Why can’t I get my form to work with Dreamweaver on my server?

Janine,

I am at my wits end. It seems like such a simple problem, but I cannot get it to work. When I found your Dreamweaver tutorial I thought it was very easy to understand and thought I would get my problem resolved, but that was not the case.

In your “Connecting an HTML form to work with a CGI script in Dreamweaver”, in step 3 you suggest to use the file “cgi-bin/formmail.pl” for the action part of the form. I thought you were supposed to use “cgi-bin/formmail.cgi. My web host suggested this with a small sample of code.

In any case I cannot get my form to work. All I have done is use the file formmail2.cgi and the form page called “Course-Schedules.html”.  The code for this file is in the file called “Form code for schedules.

This is what keeps happening. When I test my forms on my local site in IE 9, I can’t get the data to go through. I get a line at bottom of page saying “Do you want to open or save formmail2.cgi from Owner-PC?”

When I test in Mozilla and click submit I get a form at top left of on new page repeated exactly as I had it and this time when I fill in the data it goes to the e-mail in my cgi file. I am also having trouble with the redirect, It says page is not found.

I am desperate to find the answer. Do you think you could help me? I have tried the programming sites, but have not had any luck.

Thanks for your time and expertise,

Pat

Hi Pat,

 So sorry to learn you’re frustrated, setting up your own forms can be crazy making. Unfortunately, because every server is different, it’s very hard to diagnose the problem.

But if you’ve had that much trouble, you might want to consider an alternative. Because you’re not alone in your frustration over what seems like a simple web feature, there are a number of hosted form solutions. Here are two of the most popular:

http://www.emailmeform.com/

https://www.acrobat.com/formscentral/en/home.html

I hope that helps, and I wish you all the best with your website,

Janine