Expression® Web Design
Simple Contact Methods
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
There are other ways of course for users to send you an e-mail from your website if you were relying on FrontPage Server Extensions and now your hosting company is no longer supporting them. However these will are not as reliable, but just as using FrontPage Server Extensions to process the form, these will also make your e-mail address susceptible to bots that crawl the Internet for e-mail addresses (to sell to spammers). Using something like Jmail or ASPEMail to help you process the form will protect your e-mail address and should not pose a problem to users.
Mailto Form Action
This
is probably one of the worst ones to use. This will usually generate error
messages like this one. The message is benign, but your users might not
completely read the message or understand it. If they hit cancel, you will
not be contact.
This form is being submitted using e-mail.
Submitting this form will reveal your e-mail address to the recipient, and will send the form data without encrypting it for privacy.
You may continue or cancel this submission.
And depending
on the way the user has his computer set-up, he might get another warning
message similar to this one: "A website wants to open web content using
this program on your computer".
This message is not threatening, but to have two warning messages come up on the same web site when the user hits submit on the form might generate some concern. If the user chooses Don't Allow, the message will not be sent.
Also, if the user does allow the e-mail client to send the information, the user might have to re-enter the information. The input fields might not transfer over to the e-mail and the user now needs to re-type the information.
If you need to use this method, it is something like
<form method="post" action="mailto:name@example.com"> <input type="text" name="Message"> <input type="submit" value="Submit Your Comments"> </form>
You can also get the source code:
Text (157 bytes) |
Zipped (268 bytes)
E-Mail Hyperlink
Expression Web will allow you to easily create a
hyperlink for e-mail purposes. Once you are in the Edit Hyperlink
dialog box, on the lower left, you will see E-Mail Address. You can click
on this and the dialog box will change. You can enter your e-mail address
(and a subject if desired).
The code would be something like:
<a href="mailto:name@example.com?subject=From Your Website"> E-Mail Me</a>
Or if you did not choose a subject:
<a href="mailto:name@example.com">E-Mail Me</a>
The Issues with These "Simple Methods"
While these are simple to place on your website, there are problems. I have already pointed out some issues with the mailto: form action. Another problem with these methods though require the user to have a default e-mail client set up. Usually this is done on a personal computer, but if the user is at the library or Internet café, this probably will not be set up.
Keep in mind that sometimes easier is not so easy for others.
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