[phorm] [Phorm:] Phorm setup example
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- To: support@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 28 Mar 2003 06:45:02 -0000
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MESSAGE: (#2462) Phorm setup example
<http://www.phorm.com/support/?rev=2462>
AUTHOR: Patrick O'Hara
DATE: March 28, 2003 at 1:45 a.m. EST
========================================================
NOTE: PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENTATION BEFORE CONTINUING
This is not the only way to setup phorm, this is just an example and it
happens to be the way I do it. I am often setting up websites that have a lot
of forms, and this is how I manage all the information.
This is not a replacement for the documentation supplied, it just gives an
example of the application of the documenation. Please read the documentation
before reading the remainder of this topic.
Written By:
Patrick O'Hara
WhitsundayIT
QLD, Australia
patrick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.whitsundayit.com
NOTE: PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENTATION BEFORE CONTINUING
========================================================
Dear Phorm Users,
There have been a few people who have been asking about file locations and so
on, and some details on installing and setting up Phorm. As always on this
forum, when formatting is important I use >> to indicate a tab character.
Wherever you see me write that, replace it with a tab in your file.
This topic is split into seven sections:
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Step Four
Directories
Advanced
Summary
Step One:
========
I create a directory in my website document root called (funnily enough)
"phorm" and copy the Phorm installation to that folder. The site-root relative
URL to phorm.php is therefore always
"/phorm/phorm.php"
Step Two:
========
I have shown two different forms here to use as an example later on. This is
for example a contact form and a suggestions form, in two different html
documents. These html documents do not have to be in the phorm directory, they
can be anywhere in your web document tree. Note the differences between them
and the similarities, these are explained later.
<form action="/phorm/phorm.php" method="post" name="form">
<input type="hidden" name="PHORM_CONFIG" value="config.php">
<input type="hidden" name="PHORM_NAME" value="foo">
<!-- other form fields here, including submit button -->
</form>
<form action="/phorm/phorm.php" method="post" name="form">
<input type="hidden" name="PHORM_CONFIG" value="config.php">
<input type="hidden" name="PHORM_NAME" value="bar">
<!-- other form fields here, including submit button -->
</form>
Step Three:
=========
I now have the form set up and pointing to the phorm.php script. I then set
phormconfig.php3 to contain the following:
<?php
$PHORM_RCONFIG = "Y";
?>
Thats it. Why? Setting $PHORM_RCONFIG to "N" means that a form specific config
file is not required. I want to require that file, so I set it to yes to
remind myself that this is the case. (You could find it confusing if you open
this file and it is blank!)
Step Four:
=========
That is the installation directory covered, the forms covered, and
phormconfig.php3 covered. Now - refer to the two form examples I gave above,
note the differences. The only difference is the value of the hidden field
PHORM_NAME. The reason for this is I use phormbase.php3 to change the working
directory.
In the phorm directory (where phorm.php is) I create a directory for each
form. I like to call the directory the same as the value of PHORM_NAME. The
nice thing about this is that all the files that relate to one form are all
together in one folder.
After phormconfig.php3 is read, Phorm knows it must see a form specific config
file. It then changes the working directory as specified by reading
phormbase.php3 which is set to:
foo >> foo
bar >> bar
This looks nice doesn't it. This tells Phorm...
if PHORM_NAME is foo change to /phorm/foo/
if PHORM_NAME is bar change to /phorm/bar/
....Phorm will then search that directory for a file called config.php and
will start using that for the config settings. foo has a file called
config.php and bar has a file called config.php which makes it easy to
remember file names. All you have to remember is that you need to be looking
in the directory with the same name as PHORM_NAME. Simple.
Directories
========
/phorm/
Contains the script and the first section of settings for Phorm.
/phorm/lib/
This is where you put the fileattch.php3 and fileupload.php3 files when you
register your copy. Registration is only $10, a very small price to pay to
support the development of such a powerful program. This is the registration
URL:
http://www.phorm.com/register/
/phorm/plugins/
This is where you put the plugins you might download. Documentation on how to
activate plugins is in a file called docs.rtf in the plugins directory.
/phorm/<each-form>/
This is where I put all my form specific files. This folder will include any
of the following files. I keep the file names the same across all
form-specific folders to avoid confusion (as I mentioned with config.php
above)
/phorm/<each-form>/ack.html
/phorm/<each-form>/config.php
/phorm/<each-form>/email.txt
/phorm/<each-form>/error.html
/phorm/<each-form>/respond.txt
/phorm/<each-form>/rules.txt
etc. etc. etc.
Advanced
=======
What you will be doing is specifying a form in a html document, and then
calling /phorm/phorm.php to handle the submit. What if the validation fails.
Phorm displays your error.html file. This probably says click back to correct
these errors.
How can you get it to open the original form, along with the error messages?
The easy way is to recreate the form and insert the phorm error messages as
outlined in the documentation. Now you have two forms, the original form and
the error form. Both of which use the site relative link (and it is important
that they use site relative links):
/phorm/phorm.php
Now you have two forms to maintain - if you change one you really must change
the other. There must be a better way. There is:
Instead of calling the error file error.html, call it index.html (remember to
change the FILES section in rules.txt). Now, when someone clicks a link to a
form, instead of going to
/contact/index.html
send them to
/phorm/contact/
See what is happening? You have got one file, and when they click submit, it
will call Phorm, and if there is an error it will REDISPLAY the form including
the errors. The error lines will not show the first time - because the browser
sees them as comments and ignores them.
Summary
=======
You now have Phorm installed tidily on your website, with each form fully self
contained in its own folder, and only one set of files to maintain! This is
what I do, and it has saved me a lot of time and hassel trying to maintain
related files in different places on the site.
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