newbie question - please help!

[graham]

hi,
I'm doing a small business website for a relative, which needs a way
for customers to submit an order form. is there a simple way to do this
as i am very new to HTML etc. and i dont have much time to finish it.
I know that you would usually use forms and scripts and such like, but
the information the order form will collect is very simple and i am
hoping there is a simpler way.
I'm sure i've seen websites where they can open an e-mail program in
which they have the form ready for the customer to e-mail back{or
something like that).
Thanks in advance - Graham

 

[TJ]

In

hi,
I'm doing a small business website for a relative, which needs a way
for customers to submit an order form. is there a simple way to do
this as i am very new to HTML etc. and i dont have much time to
finish it. I know that you would usually use forms and scripts and
such like, but the information the order form will collect is very
simple and i am hoping there is a simpler way.
I'm sure i've seen websites where they can open an e-mail program in
which they have the form ready for the customer to e-mail back{or
something like that).

Given your time constraint and the admission that you're a "newbie", perhaps
www.paypal.com or something similar?

 

[IWP506]

Submit an order form? You mean like they fill out a form then hit
submit and it fills out the body of an email message automatically with
the address of your relative already entered?

Or do you want it to, for example, write it to a file on the server.

Personally, I think the latter is more professional, but it depends on
the abilities of your server.

Does your server support php?

 

[graham]

Thanks,
i'm planning on using paypal, it just wasn't clear if they deal with
the ordering side of things apart from shopping carts.
i'm mainly interested in thier e-mail options, but there isn't any
mention of ordering with them on thier website, do you know if they do
anything like this?

 

[graham]

Thanks!
i think i'm a bit out of my depth here!
the main reason i'm posting is that i don't have the technical know
how to even begin to adress the question of getting a simple order
from a customer - i'm just hoping theres a simple way to do it that
even i can understand! *any way* will do!
i recognise that i might be a bit nieve in this, but i thought it might
be worth it as a first approach

 

[aslfj lkajsf]

Thanks!
i think i'm a bit out of my depth here!
the main reason i'm posting is that i don't have the technical know
how to even begin to adress the question of getting a simple order
from a customer - i'm just hoping theres a simple way to do it that
even i can understand! *any way* will do!
i recognise that i might be a bit nieve in this, but i thought it might
be worth it as a first approach

I think PHP is the way to go (can you tell I like php? ).

The only thing is that, in order to use PHP, your server needs to
support it.

To test, open notepad, write this in it:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

and save it as test.php Upload it to your server and visit it in your
browser. If a big page opens, you're good. If it asks you to save or
open, or anything else, you don't have php

If you don't have PHP, I'm not sure what your next option would be...

 

[David Dorward]

I'm doing a small business website for a relative, which needs a way
for customers to submit an order form.

The basic approach is covered here:
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Email_form_data

However, since this is an *order* form, I would suspect that you are going
to be dealing with sensitive data (such as credit card numbers). If so then
you are going to have to encrypt the data whenever it passes over the wire,
and need to ensure that it remains secure if it is sitting on the server.
This seriously adds to the complexity of the issue and given that you
stated you were a beginner at HTML, I'll assume you aren't expect in all
the relevant technologies needed.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-outside
suggests that it can handle an existing shopping cart or provide one if you
don't have such a tool already, so its probably a reasonable approach.

 

[Obvious]

Thanks!

For what? What on earth are you replying to?

i think i'm a bit out of my depth here!

You can say that again!!

 

[graham]

I think PHP is the way to go (can you tell I like php? ).

The only thing is that, in order to use PHP, your server needs to
support it.

To test, open notepad, write this in it:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

and save it as test.php Upload it to your server and visit it in your
browser. If a big page opens, you're good. If it asks you to save or
open, or anything else, you don't have php

If you don't have PHP, I'm not sure what your next option would be...

Thanks for your help!
but really i am only posting to find out if there is a quick and easy
solution, PHP sounds pretty involved and i couldn't ask you to take me
through all of the steps needed - i would feel more confident learning
the basics myself and then i would have some idea of what i am doing -
besides this, it will probably be a week or two before get to the
server
do you know any good sources of information? (i have some programming
experience)

 

[graham]

Submit an order form? You mean like they fill out a form then hit
submit and it fills out the body of an email message automatically with
the address of your relative already entered?

Or do you want it to, for example, write it to a file on the server.

Personally, I think the latter is more professional, but it depends on
the abilities of your server.

Does your server support php?

Thanks for your help!
(by 'order form' i mean any way at all of getting details from a
customer about his/ her order)
i'm not really experienced enough to understand too much of what
you're saying. i'm really posting to find out if a simple solution is
avilable to the above problem, that isn't too technical, as a sort of
first approch to cracking the problem - if there is'nt a simple
solution i'm willing to learn the basics of HTML forms, scripts etc...,
then post when i know what i'm doing.
is there a dead simple solution? if there isnt do you have any good
sources of information for a beginner to learn the more technical side
of things? (i have some programming experience)

 

[graham]

In

Given your time constraint and the admission that you're a "newbie", perhaps
www.paypal.com or something similar?

Thanks!
i'm going to be using paypal e-mail payment methods (most likley).
these seem very good at invoicing a customer but the details of how to
actually take an order from a customer are not clear - i'm just looking
for any simple way to get order details from a customer - any help
would be much apreciated!

 

[graham]

For what? What on earth are you replying to?


You can say that again!!

i am - "i think i'm a bit out of my depth here!" (as i have just
learned how to use those little '>' characters at the left of the page
- sorry!!) - Graham

 

[graham]

The basic approach is covered here:
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Email_form_data

However, since this is an *order* form, I would suspect that you are going
to be dealing with sensitive data (such as credit card numbers). If so then
you are going to have to encrypt the data whenever it passes over the wire,
and need to ensure that it remains secure if it is sitting on the server.
This seriously adds to the complexity of the issue and given that you
stated you were a beginner at HTML, I'll assume you aren't expect in all
the relevant technologies needed.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-outside
suggests that it can handle an existing shopping cart or provide one if you
don't have such a tool already, so its probably a reasonable approach.

Thanks!
Yes i basically agree, we were planning on using paypals e-mail
options which would handle all of the security side of things - these
are very good at billing a customer but how to recive ordering details
isn't so clear on there website - i'm looking for a simple solution to
this just in case paypal e-mail payment services dont cover the
ordering side - your help is much apprciated! - Graham