"When I hit submit on my Web form, all I get is a blank email message." This is a common complaint when some people use mailto Web forms. You or your customer carefully fills out the form, but then, instead of mailing the form contents to the mailto address, it opens the email client.
Sometimes, the email client has a subject that looks something like: ?name=jennifer&site=html&sitename=Web Design but the body of the email is blank. And sometimes, there is nothing from the form that is added to the email at all.
This is the Problem with Mailto Forms
Mailto forms rely on two things:
- The customer's system must have a default email client
- The customer's Web browser must be able to connect to that email client
The biggest problem is that this issue depends on many factors, including:
- Operating system
- Web browser and version
- Email client and version
- Other factors(?)
What Can You Do?
If you are a Web developer using forms, and you want to use a mailto form, you should be aware of this limitation. No matter what you do, some of your customers may not be able to use the form.
If you still want to use a mailto form on your site, you should review this article. However, I would recommend that you use a CGI script instead.
- Free CGIs
These CGI scripts are free for use. - Feedback forms
Use these email feedback forms for your Web forms. - Write Your Own CGI
Using Perl or other CGI language, you can write your own CGI to process the form. The benefit to this is that you can make the CGI do whatever you need. - Make Sure The Email is Correct
Whatever type of form you use, you can use JavaScript to validate it. And this script will validate a field for a correctly formatted email address.
