Creating a more customizable $FROM_USER setting

[umn_it]

As with many who post here, I'm very impressed with the power, flexibility, and support of FormMail and the encryption/decryption tools. So much so, I've decided to change over all of my college's forms to use Formmail.

My goal is to have a templatible form creation process, with a single master formmail.php to define directories of templates, email addresses, logs, CSV files, etc. For the most part, it works really well. Separating the locations of directories (defined in formmail.php) from the names and settings of the files (defined in the HTML form) works brilliantly, with one exception.

When I try to define the "from" address in the auto response email message (generated from the image verification form) it seems I can only do that with the $FROM_USER setting in the formmail.php file. This means for each auto response form that I create that has a different "sender", I'll need a separate formmail.php file. (Although I'm responsible for sending them all, it is helpful to have different reply-to email addresses for specific departments, programs and events.)

I'm new to FormMail so maybe I've missed it, but wouldn't it make sense to define the $FROM_USER setting in the HTML form so it can be customized as necessary?

[russellr]

Hi,

Thanks for the information about what you're attempting.

You're right - $FROM_USER is the setting used as the sender/from address of the autoresponse.

I'll put this on the TO DO list (you're lucky, a new version of FormMail will be released shortly).

We'll add this as an option to the "autorespond" field, like this:

<input type="hidden" name="autorespond" value="...,FromAddr=you@yourserver.com,..." />

And, you can replace the @ with the AT_MANGLE string, or use the INI file for complete protection.

[russellr]

Hi,

OK, FormMail version 7.14 now supports the FromAddr feature in the "autorespond" field.

[umn_it]

Thank you for making this update. I think it will help a lot.

What should the setting now be for $FROM_USER ?

Should I still set [$FROM_USER = "formmail@yourhost.com";] as a backup, in case I forget to add it to the HTML form or should I set it to "NONE" or "" ?

Will the new FromAddr value conflict with the $FROM_USER setting or will the form only take the value from one or the other?

[russellr]

Hi,

What should the setting now be for $FROM_USER ?

Probably "". It's used for alert messages too. So, if you don't need it for your alert messages to be sent, don't set it.

Should I still set [$FROM_USER = "formmail@yourhost.com";] as a backup, in case I forget to add it to the HTML form or should I set it to "NONE" or "" ?

Well, I guess you avoid "forgetting" by testing. You can set it as a backup if you wish.

Will the new FromAddr value conflict with the $FROM_USER setting or will the form only take the value from one or the other?

No conflict. If the autoresponse field specifies FromAddr, then it is used, otherwise FROM_USER is used.