Help for HTMaiL v2.1-monkey

About HTMaiL

HTMaiL is a form-to-email CGI script, originally written at UM, and hacked up for monkey.

How to use HTMaiL

Try http://www.monkey.org/cgi-bin/htmail/email_address (where email_address is your e-mail address on monkey). The form can be saved as HTML text from your browser, then edited to include any special customizations you might need. Here is a modified example

If you would like to use HTMaiL as backend for other forms, any fields not labeled body, to, mailto or from will be included at the end of the message, partially parsed (see templating information below). The contents of the fields apparently-from and apparently-subject will be parsed and placed into both the body of the message and the appropriate message header fields (from, subject). If you would like to redirect the successful posting to a page you maintain, rather than the normal, stock output that displays, you can use the successURL value. Note that this must be the fully-qualified URL of the success page, not just the name of the file.


HTMaiL v2.1-monkey has several new features. You can now create a custom template that will be used in place of the body of the message sent to you via HTMaiL. Templates are located in the directory and are referenced in your custom form using the bodytemplate field. HTMaiL will read in the template and replace occurances of 'HTMAIL:variable' with the contents of the field 'variable' from your form. An example template would look something like:

Dear HTMAIL:first_name,
Is HTMAIL:city really as poopy as you say? I was going to call you at
HTMAIL:phone but then I remembered what a loser you are. Your e-mail address
(HTMAIL:email) is really stupid, monkeys are dumb.

Where first_name, city, phone, and email are all custom field names on your form. Values of 'Webmaster', 'Ann Arbor', '665-6555', and 'webmaster@monkey.org', entered into this form respectively, would result in a message like:

Dear Webmaster,
Is Ann Arbor really as poopy as you say? I was going to call you at
665-6555 but then I remembered what a loser you are. Your e-mail address
(webmaster@monkey.org) is really stupid, monkeys are dumb.

The recipent of the email message generated by this gateway can be specified using any one of several methods.

The most common method of doing this is in the ACTION field of the HTML form used for submitting the messages. This method is shown above, and is how your original HTMail Form is generated.

Recipents can also be specified via a 'mailto' field in the HTML form. This must be used in conjuction with a form ACTION attribute set to "http://www.monkey.org/cgi-bin/htmail". (See the example below.) If there is a user specified in the ACTION attribute, the 'mailto' field will not be used.

This allows you to do fun things like:

<form method=POST action="http://www.monkey.org/cgi-bin/htmail">
Subject:<SELECT name="subject">
        <OPTION>Just a friendly message
        <OPTION>About the homepage...
        <OPTION>Something else...
</SELECT>

This should be sent to: <SELECT name="mailto">
        <OPTION selected>webmaster
        <OPTION>web-support
</SELECT>

If you have any questions about the use of HTMaiL, please send mail to webmaster@monkey.org .

How to get HTMaiL

The source for the original HTMaiL is available via the URL: http://www.engin.umich.edu/caen/devel/htmail.pl.

If you want the monkey-hacked version, just ask.

Copyright

Copyright © 1998 chimp@monkey.org.
All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed, your mother is a gorilla.
Copyright © 1994, 1998 by the Regents of the University of Michigan.
User agrees to reproduce said copyright notice on all copies of the software
made by the recipient.

All Rights Reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the recipient to make
copies and use this software for its own internal purposes only. Recipient of
this software may not re-distribute this software outside of their own
institution. Permission to market this software commercially, to include this
product as part of a commercial product, or to make a derivative work for
commercial purposes, is explicitly prohibited.  All other uses are also
prohibited unless authorized in writing by the Regents of the University of
Michigan.

This software is offered without warranty. The Regents of the University of
Michigan disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including but not
limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any
particular purpose. In no event shall the Regents of the University of
Michigan be liable for loss or damage of any kind, including but not limited
to incidental, indirect, consequential, or special damages.

Last update: 3/16/98