DarkChip Docs

Adding Email and Basic Validation to Form

Next we will add all the WebBatch code to make this form excel!

code=WebCmdData()
If code!='' Then Goto processform

webout('Content-type: text/html',2)
webout('<html>',1)
webout('<head>',1)
webout('<title>SimpleForm</title>',1)
webout('</head>',1)
webout('<body>',1)
Webout('<form action="/webcgi/webbatch.exe?SimpleForm.web+response"
method="POST">',1)
Webout('Name: <br>',1)
Webout('<input type="text" name="yourname"><br>',1)
Webout('<br>',1)
Webout('Email: <br>',1)
Webout('<input type="text" name="emailaddress"><br>',1)
Webout('<br>',1)
Webout('Comments: <br>',1)
Webout('<textarea name="comments" rows="20" cols="60"></textarea><br><br>',1)
Webout('<input type="submit" value="Submit">',1)
Webout('</form>',1)
webout('</body>',1)
webout('</html>',1)
Exit

:ProcessForm
WebOut('Content-type: text/html',2) ; Output Content Type
WebOut('<html><head><title>Form Successfully Submitted</title></head><body><pre>',1);
Usual HTML

UserName=WebParamData('yourname')
Email=WebParamData('emailaddress')
Comments=WebParamData('comments')

If UserName=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Username is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
WebBatch Command Title
exit
endif

If Email=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Email is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
WebBatch Command Title
exit
endif

If Comments=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Comments is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
WebBatch Command Title
exit
endif

AddExtender("WWPST44I.DLL")
host="mailserver.darkchip.com"
fromaddr=Email
userid="" ; no username needed for simple SMTP
password="" ; ditto above
port=""
tolist="john_smith@darkchip.com"
cclist=""
bcclist=""
subject="Comments from %Username% on Webform"
msg=Comments
attachments=""
flags=""

kInit(host,fromaddr,userid,password,port)
kDest(tolist,cclist,bcclist)
kSendText(subject,msg,attachments,flags)

WebOut('<H1>Thanks %UserName%</H1>', 1) ; WebBatch Command Title
WebOut('<H1>Email to %Email% has been sent!</H1>', 1) ; WebBatch Command Title
WebOut('</pre></body></html>',1) ; Usual HTML

Exit

Let's go through line by line section by section what this code means and how it works

code=WebCmdData()
If code!='' Then Goto processform
This first line of code assigns the value of any parameters that were passed to the
.web file. In the form code below on the action line, you will notice that when the
submit button is pressed, the SimpleForm file calls itself again, but passes a variable
called response to the .web file. What this allows us to do, is to use the same form to
display to the user, accept the data and then to actually do the work, all in a single
script. In this case, when the script is first run, Code will = "" and thus the simple
emtpy fields will be displayed ready for people to fill out. When the form is complete
and the submit button is pressed, the parameter "response" will get passed to the
web script and the value of Code will equal "response" and hence program flow will
immediately go to processing the form

webout('Content-type: text/html',2)
webout('<html>',1)
webout('<head>',1)
webout('<title>SimpleForm</title>',1)
webout('</head>',1)
webout('<body>',1)
Webout('<form action="/webcgi/webbatch.exe?SimpleForm.web+response"
method="POST">',1)
Webout('Name: <br>',1)
Webout('<input type="text" name="yourname"><br>',1)
Webout('<br>',1)
Webout('Email: <br>',1)
Webout('<input type="text" name="emailaddress"><br>',1)
Webout('<br>',1)
Webout('Comments: <br>',1)
Webout('<textarea name="comments" rows="20" cols="60"></textarea><br><br>',1)
Webout('<input type="submit" value="Submit">',1)
Webout('</form>',1)
webout('</body>',1)
webout('</html>',1)
Exit
Simply outputs the empty HTML content to the client and then exits the web script.
When the submit button is pressed, the same web script is called again, but this time
with a an appended parameter

:ProcessForm
WebOut('Content-type: text/html',2) ; Output Content Type
WebOut('<html><head><title>Form Successfully Submitted</title></head><body><pre>',1)

UserName=WebParamData('yourname')
Email=WebParamData('emailaddress')
Comments=WebParamData('comments')
Because program flow has been transfered to this process section of the script, we
next need to look at the variables of the user supplied data in the form. In the form, we
named the fields : yourname, emailaddress and comments. All 3 of those fields have
their data extracted by using the WebParamData function and who values are
assigned to webbatch variables which we can use later on in our script

If UserName=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Username is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
exit
endif

If Email=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Email is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
exit
endif

If Comments=="" then
WebOut('<H1>Comments is blank, please go back and complete and resubmit</H1>', 1) ;
exit
endif

Using standard validation checks, now that we have the contents of the fields from
the form assigned to webbatch variables, we can now do very interesting things with
them. One of the more common things we can and should do, is basic data input
validation. In this case, we are looking inside each of the variables to see if they are
blank (ie. the user did not supplied all the required input on the form). In the case of
one of the fields being blank, we display an error message to the user, explaining
which field is blank and ask to go back and fill in the missing data. When then exit the
script and the webbatch program flow terminates

AddExtender("WWPST44I.DLL")
This is one of my favorite parts :) Part of the power of WebBatch is that it is modular.
The creators have people to extend what they can do with WebBatch, by offering
"extenders". I encourage you to visit their site often as they have many extenders to
allow people to do almost anything. The above line is the syntax for how to call the
extender which allows WebBatch to use email functions. Once invoked, a whole suite
of Email WebBatch functions are available to use immediately

host="mailserver.darkchip.com"
fromaddr=Email
userid="" ; no username needed for simple SMTP
password="" ; ditto above
port=""
tolist="john_smith@darkchip.com"
cclist=""
bcclist=""
subject="Comments from %Username% on Webform"
msg=Comments
attachments=""
flags=""
The above variables will be used by the Email WebBatch functions, and so, I am
prepopulating them with data to be later used by the functions. Please note 3 very
interesting variable assignments.
1) fromaddr=Email -> What this does is assign the fromaddr variable the value
supplied by the user for the email field.

2)subject="Comments from %Username% on Webform" -> This assigns the subject
variable a value and within the value, we use the data supplied by our user to include
their UserName data they inputted into the form earlier. Note that because the
Username variable is within a string with "", we need to enclose the variable name
with a pair of %. What this does is to extract the value of he variable Username first,
and then include that value inside of the string

3)msg=Comments -> this assigns the msg variable the input our user supplied on the
form, in the comments section

kInit(host,fromaddr,userid,password,port)
kDest(tolist,cclist,bcclist)
kSendText(subject,msg,attachments,flags)
I encourage you to review the WebBatch syntax located in the help fies, but basically
what these 3 lines are responsible for, are the actual sending of the email. The first 2
functions (kinit, and kdest) are responsisble for setting the email up with respect to
what mail server you will be using to send this email, what tcp port you will be using,
who id the email going to be delivered to,etc. The last function, ksendtext, is the actual
function that takes this information and sends the email out

WebOut('<H1>Thanks %UserName%</H1>', 1) ; WebBatch Command Title
WebOut('<H1>Email to %Email% has been sent!</H1>', 1) ; WebBatch Command Title
A simple confirmation note is displayed to the user once the email function has
completed, using their Username and email address in the message. Note again the
use of the % symbol to allow the usage of the variable contents within strings

WebOut('</pre></body></html>',1) ; Usual HTML

Exit

That is basically it for this example. I chose a simple example with a simpe form structure,
however you can make it as fancy as you wish. I hope that now that I have described the how
and the what around enabling email and forms to work together, you have a better
understanding on how to make use of this power yourself.