Readme.txt for the contact.php file
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This file contains the information required to set up and operate the contact.php script on your Web Host. Php capability is required for this script and the Php mail function must be available for the script to work as described. Even without the full use of the mail function, the data will be written to the message_data.txt file, so it is handier than it looks, even if you don't have full features available on your site.

There is also the option of displaying messages onto your site as a sort of 'Guest Book'.

The script is not 'independent'. The script must be added to a valid html page with a doctype, head tags, body tags, etc for this to be properly set-up. Or 'included' onto a php page which already contains the required tags.


Instructions
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1.) Use Winzip (or whatever you have) to unpack the zip files into a folder on your computer. (Kinda redundant, because you have already done that or you wouldn't be reading this file)

2.) Edit the file (contact.php) and change the following to better reflect your site requirements:
// site email
$site_email = 'someone@example.com';
// name of the site
$site_name = 'This Site Name';
// subject of emails as sent to the site-email
$site_subject = 'Message from Contact Form ';
// used to flag printing email messages below contact form
$show_comments = 'true';
// used to flag printing of site_email address on the message listing
$show_site_email = 'true';
// used to flag printing of site_name on the message listing
$show_site_name = 'true';
// name of the file where the messages are stored
$file_name = "message_data.txt";
// be sure to chmod the file to '666' (write enabled by all)
// only need to do the chmod if the error shows on a test run
$show_IP = '0'; // change this value to 1 to (show) the IP's on the displayed output
// default is $show_IP = '0' to (hide) the IP's

3.) Upload these files (contact.php and message_list.php) to your web server and place it into the directory which contains the file which calls the script. Typically, this would be "/public_html".

4.) set a link to this file from the other pages on your site. An example for the coding would be: <a href="contact.php" title="Use this page to send us an Email"> Email Us </a>

5.) Change the permissions for the "message_data.txt" file to "0666" to allow it to be written to. For a Windows Server, this step is not required. Enter a Sample Email and you will see an error message if this needs to be done for your Hosting Service.

When someone enters Form data, the script will store the information in the "message_data.txt" file and send you an email using the php mail() script. It requires all parts of the form to contain data, ie: first_name, last_name, email in a valid format, and a message body. The IP Address is gathered by the Server and it is also available to you. See below.

I have tested this using Mozilla, Opera and IE5.5, so it should work on pretty much any Browser. It works with the css shut-off, too. As for Hosts, I have it set-up on a Host using php 4.4.1 and php 5.0 both, so it should be good on most Hosting Services.

At present, the only way to access the data in the message.txt file is to reference it directly using an URL something like this:

"http://www.site_name.Host_name.com/message_data.txt" where site_name and Host_name match yours,

or by running the script to display the messages as follows:

"http://www.site_name.Host_name.com/message_list.php". (ditto)(Assuming the file is in the public_html Directory.)

In order to have access to the IP Address information, you either must change the value of the $show_IP variable before you run the script, (see item #2 above) (then change it back so it won't display on the Guest Book), or use the first option (http://www.site_name.Host_name.com/message_data.txt) to look at the file without the benefit of formatting or the Table Structure. Either way, I assure you the information will be there for you.