Webbot error when submitting form

[jennduffer]

Hello. I'm very new at creating forms, but I have discovered that FrontPage makes that portion very easy.

However, when I click on the "submit" button I get a file not found error, and the locator bar has /WEBBOT in it. I'm not sure why FrontPage added that in there, as my goal is pretty simple with the form --- Email the results of the form to myself.

Here is the code from the top part of the form... Any help anyone can offer would be greatly greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

============================================
<form METHOD=&quot;POST&quot; ACTION=&quot;--WEBBOT-SELF--&quot; name=&quot;Customer Information&quot;>
<!--webbot bot=&quot;SaveResults&quot;
U-File=&quot;E:\A-Jenn-Downloads\Rona\Customer_Update_Info.txt&quot; S-Format=&quot;HTML/BR&quot;
S-Label-Fields=&quot;TRUE&quot; B-Reverse-Chronology=&quot;FALSE&quot; S-Email-Format=&quot;TEXT/PRE&quot;
S-Email-Address=&quot;jenn_duffer@yahoo.com&quot; B-Email-Label-Fields=&quot;TRUE&quot;
B-Email-Subject-From-Field=&quot;FALSE&quot;
S-Email-Subject=&quot;Updated Customer Infromation&quot; S-Date-Format=&quot;%A, %B %d, %Y&quot;
S-Time-Format=&quot;%I:%M %p&quot; S-Builtin-Fields=&quot;Date Time&quot;
U-Confirmation-Url=&quot;update_confirmation.html&quot; -->

 

[AMysticWeb]

You have your results going to the following file.

E:\A-Jenn-Downloads\Rona\Customer_Update_Info.txt

If you just want to get the results in email you could simply use _private/form_results.txt and your email as you have it.
Hope I have been of some help,
Micheal

Please take a moment to stop by

http://AMysticWeb.com

or check out the FrontPage Form tutorials at

http://FrontPageForms.com

 

[jennduffer]

Michael,

You helped quite a bit. I understand a little better now. And now I have the code changed, but here is the doosey - I'm still getting the same error, as I'm not sure where to put the &quot;_private&quot;.

Long story short - My &quot;web&quot; directory contains the &quot;_private&quot; and &quot;Rona&quot; (where this particular form.html lives). In other words, they are both on the same level.

How do I get the U-File line to drop the file where it should properly go?

Currently, it reads:
U-File=&quot;..\_private\Customer_Update_Info.txt&quot;

Can I use &quot;

http://www.duffergroup.com\_private\Customer_Update_Info.txt&quot;

and have it work?

I apologize for possibly making this more difficult than it should be - but I am completely new to forms. And I greatly appreciate your help

Thanks!
Jenn

 

[AMysticWeb]

Hi Jenn,

When I started building forms, I didn't even realize the need for form tags. I thought you could just put the form fields in, add a submit button and magically it would email results. No need to apologize.

Depending on what version of FP you are using, FP inserts a default form results file. In FP 2K for example, it is _private/form_results.txt

So, if the FP extensions are configured properly, you could FTP into your site, open the _Private folder and see the form submission results. If your primary interest is in receiving the results in email, the file name isn't necessary at all.

You could create a text file like Customer_Update_Info.txt and save this to your _Private folder in your local website, and then publish...hence

_Private/Customer_Update_Info.txt

Definitely best to keep form submissions in a private folder. You can use the full URL, but that shouldn't be necessary.

One way to save time is to test your site, email and file with a test form. Create a simple form, one or two fields, publish and test. This will not only be a way to check to see if the FP extensions are working properly and to verify that your email account can receive form mail. If everything is operating smoothly, you should get the email within a minute or two. I myself used to have trouble getting form mail delivered to an older version of AOL mail.

Also, you may want additional forms in the future. Set up your subject fields to correspond to the various forms e.g. Feedback, Customer Update, Contact etc.

Additionally, by setting up the Reply to line by checking the Form field name and using the proper case for your email field, when you hit reply, the respondents email will appear in your write mail.

I like to backup form results to a separate email as I tend to crash my PC periodically just to show I can do it. I have a tutorial that explains FrontPage multiple emails fairly clearly at...

http://FrontPageForms.com/Multiple_Email_Tutorial.htm

Nothing fancy, but it will give you the How2.
Hope I have been of some help,
Micheal

Please take a moment to stop by

http://AMysticWeb.com

or check out the FrontPage Form tutorials at

http://FrontPageForms.com

 

[jennduffer]

Michael,

With your help I have achieved a light bulb moment.

