Secure "Email Me" form

Dinomania · 16 Mar 2006 at 15:43

I think people are being put off by not being able to email me easily from my site (I'm not putting a link in, that means spam++ and I'm getting enough already) - so what's the best way to put in a simple form where people can fill it in to mail me?

Also, if I do such a form, is there a way to keep spiders from crawling in and finding out my address, or maybe get one of those image validation thingies?

Thanks

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 15:46

quick search came up with this.

Cybershot · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:16

As an alternative to a secure form, why not create a small image with your email address on? Then they can just start their email client, type your address in and voila.

Or if your users are lazy, go for a form

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:23

forms, mean you do not have to disclose your email thats all.

Dinomania · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:24

Well my contact page already has "email (a) sarawallen . com" but I wonder if that's too confusing for some people

Yeah an image would be a good alternative, hrrm...

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:26

go with a form, i have one on my second website i might look to put image validation on that, but as of yet i havent even really started coding that site.

Dinomania · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:38

Cool, can't see your email in the code - so how does the javascript tell the form where to send the details?

Tican · 16 Mar 2006 at 16:51

NaTe said:
quick search came up with this.

Is it easy to add this to a mail form? http://www.kings-kingdom.co.uk/contact.php

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 17:02

sara said:
Cool, can't see your email in the code - so how does the javascript tell the form where to send the details?

i use php to send the form

Dinomania · 16 Mar 2006 at 17:06

Doh, yeah just looked up a bit more. So the email is in a .php file - wonder if there's any way to keep spam spiders off it...

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 18:46

so far havent received any spam from it, so fingers crossed!

Trigger · 16 Mar 2006 at 18:58

sara said:
Doh, yeah just looked up a bit more. So the email is in a .php file - wonder if there's any way to keep spam spiders off it...

Your e-mail address won't be visible because when you review the source code, the PHP tags are removed and everything that is 'echoed' is just printed as plain text and the variables, functions, etc are not displayed and the email address would be a variable

robmiller · 16 Mar 2006 at 19:03

Bear in mind that spiders could just automatically "submit" your form, so you'll need some kind of CAPTCHA.

Dinomania · 16 Mar 2006 at 19:08

Trigger - doh of course, that is true! I'm new to all this PHP malarkey, you know.

So a simple PHP form-to-mail with a CAPTCHA image should do nicely. Brill

Will Google some more...

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 19:26

yea pretty much except im trying to get the code work for that one i found and even though i just copied the code straight from it, its throwing errors at me and wont display the image :confused:

Tican · 16 Mar 2006 at 19:35

robmiller said:
Bear in mind that spiders could just automatically "submit" your form, so you'll need some kind of CAPTCHA.

Indeed, been getting a lot of spam from them and cant get CAPTCHA to work

Nate · 16 Mar 2006 at 19:39

DJ Binks said:
Indeed, been getting a lot of spam from them and cant get CAPTCHA to work

tried a CAPTCHA on mine, and i think my host doesnt support the image creation. Which leaves me with a problem. Is there anyway to check if my host has it enabled. For the very last resort im gonna create twenty or so random images and just write a small script to pick one when the page is loaded and set a variable to compare with the users' input.

Dinomania · 17 Mar 2006 at 10:47

w00t, done it!

http://sarawallen.com/contact

though it doesn't actually check for entries in the field, so some numpty managed to send me a blank email

roboffer · 17 Mar 2006 at 11:17

As is typical of this place, you may have another

Some nice photos on the site, quite impressive

Dinomania · 17 Mar 2006 at 14:25

Thanks dude