Web Link inserts value into Textarea - html

Much like the mailto: link you can add ?subject=
I wanted to be able to create a web link which would send you to a webpage that contained a form.
In that Form, I would like the value of the TextArea to contain information Inserted by the contents of the referring Weblink.
Example:
example.com/page-url?textarea=content
Is that possible? If so, can you tell me?
I pay in chocolates.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to any replies.

Plain HTML can't do this by itself. You'll need to use Javascript or some kind of server-side processing to get the values from the submission.
Forms have two methods - POST, which submits through the headers, and GET, which submits through a querystring. With the querystring it's easier for users to mess with your data, so keep that in mind as you design this. (Not that it's impossible with POST, but it takes a little more work)
Since you're passing to a textarea, make sure you URLEncode your post or things like spaces will cause you a lot of headaches.

Related

What does a form tag do behind the scene

If I want to send data back to the server from user input I know I need to use the form tag.
But why do I need the form tag, what does a form tag do behind the scenes?
I've only been in web development for less than a year, so please forgive me if my question is beginner question.
Edit: I know a form is used to denote a part of the page that is interactive and data between the from tags will be sent back to the server.
So, is the tag, just a tag, is there another piece of technology that takes the data from the page and returns the data to the server?
Edit 2: From comments and more specific web searches, I found out that the form tag is just that. A tag. It defines something on a page and does not do anything. All is okay now.
The form tag validates and with html 5 it means it doesn't call the server immediately. It can do a quick check before it attempts to post. E.g. does the email box look like an email address.
The advantage of this is it reduces costs as you're not unnecessarily calling the server. When the form thinks it looks good it will send the info to the back end.
Get and post messages are sent either getting information (reading) or it might be posting (writing).
I think that's what you're after.

HTML Form: Can submitted GET/POST parameters be suppressed using only HTML or CSS?

I am volunteering on a website-based project that is trying to make all pages fully operable JavaScript free before adding any JavaScript for enhancements, and I was asked to investigate whether or not a particular scenario could be handled purely through HTML/CSS.
What we have is a form that is populated to help us filter a list of tickets that are displayed on the screen after a page update through a GET action, which itself works fine, but the concern with the current implementation is that the URL cannot be made into a permanent link. The request, however, to keep the permanent link as minimal as possible, is to only send GET parameters for fields that are populated with something (so, suppressing GET parameters for fields that are blank) instead of having a different GET parameter for each form field on the page.
I have thought of several ways that could be done, most including JavaScript (example: create fields with ids but no names and a hidden field w/ name that uses JS to grab the data from the fields), but also one that would be a POST action with a redirect back to the GET with a human readable string that could be permanently used. The lead dev, however would prefer not to go through the POST/redirect method if at all possible.
That being said, I'm trying to make sure I cover all my bases and ask experts their thoughts on this before I strongly push for the POST/redirect solution: Is there a way using only HTML & CSS to directly suppress GET parameters of a form for fields that are blank without using a POST/redirect?
No, suppressing fields from being submitted in an HTML form with method of "GET" is not possible without using JavaScript, or instead submitting the form with a POST method and using a server side function to minimize the form.
What fields are submitted are defined by the HTML specification and HTML and CSS alone cannot modify this behavior and still have the browser be compliant with the standards.
No, you cannot programmatically suppress any default browser behavior without using some kind of client scripting language, like JavaScript.
As a side note, you say "JavaScript for enhancements", but JavaScript is not used for enhancements these days. And no one in the real world would except a decent front-end without the use of JavaScript. I would suggest you simply use JavaScript.
I do not think you can avoid Javascript here to pre process before submission to eliminate unchanged /empty form fields.

