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Using Our PHP Form Mailers on Web & Classic Hosting

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Last Updated: July 21, 2015 2:15 PM

This article only applies to Web & Classic Hosting. For more information, see What type of hosting account do I have?

Customers using cPanel or Plesk can use Sending Form Mail with cPanel and Plesk Shared Hosting.

Two non-CGI form mailers are included in Linux shared hosting account default files: webformmailer.php and gdform.php. They reside in the root directory of your hosting account. Incorporating either of these scripts into your website creates a form to capture user information and email it to a specified address.

For more information about designating the destination email address, see Specifying an Email Address for the PHP Form-Mailer.

Using webformmailer.php

Follow these steps to use webformmailer.php.

To Use webformmailer.php

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to manage, click Manage.
  4. From the Tools section, click File Manager.
  5. Click the file name for the Web page you want to place your form mailer in.
  6. Enter the form mailer in the body of your HTML.
  7. This is a very generic form mailer you can use:
  8. <form action="http://help.secureserver.net/webformmailer.php" method="post"> <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Submission" /> <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="thankyou.html" /> First Name: <input type="text" name="FirstName" /> Last Name :<input type="text" name="LastName" /> Email: <input type="text" name="email" /> Comments: <textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="10"> Type comments here.</textarea> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/> <input type="hidden" name="form_order" value="alpha"/> <input type="hidden" name="form_delivery" value="hourly_digest"/> <input type="hidden" name="form_format" value="html"/> </form></div></p>
  9. If you create your own form tag, assign /webformmailer.php to the action attribute and set the form method to post:

    <form action="http://help.secureserver.net/webformmailer.php" method="post">
  10. In addition to the form fields you create, there are hidden elements you can use.

    form_format determines in what format the information is delivered. Its values are 'text', 'csv', 'html', 'xml', and 'default' (same as 'text').

    form_delivery determines the frequency and packaging of delivery. All form submissions are sent via an attachment. You can specify the form_delivery variables as one of the following: 'digest', 'hourly_digest', and 'daily_digest'.

  11. Once you are finished adding your Web form mailer click OK.

Using gdform.php

Follow these steps to use gdform.php.

To Use gdform.php


WARNING: The gdform.php file cannot be recovered if it's deleted.

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to manage, click Manage.
  4. From the Tools section, click File Manager.
  5. Click the file name for the Web page you want to place your form mailer in.
  6. Enter the form mailer in the body of your HTML.
  7. This is a very generic form mailer you can use:
  8. <form action="http://help.secureserver.net/gdform.php" method="post"> <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Form Submission" /> <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="thankyou.html" /><br/> <p>First Name:<input type="text" name="FirstName" /></p><br/> <p>Last Name:<input type="text" name="LastName" /></p><br/> <p>E-Mail:<input type="text" name="email" /></p><br/> <p>Comments:<textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="10"><br/> Type comments here.</textarea></p> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/><br/> </form>
  9. If you create your own form tag, assign your Web form mailer with unique names to your form items.
  10. NOTE: Keep in mind that our form-mailer script will sort the names of your form items alphabetically when it composes the email message. This is the order of precedence: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers.

  11. For the form action line, enter /gdform.php. For example:
    <form action="http://help.secureserver.net/gdform.php" method="post">
  12. Set the form method to "post."
  13. In addition to the fields you create in your form, there are three special fields that you can use: subject, redirect, and email.

    Subject. Controls the subject line in the form email.

    Redirect. Controls the page that your visitors will see after they submit the form.

    Email. Controls the return address for the form email.

  14. Once you are finished adding your Web form mailer click OK.

For more information on customizing HTML Forms, go to W3 Schools HTML Forms and Input.

For information on reinstalling your default scripts, see How Do I Reinstall the Default Scripts Directory?