ASP, ASP.NET, or
whatever. This isn't difficult, except that there are
about a bazillion different tools in use. Here's the usual
drill.

set objMailer = server.createobject("..whatever..")
objMailer.Subject = "Subscribe"
objMailer.From = "(e-mail address removed)"
objMailer.To = "(e-mail address removed)"
objMailer.ReplyTo = "(e-mail address removed)"
objmailer.Body = "..Your text goes here.."
objMailer.SmtpServer = "mail.whatever.com"
objMailer.Send

The exact object name to create and the exact property
names to assign will, or course, vary with the mailer
object your hosting provider installed. You can generally
find documentation on the provider's support page.

The Microsoft object for sending mail from an ASP page is
CDONTS.NewMail. However, because it requrires running
Microsoft's SMTP server, it isn't very popular.

ASP.NET has a System.Web.Mail namespace that doesn't
require the presence of Microsoft's SMTP server. Most
providers who support ASP.NET therefore support this
approach.

Most of these objects also handle attachments and HTML-
formatted mail.

Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*------------------------------------------------------*
|\----------------------------------------------------/|
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out ||
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out ||
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition ||
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002 ||
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming ||
|| (All from Microsoft Press) ||
|/----------------------------------------------------\|
*------------------------------------------------------*

 

[Just Me]

Thank you. I will try playing with this, and see what comes of it.
Although not possible(?) I'm hoping I don't bring down the internet! ;o)

Upward and onward to try and learn ASP!

 

[Roy Lindhardt]

Jim,

Could you use some sort of script that could handle putting a certain
email address for the objMailer.To value depending upon the selection made
in a drop down box in the form? If so, how? If not, how you would you go
about accomplishing that?

Thanks,


Roy

 

[Jim Buyens]

Jim,

Could you use some sort of script that could handle putting a certain
email address for the objMailer.To value depending upon the selection made
in a drop down box in the form? If so, how? If not, how you would you go
about accomplishing that?

Sure. Suppose you had a form configured thus:

<form method=post>
<table border="0">
<tr>
<td>From</td>
<td><input type="text" name="email" size="20"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>To</td>
<td><select size="1" name="recipient">
<option value="?">(choose)</option>
<option value="M">Marketing</option>
<option value="P">Public Affairs</option>
<option value="T">Tech Support</option>
</select></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Message</td>
<td><textarea rows="2" name="message" cols="20"></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="btnSub"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

If your Web server supports use of the Microsoft object, here's how
the code to send the mail would look.

<%
Dim objNewMail
Dim strRecip
dim strEmail
dim strMessage

Select Case Request("recipient") ' Check value from "recipient" form
field
Case "M"
strRecip = "(e-mail address removed)"
Case "P"
strRecip = "(e-mail address removed)"
Case "T"
strRecip = "(e-mail address removed)"
Case Else
strRecip = ""
End Select
strEmail = Trim(Request("email"))
strMessage = Trim(Request("message"))

If (strRecip <> "") _
And (strEmail <> "") _
And (strMessage <> "") Then
Set objNewMail = CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
objNewMail.To = strRecip
objNewMail.From = Request("email")
objNewMail.Body = request("message")
objNewMail.Send
Set objNewMail = Nothing
End If
%>

Typically, you would put all this code in the same Web page, and save
the page with an .asp filename extension.

To do a nice job, you should really display a prompt (such as "Select
recipient") if the drop-down box sends "?" or an empty string.

You should also display an error message if the drop-down box sends a
valid code, but the email address or message body is empty.

Finally, you should display a success message if sending the mail
succeeds.

If your Web server isn't running the Microsoft SMTP server, or if that
server isn't configured with the correct "relay" options, then you'll
need to create some other object than CDONTS.NewMail, and the property
names you assign will be different. Consult your provider's technical
support pages for details.

Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*------------------------------------------------------*
|\----------------------------------------------------/|
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out ||
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out ||
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition ||
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002 ||
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming ||
|| (All from Microsoft Press) ||
|/----------------------------------------------------\|
*------------------------------------------------------*