i made a simple form, looking for advice on a newbie project to do.

[silverglade]

hi, i gave up looking for books to learn PHP, so now im taking your advice and learning on the net. basically here is my first newbie form

 

http://derekvanderven.com/index2.html

 

i was wondering if anyone knows a good project for me to do next. any help is  greatly appreciated. thank you. derek

[webref.eu]

How about inserting data into a database? 

 

Rgds

[silverglade]

ok, thanks very much. i will do that next. thank you. derek

[PHPTOM]

Maybe email it to you?

 

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[silverglade]

i dont know how to get the form info emailed to me though.

[.josh]

mail()

[silverglade]

thank you. does that mail() tutorial let me plug in the information the user put in my form and send it to me? it looked like it only sent a pre defined message and mail to me. i dont know how to connect it to the submit button on my form. derek

[trq]

Sounds like you really need to learn some basics, theres a good free book (Hudzilla) in my signiture.

[.josh]

thank you. does that mail() tutorial let me plug in the information the user put in my form and send it to me? it looked like it only sent a pre defined message and mail to me. i dont know how to connect it to the submit button on my form. derek

 

You would use the posted vars from your form instead of the "pre-defined" vars in the manual example(s).  But yeah...I got to QFT Thorpe:

Sounds like you really need to learn some basics, theres a good free book (Hudzilla) in my signiture.

[unkwntech]

Don't forget this http://w3schools.com/php/

[blurredvision]

Don't forget this http://w3schools.com/php/

 

That single link has helped me tremendously.  I taught myself using a combination of Larry Ullman's PHP6 and MySQL 5 Visual QuickPro book and sites like w3schools and tizag.

[unkwntech]

I learned with that site and this book: http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-PHP-Minutes/dp/0672327627/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217784844&sr=8-3

I still keep to book around as a reference when I'm not online, however someone has my copy now.

[silverglade]

i dont think those links cover emailing forms, i tried to find it in the books and tutorials, but i cant find it, any more help is greatly appreciated, im sorry . derek

[unkwntech]

Those links are intended to teach you the basics of PHP so that you know how to turn the 'predefined text' in the variables from the from.  If you go through the PHP tutorial at w3schools (already linked above) you will see how to make that predefined be the variables that you want to send.

[silverglade]

ok thanks very much i will try it.

i think its hard because the php tutorials and books dont teach you how to do everything, but teach you pieces of a puzzle, that you have to put together yourself. thats frustrating, but i guess i better get used to it. i have trouble if its not done for me already. but i guess i can try to do it.

thanks everyone for your help, i will try to make the form emailable. thanks. derek

 

[trq]

i think its hard because the php tutorials and books dont teach you how to do everything, but teach you pieces of a puzzle, that you have to put together yourself.

 

Generally this is why books are better in my opinion. Books are usually designed to be read from start to finnish and the introduce things in order. That way, by the time you finish the entire book, all the pieces fit.

[silverglade]

i forgot, will it teach me how to link up the email function with my form button?

[silverglade]

can you recommend any other books that you have used to learn both PHP, and PHP and mysql? please.

[trq]

The book in my signiture (Hudzilla) I pointed out is a good start.

[unkwntech]

This also holds true of the w3schools PHP tutorial, if you read it start to finish then it gives you a good place to start.

Then you have to start using PHP to learn the basics.

 

i forgot, will it teach me how to link up the email function with my form button?

You have to set the action in the form to go to a php page that sends the email.

I wrote this quick.

<?php
$to = $_POST['email'];
$subject = "Subject";
$message = "My message";
if(!mail($to, $subject, $message))
{
   //sending the email failed
  //dont forget to redirect
}
//sending worked
//redirect
?>

[unkwntech]

I would use:

http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-PHP-Minutes/dp/0672327627/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217787981&sr=8-10

and

http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-MySQL-Minutes/dp/0672328631/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217788026&sr=8-1

 

 

or just

http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-MySQL-Apache/dp/067232976X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217787981&sr=8-1

[unkwntech]

I took a quick glance at this http://www.ibdhost.com/contact/ and it seems fairly good.

[silverglade]

ok thanks very much everyone for your help, i better go back to the drawing board and see if i can do it. thank you for the tutorials, books, and the code,

derek