1) choose the name and insert it in the "send to" field
2) pick up the assigned email address and send
I understand that using links might not be the best option, but actually the idea behind it is correct, as the user will need to click on the name/occupation to trigger the form into a "ready-to-launch" state. If a name is not clicked the form cannot be sent.
this is something very achievable. using links throughout the site the user could click on the link to get to the contact form page, the contact would then be populated into the "To:" field automatically, which would solve that dilemma.
The "switch loop" method is the best option, but how would it read from file 1 if links are not advisable? In other words, if I cannot use <a href="sendEmail.php?contact=jack">Jack</a>, what html can I use in file 1 ?
I am not really following you at all here? can you restate?
Then, to summarize, I reckon file 2 should be like this:
<?php
// Define the email addresses for the specific names
$to = strtolower($_POST['ureceipient']);
$to = switch($to)
{
case jack:
'jack@domain.com'
break;
case general manager
'jack@domain.com'
break;
case frank:
'frank@domain.com'
break;
case technical director:
'frank@domain.com'
break;
case mary:
default:
'mary@domain.com'
break;
}
One advantage of the switch loop is that you can assign multiple values to 1 sequence. so where you have.
case frank:
'frank@domain.com'
break;
case technical director:
'frank@domain.com'
break;
it could reduced to
case frank:
case technical director:
'frank@domain.com'
break;
The loops will attempt to find the appropriate "person" in this case being either frank or technical director and continue on until it finds some value / break...
That is a very crude and probably not very helpful definition, but take a look at http://us2.php.net/switch for a better explanation...
The default at the very bottom is for values that are not found under any of the other conditions, ... basically its a "catch-all".
The problem I see with this is that if someone wanted the Technical Director Frank, they could it in wrong and what is submitted is "Tech Director" or "tehc writer" or something along those lines. This is why its really not advised to have them enter in a "name" persay, but an email address, and if they dont have an email address, then providing them a list of person(s) in the form of a drop down or a check box or radio boxes.
if ($receipient != null) {
// Send Email
mail($receipient,'Subject','Message');
} else {
echo "you did not choose a name";
}
?>
this will never be false because of the default switch loop value.
also the email address is not the only thing that would cause the email to not be sent, so something that I think would be more appropriate would be
if( !mail($to, 'Subject', 'Message') )
{
echo "ERROR MESSAGE";
}
else
{
echo "THANK YOU EMAIL MESSAGE";
}