send email to owner by collecting information provided by user through form?

Question

I had designed user input form that collects user name, email address, subject and message. I had verified all elements stored these element in variable. Now I need to send this information to the owner via email. How can I solve this problem in localhost(too)?

How can I send email to owner?
How can I add all information so that I can get back or differ it later in owner email.

contact.php

<form action="contact_ok.php" method="post"  autocomplete="on">
<p>
    <label for="username"> Name <span class="required">*</span></label>
    <input type="text" name="username" required="TRUE"/>
</p>
<p> 
    <label for="usermail"> E-mail address <span class="required">*</span></label>
    <input type="email" name="usermail"required="TRUE"/>
</p>
<p>
    <label for="subject"> Subject </label>
    <input type="text" name="subject" required="TRUE" />
</p>
<p>
    <label for="message"> Message  <span class="required">*</span></label>
    <textarea name="msg" required="TRUE" ></textarea>
</p> 
<input type="submit" name="submit mail"/>   
</form>

contact_ok.php

<?php
$name = addslashes($_POST['username']);
$uml = addslashes($_POST['usermail']);
$sub = addslashes($_POST['subject']);
$msg =addslashes($_POST['msg']);
//sending mail to owner
$to ='owner@gmail.com';
//enter input information in array ******
//send email
mail($to,$sub,$msg);
?>

For sending mail I read about PHP mailer but I found hard to understand. Also I studied this thread on SO it is also not sufficient. 2.For storing all elements I tried to convert message firstly to array by using $msg=str_split($msg) and push all other information by using push_array($msg) and change it by using print_r($msg,TRUE) but it does not work.

hosted or localhost? are you currently getting any email at all? — , Nov 28 '13 at 20:22
@Dagon first i want to check in localhost then i want to use it online! Also i can get all information from input form properly and want to send this information to owner of website in his gmail account . — Abinash, Nov 29 '13 at 20:36
curent shown message is WARNING: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()in... — Abinash, Nov 29 '13 at 20:41

KarlosFontana · Answer 1 · 2013-11-29T06:20:08.620

First we got the mailto function to work.(using localhost and an email program such as Thunderbird or Outlook or Mail)
Thereafter you can use Swiftmailer. (Easier than PHPmailer) I have added some javascript validation P.S. It's better to use textareas instead of textboxes becasue they keep whitespaces. later when you add a database code you can use TEXT instead of VARCHAR. (I left out a few things that you need to fill in) Enjoy!

contact.php

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"   
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">  
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">  
<head>  
<title>Registration</title>  
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />  
<script type="text/javascript">  

function formValidator(){  
var subject = document.getElementById('subject');  
var usermail = document.getElementById('useremail');  
        if(notEmpty(subject, "Please enter an email subject")){  
        if(emailValidator(usermail, "Please enter email addr")){  
                        return true;  
    }  
}  
return false;

}//very important end of formvalidator!!

function notEmpty(elem, helperMsg){
    if(elem.value.length == 0){
        alert(helperMsg);
        elem.focus(); // set the focus to this input
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}
function emailValidator(elem, helperMsg){
    var emailExp = /^[\w\-\.\+]+\@[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]+\.[a-zA-z0-9]{2,4}$/;
    if(elem.value.match(emailExp)){
        return true;
    }else{
        alert(helperMsg);
        elem.focus();
        return false;
    }
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form onsubmit="return formValidator()" action="contact_ok.php" method="post">

<textarea id='username' name='username'  style='white-space:pre-wrap; height:18px;font-family:arial;width:200px;font-size: 10pt'  >
</textarea>  
</body>  
</html>

contact_ok.php

<?php
$username = "_";
$usermail = "_";
$subject  = "_";
$msg = = "_";
$from ='owner@gmail.com';

$username = ($_POST['username']);
$usermail = ($_POST['usermail']);
$subject = ($_POST['subject']);
$msg =($_POST['msg']);

$aa = "Hi";
$a0 = "Welcome.";
$nl = "%0D%0A"; //new line
echo "<br><br>";
?>

<font size = 4><b>
<a href="mailto:<?php echo $useremail?>?subject=<?php echo $subject; ?>&body=<?php echo $aa.$nl.$a0.$nl ?>">
Click to EMail  customer</a><br>
</font>
<br>

For sending emails automatically I reommend Swiftmailer. Impressive manuals and much easier to understand than PHPmailer. — KarlosFontana, Nov 28 '13 at 22:23
I had used HTML5 so I did not use javascript form validation technique is it better to use javasrcipt than HTML5 for form validation? //Also in contact_ok.php does links works automatically when user sends message from contact.php? I am still little bit confused! — Abinash, Nov 29 '13 at 18:57
The most secure validation is PHP validation because if javascript is switched off and if browser not HTML5 compatible then you have a problem- but PHP validation can unfortunately only be done on the 2nd form(server side).So validation with both javascript AND HTML5 (client-side/browser-side) is recommended. All browsers support javascript, so study that first. HTML5 is an extra bling for new browsers which are becoming more common. — KarlosFontana, Nov 30 '13 at 20:17
The link unfortunately does not work automatically. But test it and see what happens. To get it to work automatically is a bit more complex. Esp because you are using a gmail address. To send with a gmail address your code needs to be able to send with SSL. Swiftmailer can help you with that: [www.swiftmailer.org/docs/sending.html](http://swiftmailer.org/docs/sending.html) — KarlosFontana, Nov 30 '13 at 20:21
Have you set up gmail before in an email program such as Outlook or Windows Live Mail? Then you will know to put in settings such as SMTP authentication etc. — KarlosFontana, Nov 30 '13 at 20:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 30 '13 at 20:32

0

If you want to use a gmail address to send automatic mails, then I recommend these links: https://www.google.co.za/search?q=using+swiftmailer+and+sending+with+gmail and http://www.swiftmailer.org/docs/sending.html

answered Nov 30 '13 at 20:32

KarlosFontana

188
2
7

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 04 '17 at 14:49

There is different ways:

1) You can use PHP MAILER library to send Email. So this library is totally based on SMTP . You have to specify your third party SMTP services and credentials. You can send email through gmail, yahoo etc . by using this library. This library will take care about securities, headers etc and very easy to use.

2) Another way which is not recommend by me is install your own postfix. Configure all things and send an email. Its very time consuming and you have to add various level of authentication like SPF, DMARC etc.

I would like to recommend you to go with PHP Mailer integrate yous SMTP service and start Mailing.

send email to owner by collecting information provided by user through form?

3 Answers3

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