The first file to create is the input file, which contains the HTML form.
Below is a template. Notice that I have not yet put in the correct webaddress in the FORM ACTION -tag:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Form</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM ACTION="webaddress" METHOD=post><BR>
<H3>Application form</H3>
<HR>
Fill out your name: <INPUT TYPE="text" name="name">
Fill out your email address: <INPUT TYPE="text" name="email">
<HR>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit Form">
<INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Click here to see what this form will look like.
The address to put in the FORM ACTION tag for sites on Rootsweb is according to the following template:<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/local/mailmerge.cgi/PathName/public_html/template.file" METHOD=POST>
If your Rootsweb page is on homepages.rootsweb.com or on a virtual site (like this HTMLHELP-site), the FORM tag is slightly different (there is no directory "local" at the start to point to the CGI-file):
<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/mailmerge.cgi/PathName/public_html/template.file" METHOD=POST>
The PathName has to be exact and a good way to check this is by viewing the pathname through your FTP-program: see how the full name is mentioned there.For example, this HTMLHELP site is located at
htmlhelp.rootsweb.com
but the full pathname to this site through FTP is :
/home/mamat/public_html/
From this we can see that the PathName should be replaced with /home/mamat/ and then the filename's path can be completed with the rest of the path starting from /public_html.Note that the name of the "template.file" is the name of the file that will tell MailMerge how to process the data submitted through the form. This "template.file" is discussed in section 2 of this Mini Tutorial
Knowing this, we can now insert the correct webaddress in the FORM ACTION tag:
<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/mailmerge.cgi/home/mamat/public_html/members/jan/mailmerge/application.tmp" METHOD=post>
So the updated template for the Form/Input file now looks like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Form</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/mailmerge.cgi/home/mamat/public_html/members/jan/mailmerge/application.tmp" METHOD=post>
<H3>Application form</H3>
<HR>
Fill out your name: <INPUT TYPE="text" name="name"><BR>
Fill out your email address: <INPUT TYPE="text" name="email"
<HR>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit Form">
<INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Click here to see what this form will look like.
Please make sure that the address in the FORM ACTION tag is all on one line - without any form breaks.Also check that the file containing the form is uploaded as ASCII Text Only.
Now we have finished creating the first file for input: the formThe second file to create is the template file
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