If you have a website, adding a simple online form
to your site, such as a feedback form, contact form,
or other online form, can be a tough task. Most programming
novices create their first website using pre-developed
templates and have no advanced knowledge of HTML programming.
As a result, creating a simple form that can email
the responses from the form to the webmaster can be
a difficult and frustrating task. If you just posted
a new website, but you do not have a web form uploaded
and you need to quickly provide a way for your visitors
to contact you, then you should simply post your email
address on your Contact page. However, if you want
to create a sophisticated online form to collect information
from your visitors and respond to their questions,
you need to know something about HTML and another
programming language called PHP. Installing the online
form on your website is the easy part. If you are
not familiar with how to create the code for a form,
there are many different online tutorials that can
teach you how to create the code. After that, you
will need to create a file that will process your
form after someone fills it out and send the answers
to you via email. The code used to process a HTML
form is often referred to as Formmail. Formmail is
written in a programming language called PHP, which
is more advanced than HTML. There are many websites
where you can download the Formmail file for free.
Formmail has been used to process and email the results
of web forms since 1997. When you download Formmail,
make sure it has code that prevents spam from being
sent through your HTML form. There are many different
versions of Formmail floating around the internet,
and some have built-in spam protection while others
do not. Many times, inexperienced programmers will
put an online form on their website that does not
include code to at least try to prevent spammers from
utilizing the form to send spam to hundreds or even
thousands of people. As a result, those who have been
spammed complain to their internet service provider,
who then directs the complaint to the hosting company
that handles your website. This can be a huge problem.
If you do not have the patience to create your web
form yourself, there are more than a few form creation
services on the internet that provide a simple way
for you to create a form without doing any programming.
These third-party form creators usually do not provide
you with the PHP code you need to process the form.
Instead, they process it for you on their own servers.
If you are comfortable with programming, you might
want to try to create your online form yourself with
the help of some online tutorials. If you do not have
the patience to do the work, use an outside service
that creates the form for you. Either way, it is important
to have an HTML form so that people can contact you
directly through your website.