Using Online Forms

What is a form and how do I get a copy?
Included with every new account at Coastline is a sample online form called form.htm and a 'thank you' page called thankyou.htm

The form.htm file is simply a standard HTML form that you can customize to fit your needs. You can also choose to create your own form instead. When someone fills out your form and submits the information, that information is sent to you by email to the address postmaster@(your domain name). Your form must post to the form emailer script located at: http://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp. 

This URL contains a script that takes the contents of your form and emails it to you.

You can edit the hidden fields in the form.htm file and replace the instances of "postmaster@yourdomain.com" to send it to different addresses at your domain. You can also change the domain name included in the file but the domain name you choose must reside on a coastline server. Your form cannot directly send email to an address of a domain hosted elsewhere.  You can also specify the location of your 'thank you page'.  For detailed documentation on the form.htm file and how to customize settings review our detailed documentation.

Below is the code for the form.htm file currently online at:  http://www.coastline.com/form.htm

Review this code below and note the hidden fields located within the form tags.  These hidden field values are highlighted in red, and the parts of the script that you can modify (the email address and thank you page) are highlighted in purple. 

Can I send the form to any e-mail address?

The email address that you specify must be a local email address to your domain account. By default, the postmaster@yourdomain.com email address is setup at signup. If you have other email address you may specify an alternate. Note too that your postmaster@ or any other email address may be set to forward. If this is the case then the ultimate destination of any submitted data would be whatever forwarding address has been set for the corresponding local email address to your domain. Example: postmaster@yourdomain.com is set to forward to joe1234@aol.com. When you set your script to submit it's data to postmaster@yourdomain.com the postmaster address will forward to joe1234@aol.com.

What is the Source Code for form.htm

method="POST" action="http://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp"

The default values are listed below: 

Begin form below: -->

<form method="POST" action="http://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp">
<input type="hidden" name="to_email_address" value="postmaster@coastline.com">
<input type="hidden" name="thankyou_page" value="http://www.coastline.com/thankyou.htm">

<!-- End above default values for universal mailer -->

</font>

<table border="0" width="84%">
<tr>
<td width="35%"><font face="trebuchet ms, arial, helvetica">Name:</font></td>
<td width="66%"><font face="trebuchet ms, arial, helvetica"><input type="text" name="name" size="31"></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="35%"><font face="trebuchet ms, arial, helvetica">E-mail address:</font></td>
<td width="66%"><font face="trebuchet ms, arial, helvetica"><input type="text" name="from_email_address" size="31"></font></td>
</tr>
</table>

<font face="trebuchet ms, arial, helvetica">
<p><textarea rows="4" name="message" cols="48"></textarea></p>

<p><input type="submit" value="Send us your message!"></p>
</form>

<!-- End form Code for Universal Mailer -->

</font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

</center>
</div>

</body>
</html>

What are the elements that make the form.htm work?
1) the Posting method of your form - in the default example this value is:

<form method="POST" 
action="http://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp">


2) the Email Address that you want your form to send email to - the default listed in the form.htm file is:

<input type="hidden" name="email_address" 
value="postmaster@yourdomain.com">


3) the Thank You Page for your form - the page that displays after the data has been successfully submitted - the default listed in form.htm file is:

<input type="hidden" name="thankyou_page" 
value="http://www.yourdomain.com/thankyou.htm">


4) If you want this form.htm file to be posting it's data through SSL / Secure Server, modify the form.htm file to POST to the following URL:

<form method="POST" 
action="https://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp">

Note that you can only use SSL if you are in SSL mode through your Plan B account and SSL has been enabled for your Plan B account. If your domain is not Plan B or SSL has not been enabled, be sure to request SSL activated by contacting us..

So, if you had a secure form through your Plan B account the URL may look like this for example:

https://www.hostline.com/youruserid/secure/form.htm

In the code of form.htm, you would set it to post it's information as listed above to:

<form method="POST" action="https://www.hostline.com/scripts/mail_form.asp">


5) Refer to above information in item 3 to specify the thankyou page. For SSL, the URL would be for example: 

<input type="hidden" name="thankyou_page" 
value="https://www.hostline.com/youruserid/thankyou.htm">

If you did not want this page to be displayed in SSL mode, you would use the original example above in item 3 to refer to the same thankyou.htm page.

<input type="hidden" name="thankyou_page" 
value="http://www.yourdomain.com/thankyou.htm">

Can my forms from FrontPage work?
Yes.  Just make sure that you publish the forms using FrontPage's publish function.  This initializes the 'web bots' that FrontPage uses to make the forms work.

My secure form isn't working.  What's wrong?
If you are using forms in SSL mode, please contact Coastline directly, as there are special arrangements that need to be made for the forms to work properly.  There is no fee for this and it generally takes 24 hours to complete.