A little something is under wraps
As a web developer I’m asked to build the ubiquitous “contact us” form on a regular basis. As I sit at my desk reinventing the wheel, thoughts occur to me:
- Most people want to capture the usual suspects, information-wise
- There are plenty of formmail scripts out there, which are fine for what they do – but they don’t do very much
- If you’re not familiar with programming, these things can be hard work to build. Even if you are, the time it takes could be better spent
There are lots of things to consider, and mere scripts don’t cut the mustard. It’s really not rocket science to write a few lines of code that send some posted values to an email address. But what about input validation? Database storage of information? Personalised automatic responses?
A web-based interface with user login would be nice 
I’m at work building a system to handle all these tasks and more besides for web designers like myself. It will be easy to set up without programming: no more work in fact than installing a tool like WordPress.
Development of this system is well underway, and I intend to release it publicly as donationware through this website on May 1st. This is an experiment for me on many levels, so please check back around that time and try it for yourself.
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April 4th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Looks like you aren’t the only fella with the idea.. doesn’t look like this guy is planning to do half of what yours will do, but worth having a look for a little ‘inspiration’
http://www.xenyo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1792
April 4th, 2007 at 8:36 am
That’s interesting to see… I’m glad that it appears to be nothing like what I’m building
As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m doing quite a bit of fussing over making the admin look nice.
I think I’m on target for May 1st, but if it slips a little (cos of my hectic social schedule, don’tcherknow) I’ll post a bunch of screengrabs and a more detailed description of what it is.