Email Form when not filled out

Question

I am trying to modify an email form when it's not filled out properly, but I don't understand how to do it in an easy way.

Right now it works like this:

If the user types in everything correct, the user is sent to send_form_email.php which has alot of code and works properly.
If the user types in something wrong, the user is sent to a blank version of send_form_email.php which just has the errors.

I want to change the last one so the user gets message right away if he miss something, and he is unable to push "send". Maybe change the box-color to red and so forth.

Could you guys help me out?

Thanks.

The form:

<div id="message">
            <form name="contactform" method="post" action="send_form_email.php">
                <table width="450px">
                    <tr>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <label for="first_name">Fornavn</label></br>
                        </td>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <input type="text" name="first_name" maxlength="50" size="30">
                        </td>
                    </tr>

                    <tr>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <label for="last_name">Etternavn</label></br>
                        </td>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <input type="text" name="last_name" maxlength="50" size="30">
                        </td>
                    </tr>

                    <tr>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <label for="email">E-post</label></br>
                        </td>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <input type="text" name="email" maxlength="80" size="30">
                        </td>            
                        </tr>

                    <tr>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <label for="comments">Melding</label></br>
                        </td>
                        <td valign="top">
                            <textarea name="comments" maxlength="1000" cols="25" rows="6"></textarea>
                        </td>
                    </tr>

                    <tr>
                        <td colspan="2">
                        <input type="submit" value="Submit">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </form>
        </div>

send_form_email.php:

if(isset($_POST['email'])) {


    $email_to = "mymail@gmail.com";
    $email_subject = "Melding fra nettsiden"; 

    function died($error) {
        echo "Sorry. Following errors appeared: <br /> ";
        echo $error."<br /><br />";
        die();
    }

    if(!isset($_POST['first_name']) ||
        !isset($_POST['last_name']) ||
        !isset($_POST['email']) ||
        !isset($_POST['comments'])) {
        died('Beklager, men det er noen feil med meldingen.');       
    }

    $first_name = $_POST['first_name']; 
    $last_name = $_POST['last_name'];
    $email_from = $_POST['email'];
    $comments = $_POST['comments'];

    $error_message = "";
    $email_exp = '/^[A-Za-z0-9._%-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$/';

  if(!preg_match($email_exp,$email_from)) {
    $error_message .= 'Ugyldig e-post adresse.<br />';
  }

  if($first_name != '') {
      $error_message .= "Fornavn er ikke fyllt ut";
  }

  if($last_name != '') {
      $error_message .= "Etternavn er ikke fyllt ut";
  }

  if(strlen($comments) < 2) {
    $error_message .= 'Meldingen er for kort.<br />';
  }

  if(strlen($error_message) > 0) {
    died($error_message);
  }

    function clean_string($string) {
      $bad = array("content-type","bcc:","to:","cc:","href");
      return str_replace($bad,"",$string);
    }

// E-post melding
    $email_message .= "".clean_string($comments)."\n\n";
    $email_message .= "Mvh"."\n";
    $email_message .= "".clean_string($first_name)." ".clean_string($last_name);
    $email_message .= ""."\n";
    $email_message .= "".clean_string($email_from);
    $email_message .= ""."\n";

// E-post headers
    $headers = 'From: '.$email_from."\r\n".
    'Reply-To: '.$email_from."\r\n" . 
    'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
    @mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);  

?>

... The rest of send_form_email has code that appears if the form is correct filled out... (This part works)

You'll need client side validation (javascript) if you want immediate errors - ie before pushing send. — Mark Miller, Jun 13 '14 at 04:14

Nishant Sharma · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-13T05:55:10.530

1

You can apply two types of validation

HTML 5 Validation or Javascript/Jquery (client side).
Server Side validation

Here is an example of HTML 5 validation using required with every <input>

Example:

<input type="text" name="first_name" maxlength="50" required="required" size="30">

Use type="email" for email input field

Example:

<input type="email" name="email" required="required" maxlength="80" size="30">

server side validation is as follows

if(isset($_POST['first_name']) && !empty($_POST['first_name'])
   && isset($_POST['last_name']) && !empty($_POST['last_name'])
   && isset($_POST['email']) && !empty($_POST['email'])
   && isset($_POST['comments']) && !empty ($_POST['comments'])
   )
    {
           //perform the task       
    }
    else{
        echo 'You have not filled all the fields pealse go back and fill all the forms';
    //redirect the user to the form or display an erro massage
    }

edited Jun 13 '14 at 05:55

answered Jun 13 '14 at 04:44

Nishant Sharma

49
4

Thanks alot. The required-thing works very nice. What is server side validation? – Olen Jun 13 '14 at 05:24
server side validation means you write code in php for checking the validation after the client side you should use the server side too. because many time javascript is not enabled at that time your client side validation will not work – Vivek Jun 13 '14 at 05:53
I have updated my answer with server side validation. Please check it out. – Nishant Sharma Jun 13 '14 at 05:58

Email Form when not filled out

1 Answers1