[WEB4LIB] Automatically adding URL/TITLE to mailto link

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Peterson <cpetrson at tsl.state.tx.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 1999 12:43 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Automatically adding URL/TITLE to mailto link


> As do most others, we have mailto links at the bottom of most of our web
> pages.  When I receive a message from someone with a comment, they don't
> provide me with the URL or title of the web page they are on.  Short of
> actually putting that information in each mailto link as a subject, is
there
> an automatic way I can do this?  Maybe it would grab the URL or title of
the
> page and place it in the subject or message body.
>
> Can anyone help?
>

Scrap the mailto links.  There's no way to guarantee that they'll pick up
a subject, and in the worst case the mail will vanish into the ether with
the sender getting no indication that it wasn't sent.  See
<URL:http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/links.html#mailto-subject> for
details.

The "?subject=..." technique fails not only for some older browsers, but
also for newer browsers that are configured to use anything but their own
e-mail program, or configured not to use an e-mail program.

Instead, set up a CGI script that will reliably send mail from your server
with the correct subject line.


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