Forms not using cgi?

[Thomas Dowling]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie Kraus <krauss at crisny.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Monday, August 25, 1997 3:14 PM
Subject: Forms not using cgi?



>I have recently been playing around with creating a a reference question
>form to put on our web page.  Since I don't know anything about perl I
>have been struggling with the CGI "stuff".  In the help section of my
>HotDog Pro I came across these sentences:
>
>"Forms can also be used to send mail to someone.   This can be useful if
>you don't know anything about CGI programming: the form can mail the
>information directly to your account. Information sent this way is not
>formatted, but can still be understoood"
>
>Has anyone tried this?  Does this mean in the form tag I would use
>ACTION="mailto:wkslibry at crisny.org" instead of sending it to a URL
>containing a script?
>
>Any experiences using the mailto tag for forms or help you can give
>would be greatly appreciated!
>

Be advised that this is a Netscape-specific solution.  Other browsers handle
action="mailto..." differently.  Most notably, Internet Explorer opens a
blank e-mail composition window and disregards any form inputs.  IMO,
action="mailto..." is not an adequate substitute for CGI scripting (which
need not be in Perl, btw).

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu