im doing a project at college which requires me to create a website, im going for extra brownie points and i want the site to be great but ive hit a snag. i using dreamweaver studio mx 2004 and the site will be run from a cd.
I am trying to create a page so users can email me direct. i want some text boxes to store the information like name, email number and message and i want a button so that when its clicked, the information from the text boxes goes straight to the email address. ive tried using mailto but that just makes my own write new email window pop up. i know i should be using a server but i cant at the minute. is theere anyone who can help

Usually, you would require a cgi script, which resides in the cgi-bin on your server. That is used to process the data collected by the form and redistribute it as necessary (i.e. to a designated email address or data file).

I think it is possible, altohugh not entirely sure, just to copy the information entered in a form to a text file, which I guess is what you would require in your situation, without the need for the full cgi script.

If you are using PHP, the process is fairly straightforward. See the second post in the following thread:

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/showthread.php?t=11008

You could have the form submit to a page externally hosted that would send the e-mail. The majority of the site would be on CD, including the form. Then put a single script on a web server somewhere and point the orm to that. The script would simply process and send the e-mail, then display a thank you page.

Might be worth putting a little note on the form page saying 'You must be connected to the internet for this to work' (or something with better wording...)

Though I always tell my students NOT to use this, you can send a form's input via email without the use of PHP, cgi, etc.... Be warned, though, that the computer must have a default email client set up (ex: like Outlook).

<form method="post" name="myEmailForm" action="mailto:youremail@isp.com">

blah...

</form>

It looks like from your post, though, that you'll need to use more advanced tools. This one simply sends an email to the person indicated using the mailto function, but includes the items from the form.