My goal is simply to receive the results in an email. So I went through this morning and did a test form with just contact information and I left out any confirmation page (for the moment). Just testing for now.

I uploaded it to my server, and I still received a 404 error. I think I have discovered my problem, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Maybe you will have a suggestion.

When I hit submit, the browser is hunting for this URL:

http://www.duffergroup.com/Rona/--WEBBOT-SELF--

Of course, there is no --WebBot-Self-- in Rona's directory. And I found where the HTML is getting this from: <form METHOD=&quot;POST&quot; ACTION=&quot;--WEBBOT-SELF--&quot;>

From my HTML 4.0 reference book I understand that ACTION should include the URL for the server action. But I don't understand is what that should be. The location of the form (i.e.

http://www.duffergroup.com/Rona)?

Or the email address domain where I want the results sent to?

I think if I can fix the ACTION piece, then the form will work properly. Do you have any suggestions?

Also a note - I tried to do the formating for the form entirely through FP 2000's GUI, but some of the HTML was a little wonky. As you can maybe tell, I usually do most of the code myself rather than an authoring tool.

Michael, I thank you very much for you help. Your form wizard tutorial helped fill in some blanks for me. Literally.

 

[AMysticWeb]

Hi Jenn,

Right. This is what I was attempting to point out in my first reply. This is where _private/form_results.txt would appear. Change this by right clicking inside the form border. This brings up the Form properties window.

Select Send to: at the top, verify your email and change the file name to _private/form_results.txt or your alternate file if you added a new file to your web. Remember if you create a new file, it must be published along with the rest of your site in order to receive results. Much simpler to use the default.

Then add your confirmation page e.g. Thanks.htm, Confirm.htm or whatever. Once again, the page name and extension are enough.

This is how the form HTML looks when you start your form. This example is from FP 2K
------------
<form method=&quot;POST&quot; action=&quot;--WEBBOT-SELF--&quot;>
<!--webbot bot=&quot;SaveResults&quot;
U-File=&quot;_private/form_results.txt&quot;
S-Format=&quot;TEXT/CSV&quot; S-Label-Fields=&quot;TRUE&quot; -->
<p><input type=&quot;submit&quot; value=&quot;Submit&quot; name=&quot;B1&quot;><input type=&quot;reset&quot; value=&quot;Reset&quot; name=&quot;B2&quot;></p>
</form>
------------
Anything you need to change would be located in Form properties. When you make changes in the Form properties and save, the HTML changes along with it. &quot;--WEBBOT-SELF--&quot;> is basically directing the the extensions to do their job based on your instructions contained within Form properties.
Hope I have been of some help,
Micheal

Please take a moment to stop by

http://AMysticWeb.com

or check out the FrontPage Form tutorials at

http://FrontPageForms.com

 

[KeithSS]

Hi! Just browsing through, and your question caught my eye. The exact same thing happened to me a long time ago. The problem? I didn't have Front Page extensions installed on my server.

Just though you should check this out before editing too much code!

--Nate

 

[dds47]

(I think I have either bit-bucketed my last post, or it was a non-to-subtle hint to keep it short.) So -- I'd like to understand better the role of several of the elements of the webbot tags generated by FrontPage (2k in my case). I'm posting multiple, individualized copies of the same basic FP-created SaveResults form, where all except the basic (&quot;template&quot form are generated outside FP. Basically, I am using the same html except for a few data substitutions here and there. This has worked fine for the most part, but I often find that form changes result in FP server-side errors upon Submit.

The elements that I'd like better to understand are:

- the internal (to the webbot tag) reference to the html file; does it have to be to the actual file in which the form resides, or can it refer to a protype/template, i.e., one without the specific substitutions made.

- What exactly does the _vti reference do?

- What determines the list of input items that are passed back in the email message? It seems, obviously, to be the list entered in the SaveResults wizard in FP, but where is that info stored?

- What is the purpose of the StartSpan and EndSpan elements -- or more precisely, what is the significance of form elements (seemingly hidden fields) within the spanned range vs. elements outside the spanned range.

I'm hoping there's a quick faq or other writeup on this stuff so no one has to try to respond to the individual questions.

Thanks for you indulgence. (and so much for keeping it short).

dds