Need a replacement for formmail.pl

August 14, 2008 8:02 AM

What is a proven contemporary replacement for formmail.pl?

I am about to drag some websites created in 1997 into 2008. These websites use formmail.pl to capture information from input forms and email it off to someone.

After I strip all of the Claris Homepage tags out of the HTML (!), I'll need something to capture the information, write it to a file, and periodically email that file. The host computer is an Intel Xserve managed by me, and is running OS X Server 10.5.3, so I have Apache, Perl, MySQL, and PHP at my disposal. The pages are simple HTML, but can be converted to PHP if necessary.

OSS is preferred, but I will pay for a solution. I'm mostly an interface/admin guy, so writing my own Perl script just ain't gonna happen. I'm looking for a plug, tweak, and play solution.

Any recommendations?

posted by the matching mole to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Unless you are changing the interface to be more user friendly (i.e. server side validation and alerts on the same page, AJAX, etc.), formmail.pl or any other mailer in PHP is going to function near identically. Not much has changed in processing forms.

In fact, I almost always hand-code form processing. I prefer to have more control over the form field names and display. Makes it easier for the recipient. And usually, if it is a form of substance, dump it into a database.
posted by pedantic at 8:58 AM on August 14, 2008

Which formmail are you using, specifically? NMS is a great collection of updated, rewritten replacements for Matt Wright's unfortunate originals.

http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/scripts.shtml
posted by devbrain at 9:47 AM on August 14, 2008

Have a look at the NMS drop in replacement for the MSA formmail.pl.
posted by zamboni at 9:49 AM on August 14, 2008

Thanks, folks. I got TFmail.pl up and running in no time.
posted by the matching mole at 7:26 AM on August 15, 2008