Hi! If I am posting an inappropriate question or am posting in the wrong place, I apologize, please redirect me. My name is Mandy, I am new here and new to webdesign. I recently started a web based business and created my site in Publisher 2003. I am hosting with Godaddy and all of my contact me links and my submit button on my order form are supposed to send me email to my aol acct.

Problem is that EVERYTHING WORKS, except the submit button. My contact me links do work. Just the broken submit button. (It is on the order page and is labeled as order now). I am completely at my wits end. I have been told about 25 things to do UNSUCCESSFULLY by Godaddy.com

I really want to have a decent site and despite using a publishing program I have put a lot of time and effort into my site and I tried really hard to get this one working properly. I hate to ask for help but I am at the point now where it is either admit defeat and ask for help or admit defeat and pull the site. I am not very good at all of this coding stuff, I have heard about cutting and pasting html code but in publisher I do not see how that is possible. Is there anyone who can help me? My site if you want to review the error messages or look at my coding is www.momwithseoul.com Thanks, Mandy

Publisher is bad... It's really hard to troubleshoot code generated from these types of apps. There are other options you can try. If you are using godaddy, you can change the form action to gdform.asp and it will send all the fields in your form to your godaddy email address. or if you have a package that includes a scripting language like asp, it would be easy to set up a form. In fact if you have an account that supports ASP, I could give you a script that should meet your needs.

To address the situation at hand, I would start by checking to see if this file exists on your server: "/_vti_bin/shtml.dll" If it does not, this form will not work

Part of the problem is that you've got SO MUCH propretary MS crap in your code it's tough to untangle. You would have a much easier time of maintaining and troubleshooting your pages if you learned HTML from the ground up and wrote it using simple notepad. Sounds daunting, but HTML is not difficult to learn and what you've done on your site is pretty basic stuff.

I got a Front Page error .. are you sure GoDaddy supports Front Page Extensions and IS your site hosted on a Windows Server ??

Yes, they do support it and yes my front page extenision are enabled. I am in the godaddy acct right now changing my form to say email it to my godaddy acct as suggested and I am going to try and get an html for dummies book and see what I can do. I am a complete NOVICE and publisher has been easy to use when setting up the page but not so easy to get the form to work. I hate that 99% is great, but the form is the issue. I am going try what you all suggested and see what I can do. Thanks for the info. Mandy

If thats the route you want to take, make sure you change this line:
<form action=../_vti_bin/shtml.dll/index_files/Page413.htm method=POST webbot-action="--WEBBOT-SELF--">

To
<form action=/gdform.asp method=POST>

You answered my question...I was wondering why it was not working. Ok, can I bug you for one more thing? Where on earth do I go to change it. Publisher does not have a html view that I know of and can I do it with out having to republish the whole site??? I changed it to my godaddy acct. I had to create one first. Is there a way I can open the ftp window and open that page and edit it? I am really confused I know. That is probably impossible. Mandy

UPDATE : After rereading my post...I assume I probably LOST ya...what I am asking is can I cut and paste the coding you gave me to my site? If so, do you know where and how I do that? And can I do it withoout republishing the whole site?

You can open the HTML page with Notepad and change it there.

<form action=--WEBBOT-SELF-- method=post>
<!--webbot bot="SaveResults" s-email-address="momwithseoul@aol.com"
s-email-format="TEXT/PRE" b-email-label-fields="TRUE"
s-email-Subject="Momwithseoul.com Order" s-builtin-fields="Date Time"
b-email-subject-from-field="FALSE"-->


This is the only area of html coding (hope that is what you call it) that has anything about form or webbot in it...it is not the same as what Dan typed...Dan, should I overwrite any of this with what you have?? Also is it normal for that wording NOT to be down at the bottom of the page where the submit button is? It was high up on the page of html but the button is low on the actual viewable webpage.

Thanks by the way...Mandy

You can open your ftp, download the file to your desktop (or where ever), right click and choose open with notepad. I'm not sure about publishers markup, but I think it would be safe to delete all that and just enter the code I gave above. Then upload it to your site via ftp.

Good luck... oh and welcome to WT!!

Thanks, I am gonna try wiping that html out and replacing all of it with what you have. Then I will ftp upload it...Hopefully from home (no DSL) but if it looks like it will take too long, I can run to my sisters tomorrow and borrow her DSL. I will let ya know how it goes. Thanks to all of you for the advice. I hope someday I will have something to offer. I have ALOT to learn but I am gonna try and start learning more about HTML and rely less on Publisher. Mandy

NEVER MIND, Editted to say I GOT IT.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU for your help...Dan IT WORKED!!!! Woohooo, I FINALLY got it. After 6 hrs of loading and unloading and messing with all my godaddy options, it works. I am so happy. Thanks so much for the code and the help. I appreciate it. Mandy

YouHoooo! Congratulations. I'm glad to see that you got it to work!!!

Mandy, a really good book for beginners, brand new, is here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/

"Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS" - SitePoint Books

Oh, that looks like a good book...I will have to pick that one up. I need something for learning more about HTML. Thanks. I was so excited last night I think I ordered from myself like 10 times. I was in disbelief the button worked. Now I am of course NEVER GONNA REPUBLISH...JK. When I run out of fabric I will have to so I need that book in case I get confused again. Mandy

Originally Posted by momwithseoul

You answered my question...I was wondering why it was not working. Ok, can I bug you for one more thing? Where on earth do I go to change it. Publisher does not have a html view that I know of and can I do it with out having to republish the whole site??? I changed it to my godaddy acct. I had to create one first. Is there a way I can open the ftp window and open that page and edit it? I am really confused I know. That is probably impossible. Mandy

UPDATE : After rereading my post...I assume I probably LOST ya...what I am asking is can I cut and paste the coding you gave me to my site? If so, do you know where and how I do that? And can I do it withoout republishing the whole site?

Cute FTp has a good cute editor.
As all said above, its the form action that need to be changed.
You basically have to tell the submit button what to do with the information, when it is clicked.
Better would be just add any available form script or keep a sql based db, or a forum link to achieve that end.