E-Mail Signup which does NOT send e-mail...

[JohnCC]

Hi All:

I am looking for someone to help create a cgi (or other basic code) script to do something I have not been able to find yet.

We want an e-mail list signup form for our website which does NOT actually send an email message!

Rather, the form should take the input fields (email address, name, comment, etc) and create a simple text file, time and date stamped, and SAVE it on our web host server in a top-level secure folder (not under the HTML access folders). Successful SAVE of the file should return a page saying "your email has been added to our mailing list" or any problem creating the file should return an error page.

Yah it's a strange way to do it, I know... but we have a valid reason for wanting it this way

Anything like this already out there? Or someone can do it for us for a reasonable fee? Thanks in advance for all replies

-JCC

[jscheuer1]

You should ask your host what they offer. For example, some have PHP List available. It is a robust mailing list program which allows you to configure the responses. That is the only one that I am familiar with but, there are many others.

Generally, it is a good idea to have a confirmation email sent out to the person signing up as this allows them to opt out if someone else used their email address to sign up.

[JohnCC]

Well the idea again is to NOT use e-mail at all, at first. Rather we are collecting the info from the form in text files directly on the hosting site server.

Later, reading the files, we will use them from another email account but that's getting into the complicated reason *why* we wanna do it this weird way...

I know it's not normal, but maybe there's some script somewhere for just 'uploading' information to a text file saved on the server that would work this way?

Take the whole "email" idea out of it and just figure the email address is a string of ASCII text that we want the site visitor to be able to type in on a form and send to us at the website, saved in a secure text file on the server, and then maybe it makes more sense. Kinda.

[thetestingsite]

Well, you could do that with a server-side language (such as PHP, ASP, etc). Simply set up the form on the HTML page, set up a text file (above the document root), and create the script to read/write/edit that text file. If it is just to "harvest" email addresses, then that would work. I believe their are some scripts similar to this in the PHP forum. Take a look around there.

Hope this helps.

Note: Also, see what your hosting server provides as far as server side languages.

[jscheuer1]

You could also still use something like PHP List to get the addresses and export them for use elsewhere with no initial confirm being sent out.

However, what harm would an initial confirm do though? It would at least start the process of weeding out invalid and unsolicited email addresses.

Also, this is beginning to sound a little like a spam email scheme.

[thetestingsite]

Also, this is beginning to sound a little like a spam email scheme.

That is why I only suggested what I did in my previous post instead of actually writing out a script for it.

[JohnCC]

Don't worry guys... it's not for some kinda spam thing. Believe me I hate spam as much as everyone.

It's just that we wanna have this list-signup page work ONLY on the web server and NOT send out any email at all (totally opposite of spamming!) unless and until the list grows to some substantial size. Which it may not, depending on the visitor reaction to the site.

Anyway, yah it's not a normal thing to do... so, never mind. Maybe we'll rethink it. But, no, honestly it's not any kinda spam thing. Heaven forbid...

-JCC

[BLiZZaRD]

If you get PHPList (as John stated) the admin panels will allow you to disable those types of things. I ran PHPList for a long while its complex to get started but once you get used to the Admin interface it is pretty easy.