How should i get an email when i submit the request form / submit form through html

i am working on a submit form in my html page. When i click submit button, i should get mail in my inbox.
So what all the procedures, i need to follow to get the output.
You need to use a server side language like PHP / ASP.NET etc. Then:
User submits form.
Retrieve the submitted information.
Send an email using the email functionality specific to the language you decide to use.
You haven't given much so this is only an outline of what you need to do to get going. You can use Google for the various areas you need to implement.
Instead of using any server, is there any plugins which can be useful
to get my output. – Bharadwaj
I think this might do the job for you http://www.emailmeform.com/
I've never used it, but it looks like a website that hosts the form for you and emails you the results. You'd just put the form html on your page and let them do the rest.
Hope that helps.

URLENCODE Variable in Salesforce Vertical Response Email

This is a rather simple question, but I cannot find documentation about it from Salesforce.
I am setting up an HTML Newsletter from Salesforce Vertical Response, and I need to put a link in the body of the email that goes to another site which takes the user's email address as a query string. I am doing this so that when the user clicks the link from the HTML email, they will automatically be signed up for a different blog mailing list.
The link will look like this www.mywebsite.com/blog/subscribe?email=your_email#email.com.
I can easily accomplish this by using the {EMAIL_ADDRESS} variable, such that the link looks like this:
Subsribe
This workds, but when the user gets the email and clicks the link, the '#' symbol gets stripped from the URL. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get around this. I saw some documentation on the URLENCODE() function for SalesForce, but when I try to use it in the HTML email editor in SalesForce, like URLENCODE({EMAIL_ADDRESS})it doesn't execute it, and instead interprets it literally as text. Can anyone help me? is it even possible to use functions from within the SalesForce HTML email editor?
Thanks
I havent used VerticalResponse, but if it leans on salesforce communication templates then you can always create an email template as Visualforce page. Then you can apply Encode functions to merge fields.
I'm glad you were able to find a workaround. If you ever go back to dealing with the URL, it's a good idea to disable our click-tracking when working with merge fields. This can be accomplished by adding nr_ before the http. Example: Subsribe - If you ever try that and it doesn't work, or if you have any other questions, please let us know via one of our Support channels:
support#verticalresponse.com
866-683-7842 x1
We also have live chat available: http://help.verticalresponse.com/
Regards,
Keith Gluck
VerticalResponse Customer Support

Is Form Tag Necessary in AJAX Web Application?

I read some AJAX-Form tutorial like this. The tag form is used in HTML code. However, I believed that it is not necessary. Since we send HTTP request through XmlHttpRequest, the sent data can be anything, not necessary input in form.
So, is there any reason to have form tag in HTML for AJAX application?
Apart from progressive enhancement as already discussed (don't make your site require JavaScript until it really has to), a <form> with onsubmit would be necessary to reliably catch an Enter keypress submission.
(Sure, you can try trapping keypresses on separate form fields, but it's fiddly, fragile and will never 100% reproduce the browser's native behaviour over what constitutes a form submission.)
Sometimes, web apps using ajax to transform their data either use forms as a fallback when the user has no JavaScript enabled (a sometimes expensive but very good thing to do).
Otherwise, if an application builds and sends an AJAX request, there is no compelling reason to use a form except in rare special cases when you actually need a form element. Off the top of my head:
when using jQuery's form serialize function
when monitoring all fields in a form for changes
when there is need to make use of the reset form button (that to my knowledge is available in a proper <form> only).
I see at least two possible reasons :
Graceful degradation (see also Unobtrusive JavaScript) : if a user doesn't have Javascript enabled in his browser, your website should still work, with plain-old HTML.
Behavior of the browser : users know what forms look like and how they behave (auto-completion, error-correction, ...) ; it's best not going too far away from that
And I would add that, if you want the user to input some data, that's why <form> and <input> tags exist ;-)
Using the right tags also helps users -- as an example, think about blind users who are navigating with some specific software : those software will probably have a specific behavior for forms an input fields.
It really depends what you're doing. If you're wanting to take form content submitted by the user and use AJAX to send that somewhere then you're going to want to use the form tag so your user can enter their data somewhere.
There will be other times when you're not sending data from a form and in that case, you wont have a form to be concerned about :)