Flash 5 E-mail Setup. How can I?

[Phil Jayhan]

I am a novice and need some kind soul to help with step by step instructions on how to set up e-mail on a site I am building. I need to know first how to set up a form box inside of flash, this being for e-mail to the site. i.e. Reply to;www.mysite.com. How can I do this as it seems Macromedia doesn't give much support for this. Please make it simple and step by step, you know something for dummies! thanks in advance!

Philman

[ilyaslamasse]

I think I have it somewhere. I cannot check before tomorrow.
pom

[suprabeener]

i'm afraid this is a little beyond flash's abilities. you'll need to call another script (php,perl,...) to do the dirty work.

getURL("/cgi-bin/mail.cgi","_BLANK","POST");

where /cgi-bin/mail.cgi is the mail program. if you don't feel up to writing that script, check and see if your host has this service already, many do. otherwise you shouldn't have much trouble finding one of the net. they can be a little tricky to configure, though.

good luck!

[Phil Jayhan]

Someones gotta know, come on throw this dog a bone to naw on. How does everyone else do it on their Flash sites. And remember, make it simple & give step by step directions as I am Flashtasically challenged! (a Dummy) Thanks in advance.

Philman

[ilyaslamasse]

Ok, I found that tutorial in my book. They say, I quote (rather translate) :
"We want to make a form in which the visitor can ask a question to the webmaster. But in real life, the e-mail program must be open, and moreover a CGI script must me added to the page for the transmission. But this tutorial will not deal with that matter (!!!! Sorry)"

1.Write a text like "Your question :" on top of your page, and Two buttons at the bottom of it : "Send" and "Annul"
2.Then select the text tool and put a text field under "your question". Go to the text panel, in the "text options" section, and select "Input text", multiline, and variable : "question". Also check HTML, to "activate special functions (???)".
3.Put a last text box at the very very bottom of your page, call it "return" (still input text), to visualize the results of the tests of the scripts we're going to make.

[ilyaslamasse]

Click on the "Send" button, and open the Actions panel. Write :

on(press) {
//Test the question field to know if the people wrote more than 10 letters (rather unuseful)
if (question.length >=10) { //they write here that if you checked the HTML option, 10 is not enough.
getUrl("<a href="http://www.mywebsite.com/cgi/script/...",">www.mywebsite.com/cgi/script/...",</a> "post") ;
return = "Thanks, your question has been sent." ;
}else {
return = "That's a very short question. Can you be more precise ?" ; //That's really bull****
}
}

You can test your code with Ctrl + t

The Annul button :
on (press) {
question="";
return="";
//gotoAndPlay ("nextscene",1) ;
}
That's it ! All you have to get is the cgi script. Your provider (don't know the words fournisseur d'accès in English. I hope the French connection will be here soon) should give it to you. So you'll have to modify the getUrl(...) line.

I hope you're going to make it work.

pom

[phillipjayhan]

You have become a favorite of mine already on this board. Your really quite a chap or perhaps even a chapstress, Im not sure which. I am going to study what you have given me, try to make sense of it (ar ar) and try it on my site. I can't thank you enough for all of your time and trouble. I will be sure to pass it on though, freely, as you have done with me. If I have any questions (ya think) I will simply post and know you are there trolling the boards for poor lost prodigal flashboys like me. May the God of Null provide to you one wish according to his own script. :)

Flashtelectually yours,
Philman

[kth]

I set up a php mailer in my flash movie so I might be able to help a little.

First though, do you have a basic understanding of how server-side programming language works, like perl? If you do, you can find a tute and you will be up and running in no time. Its not too different than if you were setting up an html mailer.

If not, then find a tute on one of kirupa's links like flashkit and follow it step by step! Many times if you have to. try to understand the principles of how different scripts interact. Then good luck! if you have questions along the way, ask.

PS. Are you working on a server that supports server-side scripts? If you have a freebee server like geocities and such, then don't bother learning it until you have a server that supports it!

I hope this helped...

[gingerhippy69]

you can download this:

http://www.zerodesigns.co.uk/downloads/zeromail.zip

if need to ask questions on how it works post back or look for me on MSN :

gingerhippy69@hotmail.com

Cheerio,
Ben...

[ilyaslamasse]

Pretty cool, Ginger.
But tell me, the .asp file you included, is it possible to use it just like that, changing the destination, or (I guess) do I have to mess with the code (especialy if I work on PHP) ???

pom

PS : Wow, Phil, you got me blushing.

[ilyaslamasse]

There's a wonderful tutorial (in French !!! I'm going to be working on the translation if you need it :) ) here :
www.asp-php.net/asphp2/fr..._flash.asp (http://www.asp-php.net/asphp2/fr/tutorial/asp-php/complements/form_en_flash.asp)
Try and click the "Envoyez-vous la source (*.fla) en testant la démo !" button. Looks good !

pom

[Phil Jayhan]

I am sure I will be asking tons of questions when I start trying to set up the mail, but thank you all for your helps. Greatly appreciatted!

Flashfull,

[Phil Jayhan]

Actually, I could use a translation to English. Sorry I don't know French...But thanks for the Statue of Liberty! Oh, and all your help defeating the British as well... :)

Flashtory,

[ilyaslamasse]

You're welcome for the statue of Liberty. After all, you saved our ***** quite a few time too.
Concerning the mailing sript, I'm badly working on it. That's a real pain in the butt. If somebody could just tell me if the command :
loadVariablesNum ("pubmail.php", 0, "POST");
pubmail.php being my mail script is valid in Flash (cos is doesn't seem to work so well) ??? Trinity, help !!!

pom/Neo

[Phil Jayhan]

I will patiently await it. Thank you for your time and sharing.
And we appreciatte the Statue too. Did you notice we polished her back up to 1870's specs and repaired the Old girl too. She looked like 3CP0 from Star Wars when we were finished. She was also, did you know, a private fascination of General George Patton on how one man could touch so many, (meaning of course the French Artist that constructed her) and an inspiration? I thought you might enjoy that little tidbit of data.

philman

[Phil Jayhan]

How is it coming along with that translation? You shouldn't have too many problems as your English is better than you think.

philman

[ilyaslamasse]

Well, that's not the problem really. I have it all : the flash, the php script, but I just can't get it to work. Basically, what I've done is :
Create a flash swf with a textbox and a button that load the variables in a mailing script.
The problem is that the laod never happens. It just loops over and over. I have to figure out why.
As soon as I figure it out, I'll get back to you.

pom

thanks for my english. Wait till you read my turkish.

[Phil Jayhan]

Ilyas-
I'll bet you the Master knows...You know Kirupa. Think Kirupa's listening? Thanks for your effort in the meantime.
What do you think of the layout of my site thus far; Is it pleasing to the eye? Let me know if you can. This way you can see the site you are all helping me with. Thanks again frenchy... :)

user.mc.net/~dschultz/ (http://user.mc.net/~dschultz/)

phil

[ilyaslamasse]

I've got it to work since. I'll post the PHP code as well as the Flash code when I get the time...
pom 0]