The MagicForm is the most versatile form manager
with the easiest to configure output.

The parts of a form are:

magicform.cgi
That is the form engine. Don't touch that one.
Then you have the files that you do work with:

How it works:

You can have as many sets of forms as you want. They can have totally separate components, or they can share some components. For example the Thank-You page could be shared by many of your forms.

In each form you have a line that starts with
<FORM ACTION...
The line after that looks similar to this:
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="sample"> The value in that hidden field, "sample" in this case, determines WHICH config file is looked up to see which components the form uses.

 

Examples:
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="sample"> The form will use the components that are listed in /magicform/formconf/sample.txt
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="survey"> The form will use the components that are listed in /magicform/formconf/survey.txt
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="xmas-order"> The form will use the components that are listed in /magicform/formconf/xmas-order.txt

The config text file is VERY important. Please read the above part until you completely understand what it does. Without that understanding the forms will appear to be a complicated mystery. Once you understand what it does, everything begins to make sense and will go easy.

That config file is a simple, plain text file, in this case called "sample.txt". In there you see for example:

MAIL_USER|sample_mail_to_user.txt

MAIL_ADMIN|sample_mail_to_admin.txt

DATAFILE|sample

THANK_PAGE|thankyou.html

It tells the form manager that whenever the "sample" form is filled out, it should use "sample_mail_to_user.txt" as the template for the receipt that is sent to the form submitter.

MAIL_ADMIN shows which template is used to send a mail to the admin (you).

DATAFILE shows the name of the on-line data file and also the name of the .kb file in which you specify the order in which the data fields are stored in the data file.

By now you can probably guess what the last line is about.

File Permissions:
Just like all web programs, forms and their components require to have certain file attributes or file permissions and are expected to be in certain locations. In this list you see the file names, the file attribute numbers, and the location.

The number behind each of the files tells you what it's file attributes have to be. Numeric file attributes are:
4 write enabled
2 read enabled
1 execute enabled

5 would mean read enabled and execute enabled.
6 would mean write + read
7means write + read + execute

The first number in     654 is for OWNER (you, program)
The second number in 654 is for GROUP (program)
And the third number in 654 is for WORLD (visitors)

You can change the file attributes with FTP or Telnet or Secure Shell.

What does each component do?

sample.html 644
This is a form page, the page that is filled out by the form submitter or visitor.
You can copy it and save it under a new name and add more fields and change what you want.

sample.kb 666
This file specifies which of the fields from the form are saved in the on-line data file, and in which order. The data file can be downloaded and imported into Excel. Consider each of the field names the header of a column, and the values of that field in the column below that header. For example you have in the kb file:
name|email|date|quant

The Excel spreadsheet file would then look like this:

name	email	date	quant
Joe	joe@aol.com	2000/01/28 14:21	12
Jim	jim@aol.com	2000/01/28 14:45	7
Jane	jane@aol.com	2000/01/28 15:12	9
Bill	bill@hotmail.com	2000/01/28/16:01	1

You don't have to store all the fields that you ask for in the on-line data file. For example credit card numbers are sometimes not stored on the server.

sample_mail_to_user.txt    666        edit with plain Text Editor
This file is a plain text template of the receipt that the form sends to the submitter. If you write in that template: Dear <!--@name--> then it will fill in the value that was submitted with the "name" field. Just imagine what kind of smart auto-responders you can make with that ! Send them a letter that has their name and other info from the form sprinkled into it throughout the text.

sample_mail_to_admin.txt 666     edit with plain text Editor
This file is a plain text template for the report letter that you get whenever a form is filled out. You can make that letter look like the "Payment OK" letter that you will send them after processing their credit card payment. That way all you have to do is blank out the credit card numbers, and reply the letter to them. You can put into the FROM field in the template, that way when you hit CTRL R in your email program, it will reply straight to the form submitter.

sample_thank_you.html   666        edit with plain Text Editor

This is the web page that is shown to the form submitter after filling out and submitting the form.

sample_error.html 666    edit with HTML editor
This is the error page shown to the form submitter if they forget a required field. The email field is ALWAYS required, any other field can be made a required field by adding _req to the end of the field name. Make sure you also add that to the field name in the kb file!

sample.txt   666        edit with plain Text Editor

In the form page, for example sample.html, you see these lines:

<FORM ACTION="magicform.cgi" METHOD="Post">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="sample">

The hidden config field tells the form to look for "sample.txt" in the formconf directory. inside that sample.txt you see:

MAIL_USER|sample_mail_to_user.txt
MAIL_ADMIN|sample_mail_to_admin.txt
DATAFILE|sample
THANK_PAGE|thankyou.html

It simply tells the form which components to use whenever the config is "sample" You can make similar config files for each different form. Some of the form components are usable by all forms, for example the last line, thankyou.html can probably be used for all your forms. Some similar forms might also share the mail_to_admin.txt, but have totally different mail_to_user templates. You simply specify here which files a specific form will use.

An example would be the birthday form, wich has this command pair in the form:
<FORM ACTION="magicform.cgi" METHOD="Post">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="config" value="birthday">

birthday.txt could look like this:
MAIL_USER|birthday_mail_to_user.txt
MAIL_ADMIN|birthday_mail_to_admin.txt
DATAFILE|birthday THANK_PAGE|thankyou.html

sample.dat
This file is generated by the form and is the data file. If you delete it, the form will generate a new one.
You can download the data file and import it into EXCEL. When EXCEL asks you what to use for "Record Delimiter" use |

If your form does not work or gives you an error, all you have to do is
1) panic, pull your hair out, yell and scream,
2) upload all the files that you listed in the config text file
3) correct the file attributes of the files you uploaded.

(Step 1 is optional and may be skipped)

Here is a summary list of the files with the file attributes. You may want to print this part and keep it handy. For different sets of forms, substitute "ssample" with the name of the new form. You CAN share some of the components and use them for more than one form set. The components that can be shared and also used by other forms at the same time are marked with *