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CGI Code, Scripts, and TipsSometimes you don't want to reveal your email address. But you need to send an email. I will show you how to get it done. Two things have been happening recently that pushed me toward making a no-reply email sending form. Learn how to test whether or not visitor browsers will accept cookies. Session cookies, persistent cookies, and third-party cookies can all be tested for. I stumbled onto a way to be notified when a search engine spider visits a web page. Auto-Launch CGI Script with JavaScript Tag Launch a CGI program when a page loads using a JavaScript tag. Automatic Form Submission to a CGI Program Launch a CGI program when a page loads with an automatically submitting form. Autoresponder Subscription Moderation When you need to moderate who signs up for an autoresponder series, this article shows you how to do it. A Web Notes System for Bloggers and Other Web Publishers With the Web Notes system, select text you want to quote and drag it into the Web Notes form. Even the address in the browser's address bar can be dragged into the form. Web Notes saves your notes and can email them to you, for use in your blog or article or other document. It can't get much simpler than that. Banning Email Addresses With Any Perl Script Once in a while, we receive inquiries about how to ban email addresses with this or that Master Series script. There are 3 steps to add a banned email address feature to a Perl script. Banning Words From Feedback Forms Spammers are now using web site feedback/contact forms to message webmasters with their spew. It will only get worse. Here is one way to combat the problem. Although I program in other languages as well, my preferred CGI language is Perl. This article is for those who develop or modify Perl CGI programs, and for those who are thinking of learning Perl CGI. Change Form Field Values "On The Fly" with JavaScript This article will demonstrate how to automatically change a form field's value depending on which radio button is clicked. Code Generator for Feedback (or Contact) Form The generator at /ffgen makes it easy to create a feedback/contact form. Simply check which form processing software you're using, fill in the rest of the information, and click the button. Customizing and Using Master PFP We receive many requests for information about how to modify Master PFP to include special logos, instructions, print buttons, "this content provided by ..." statements, and so forth Email Notification from any Script If you want to be notified every time a certain script on your site is used, here is how to do it. (Not applicable to NT servers, only UNIX/Linux. Few NT's can use the sendmail mailing code presented here.) Email Notification When Script Is Used Here is a quick edit for your scripts to make them send you an email every time they are run. Finding the Current Working Directory When the current working directory is different than the directory where the CGI program is installed, the included script can help determine what that directory is. Four Common Database File Formats Some database file formats are good for certain things. Some are good for other things. Four are addressed here. Two are plain text formats and two are special formats accessible only with software. Getting the CGI Programs You Want "I've been looking for a program to -- Any idea where I can find something like that?"Before you begin your search on the web, take time to record what exactly you need your program to do. Have you overlooked the value of autoresponders? For pure ease of content delivery, ie. getting information into the hands of your customers, autoresponders can't be beat. IFRAME Tag Will Auto-Launch CGI Script Launch a CGI program when a page loads with an IFRAME. Image Tag Launches CGI Program Launch a CGI program when a page loads using an IMG tag. Installing Multiple Copies of a Script Sometime you might want a second copy of a CGI program installed on the same server. This is in response to "how can I make a form to upload ..." questions. The reponse is a script with a file upload form and upload confirmation message integrated within it. