Autoresponders Question...

[auteur]

I figured this was a good a place as any...

I was wondering if our current autoresponders can be set up to be personalized or will I need to find a script for that??

Thank you in advanced... http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

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Elizabeth M. Miller
Getting You the Attention You Deserve!
www.123marketing.com (http://www.123marketing.com)

[Deb]

hmmm, I'm not exactly sure I understand what you are wanting? Can you expand a bit?

Deb

[auteur]

Well I saw this site: http://www.aweber.com That wants to charge for autoresponders that will let you put the person's name in the response. And I think that would be great for my site.

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Elizabeth M. Miller
Getting You the Attention You Deserve!
www.123marketing.com (http://www.123marketing.com)

[This message has been edited by auteur (edited 03-12-99).]

[Deb]

For that I would actually recommend using a simple PHP mail form...

For example... if you were to fill out order form for a new account on FQuest it responds to the person saying "Hi so&so, You have ordered whatever with the type of package and your info is as follows" etc etc etc...

With PHP we can 'play with' any of the info we are given and put it into any type of text we'd like whether it be on the web or via email.

So for you.... if your visitor is giving their name and email address you would have the autoresponder say HI NAME! Here is the info you requested to be sent to EMAILADDRESS

.... insert text here...

Pleave visit again soon NAME.

and sign it http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Deb

[Deb]

Maybe I'll put together a couple of 'standard' php mail forms tonight for download on aota.net... this might help explain to some via example how it works.

For this one I think many would be surprised how easy it is http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Deb

[Justin]

I hate to say this, because this seems to be my response to everything, but php3 is worth consideration here... what you want to do can be done in a matter of one small php page and an html form - both can be put in the same page, too http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Anyway I don't know if the autoresponder can do that or not - that's something I need to play around with yet. But don't pay for a script when you can probably find several for free http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

www.cgi-resources.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Form_Processing/ (http://www.cgi-resources.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Form_Processing/)

I scanned through the huge list of free form / mail scripts, and one of them may do what you need it to do.

Hope this helps...

<edit>
Happens every time! http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif
</edit>

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Tech Support


[This message has been edited by Justin (edited 03-12-99).]

[Jacob Stetser]

Hi guys..

I'm working on an autoresponder replacement because I want to make an autoresponder that can send followup emails after a certain length of time (oh, it gets better, I've got an idea for one that sends reminders, too). There's some information about how to redirect an email address to a program here:

http://www.aota.net/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000055.html

Don't expect it anytime soon, but it'll be available for FQ users once it's production quality.

I agree with Justin and Deb et al... it's easier to get a name from a form than it is from an email, sometimes the name doesn't even come with the email address.

But once I come up out of my programming box and understand this better, I'll see if I can help you!

Jake

[Deb]

I'm feeling lazy -- been a long day -- going to just post a single example here tonight http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif

This is just a very simplistic example. There is so much more you can do and so many ways you could do it, but this will get you started http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif With this example you would create two files (as Justin noted you can even do it all in one... but... well this is to keep the 'explanations' down for now)

First file is your html page where you ask for the info... something like this...

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Info Request</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>

<h3>Send us your name and email address and we'll send you more info!</h3>

<FORM ACTION="info.php" METHOD="POST">

Your name: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="name" SIZE="20" VALUE="name">

Your email address: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="email" SIZE="20" VALUE="email">

<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Send Info!">

</FORM>

</BODY></HTML>


It's done the same way as any other form you would create... nothing new there. The only thing worth noting is in the action part we are not calling a cgi script we're simply calling a php page... in this case it is info.php which is what we are going to create now.

<?
/* this is the php file that processes the info given on the info.html file */

/* First let's create a page for them to see. */

PRINT "<CENTER><h3>Hello, $name.</h3>The info you have requested is being sent right now! If you check your $email account it may be there already.

Enjoy the Day!"</CENTER>";

/* Now we'll send you an email letting you know someone made the request. */

mail ("you@you.com", "More info has been sent!", "Hi You,
$name has requested info from your web site. this info was sent to $email.

