Flexmail

Mailer cgi for for submitting form information with variable fields

This cgi program accepts information submitted from a form and formats it according to a template. One version of the result is sent to a designated recipient as email and a second version is sent as a response to the user that submitted the form.

The template is contained in a file residing at the host. It can contain fields pertaining to the email format, fields pertaining to the response format and fields that pertain to both. Thus, a single file allows the formatting for both the email and the response. Along with the fields, which specify variable information, is text corresponding to fixed information. The text can simply be explanatory or can represent html code.

To use this package for an application, two files need to be created, the source file and the template file. The source file contains html code including a single form intended to be filled-in by a site visitor. Included in the form are several hidden fields that are needed. These are:

<form name=aform action="flexmail.cgi" method="post"> (preceed flexmail.cgi with URL prefix)
<input type=hidden name=email_from value=""> (value=desired reply address)
<input type=hidden name=email_subject value=""> (value=email subject)
<input type=hidden name=email_form_to value=""> (value=recipients email address)
<input type=hidden name=template_filename value="">(value=template filename relative to cgi directory)

The template file contains the formatting information used to convert the form information to versions that are sent to the intended recipient by email and back to the visitor as a response. Special character sequences are used to delineate several different types of fields in a template. The fields are described as follows:

Replacement field: any alphanumeric label preceded by an ampersand & is treated as the name of a form element within the source. The label and ampersand are replaced in place by the value of that form element as specified by the visitor. &label
Email-only field: A section of text delineated by the three characters <e& at the beginning and by &e> at the end will be treated as a section that will generate output for email only. The section can include any amount of text, white space, line-breaks, html code and other fields. e.g. <e& Some text <h2>Heading</h2> &label1 &label2&e>
Response-only field: A section of text delineated by the three characters <r& at the beginning and by &r> at the end will be treated as a section that will generate output for the response only. The section can include any amount of text, white space, line-breaks, html code and other fields. e.g. <r& Some text <h2>Heading</h2> &label1 &label2&r>
Repeatable-pattern field: A section of text delineated by the two characters <& at the beginning and by &> at the end will be treated as a repeatable pattern. The section can include any amount of text, white space, line-breaks, html code and other fields. A repeatable pattern can be used to include, in the email or response, the values of a variable number of groups of form elements. For example, a form might include a number of similar rows of elements, one element of which corresponds to the desired quanity of an item described by the other elements. A repeatable-pattern field can then be used to output each row in which the quantity is non-zero, while suppressing those rows in which the quantity is zero. For this purpose, a repeatable-pattern field is to include a special replacement field, called the trigger field which is indicated with a double ampersand && preceeding the label. The labels of all replacement fields within a replacement-pattern field are treated as roots (i.e. prefixes) of corresponding form elements. All non-zero-valued form elements having the label of the trigger field as a prefix in their label will cause a corresponding pattern of form-element values to be output. Each such pattern instance will contain the values of elements which have the prefix of the corresponding replacement field and the suffix that matches that of the trigger element. <& &&quantity &price &item &color &>

Example source file

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Test flexmail</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY Background="" BGColor=#ffffff Text=#000000 Link=#0000ff VLink=#800080 ALink=#ff0000>
<center><h1>Flexmail Test Page</h1>
<h2>Please fill out this form</h2>
<form name=aform action="http://www.mich.com/~buffalo/rhp/flexmail.cgi" method="post">
<input type=hidden name=email_from value="buffalo@mich.com">
<input type=hidden name=email_subject value="Information that you submitted">
<input type=hidden name=email_form_to value="buffalo@mich.com">
<input type=hidden name=template_filename value="flextest.temp">
<input type=submit value="send"></center>
<br>Select a color to include in both the email and response.
<select name=colorboth size=1>
<option value="red">red</option>
<option value="yellow">yellow</option>
<option value="orange">orange</option>
<option value="blue">blue</option>
<option value="purple">purple</option>
</select>
<br>Choose a color to be included in the email only
<select name=coloremail size=1>
<option value="red">red</option>
<option value="yellow">yellow</option>
<option value="orange">orange</option>
<option value="blue">blue</option>
<option value="purple">purple</option>
</select>
<br>Choose a color to be included in the response only
<select name=colorresponse size=1>
<option value="red">red</option>
<option value="yellow">yellow</option>
<option value="orange">orange</option>
<option value="blue">blue</option>
<option value="purple">purple</option>
</select>
<br>Choose the quantity and item from the following lists
<table border=5>
<tr><td>Quantity</td><td>Item</td></tr>
<tr>
<td><select name=qty1 size=1>
<option value"0">0</option>
<option value"1">1</option>
<option value"2">2</option>
<option value"3">3</option>
<option value"4">4</option>
</select></td>
<td><select name=item1 size=1>
<option value"car">car</option>
<option value"boat">boat</option>
<option value"plane">plane</option>
<option value"train">train</option>
<option value"bike">bike</option>
</select></td>
<tr>
<td><select name=qty2 size=1>
<option value"0">0</option>
<option value"1">1</option>
<option value"2">2</option>
<option value"3">3</option>
<option value"4">4</option>
</select></td>
<td><select name=item2 size=1>
<option value"pie">pie</option>
<option value"cake">cake</option>
<option value"donut">donut</option>
<option value"cookie">cookie</option>
<option value"bread">bread</option>
</select></td>
<tr>
<td><select name=qty3 size=1>
<option value"0">0</option>
<option value"1">1</option>
<option value"2">2</option>
<option value"3">3</option>
<option value"4">4</option>
</select></td>
<td><select name=item3 size=1>
<option value"dog">dog</option>
<option value"cat">cat</option>
<option value"cow">cow</option>
<option value"horse">horse</option>
<option value"pig">pig</option>
</select></td>
<tr>
<td><select name=qty4 size=1>
<option value"0">0</option>
<option value"1">1</option>
<option value"2">2</option>
<option value"3">3</option>
<option value"4">4</option>
</select></td>
<td><select name=item4 size=1>
<option value"table">table</option>
<option value"chair">chair</option>
<option value"lamp">lamp</option>
<option value"desk">desk</option>
<option value"pen">pen</option>
</select></td>
</table>
</form>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Example template file

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Test flexmail</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY Background="" BGColor=#ffffff>
<center>
<r&<h2>This information should appear in the response</h2>&r>
<e&<h2>This information should appear in the email</h2>&e>
</center>
You selected the color &colorboth for both response and email.<br>
<e&You selected the color &coloremail for email.<br>&e>
<r&You selected the color &colorresponse for the response.<br>&r>
You selected the following:<br>
<& quantity &&qty of &item <br> &> 
<br>End of test.
</BODY>
</HTML>

Test sample of flexmail

Another version of this mailer is tempmail, which includes the template within the html. The template is inserted between textarea tags and is sent to the server when the form is submitted.
Test sample of tempmail