How does contact us page works in general?

[reachmehar]

Hi,

I am very new to web development. I have a basic doubt. I have few html pages, that I downloaded and edited to make a website. If I understand correctly, I need to post all my pages to hosting space (provided by any vendor). And to navigate from one page to other, I use href tags. Those looks pretty clear to me.

I am now, very unclear as how "contact us" page works in general. If viewer of the website enters his details such as Name, Email id, Company name etc.. How do those details reach me? What kind of coding should I do there to make this happen.
Very basic I know. But, please explain.

[Xaldin]

You need a sql database. I also recommend php.(when using html and php on the the same page use the php as the file type) You can use html in php.
The data gets posted onto a php page(May be the same page as the form) and possessed and inserted into the sql database. You might want an admin panel to work from too.

I'm actually going to make one myself in the near future.
I'd explain in more detail, but I got other things to do

[Sabz]

i'm also still new to the web development arena (professionally) and i'm focusing more on grasping client-side-scripting atm so i'm not sure if this is what your looking for as my PHP knowledge is minimal (not for long though)

anyways i was going through the thread and a quick google search reveals some helpful tutorials/articles, here is one (http://phpsense.com/php/php-form-handling.html) hope it helps. googles your friend.... till proven otherwise!

Also on behalf of forum mods, please post in a more relevant section of the forum next time.

[tbatt]

Dear reachmehar,

You do not need php or an account management feature to send information from a contact form on your website to your email inbox. A simple html form will do the job. Whoever is hosting your website should have some sort of formmail script for you to use. (Contact your hosting provider for their form address)

Necessary example code to make it work:

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://ExampleFeatures.YourHostingCompany.com/bin/formmail.pl">
<input type=hidden name="recipient" value="email@yoursite.com">
<input type=submit value=submit name=submit>
</FORM>

There are a ton of customizable fields you can add too:

To add a subject:
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Your Subject">

To change the text color:
<input type="hidden" name="text_color" value="#000000">

Hope this post helps you...