By the way I found out their IP address was $REMOTE_ADDR and they were using $HTTP_USER_AGENT when they made the request.", "FROM:$email");

/* And of course we need to send the letter to the visitor! */

mail ("$email", "The info you requested from mydomain.com", "Hi $email!,

As promised, here is the info you requested.

blah blah blah can earn you money and make you a better person. If you use blah blah people will remember $name for $name's fantasitc looks and the way $name could click a key. You will see $name up in lights all over the world! And why? you ask, because you emailed us for this info!

I can't thank you enough $name for taking the time to email us!", "FROM:you@you.com");

?>

Notice for the NAME fields in the html field we just use $NAME (whatever the name is) to have it included in the email. you@you.com is your email address.. and $email is the email address they fill in.

What happens is this:

1. Users fills out the form and hits the "Send Info!" button.

2. User sees a page that says "Thanks" and it includes their name http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

3. An email is sent to you letting you know they did it from the email addy they gave (this means you could just hit reply to send them a personal message) I also tossed in the refer to show the IP and browser version.

4. The user is sent an email from you@you.com that contains all the info you want them to have and includes their name http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Voila http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

For a lil better tutorial on the mail function but not a 'techy one' check out http://devshed.com/resource/advanced/php3/intro/php1-3.html Once you get into PHP3 you can't get out http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif It's loads of fun and there is a LOT you can do with it!!!

Deb

[auteur]

[[[[[Running with hands over ears screaming...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]]]]]

Okay, I feel better now. I haven't yet learned or even opened an eye towards PHP, so I don't know one digit about it...so what is an easy php...

Now, since I've been away from the forums for the weekend...I'll respond as I see them. http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Justin...Thanks, I'll check out the script.

Deb, If you make some scripts downloadable, will I be able to easy 'em up??? It's Monday and I'm covering all bases. http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Deb, cool...I'll try this the second one is a notepad style page that I upload to my main directory [similar to cgi]..or is it more like an autoresponder page that I set up like quailmail???

Thanks everyone for your help... http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif



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Elizabeth M. Miller
Getting You the Attention You Deserve!
www.123marketing.com (http://www.123marketing.com)

[Justin]

The php page is set up much easier than a cgi - no permissions to worry about, no special directories, nothing. It's set up just like a normal html page http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

All you need to do is paste it in Notepad an upload it like a regular page. Think of it like SSI - it gets parsed at the server, so the user just sees a normal html page. That's really all there is to it http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif I think that's why I like it so much. You can do a lot with it.

Think of php as though it were a more powerful JavaScript, except that it is browser independant, as the server does all the work and the browser only sees the resulting HTML http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Hope this helps.


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Tech Support

[auteur]

so is the extention of the page html, php, or something else. This is sounding easier by the minute here. http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

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Elizabeth M. Miller
Getting You the Attention You Deserve!
www.123marketing.com (http://www.123marketing.com)

[Justin]

Make the page .php3 - php would work too, but this ensures that if another version, like php4, ever came out... just use php3 http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

So above, the first snippet goes into a normal .html file, and the second one a .php3 file. Make sure that the html file calls the php3 file:

<FORM ACTION="info.php" METHOD="POST">

Then when it calls the php3 page, any form variable passed to the php3 file becomes a variable automatically. In Perl you have to parse the string, etc. Php does it for you http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

For example, if you put:

<input type=text name=FirstName>

then whatever they type will show up in a variable called $FirstName in the php form. So if you put:

Hello, $FirstName, than you for visiting, blah blah.

Then their name shows up http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif The only other thing you need to know to understand the logic of the script is that when you type <? you enter php mode, so to speak, and typing ?> exits php mode. Anything not enclosed in <? ?> is send as is like normal html http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

So you could do this:

<?
if ($FirstName == "") {
?>

<!-- tell user we need name -->
<h1>Oops!</h1>
We need your name, silly!

<?
} else {
?>

<h1>Thank you, <? echo $FirstName ?></h1>

<?
}
?>


Ok, if that is confusing, I appologize. Once you get the hang of it, it is really easy though.

To stay simple for now, just copy Deb's code into Notepad, naming one file info.php3 and the other an html file, upload them, and try them out. Then you may want to (if you have the time) mess with the code, see what all you can make it do http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Boy, that was a bit long winded, huh? I hope Deb didn't sneak in here while I was typing http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Tech Support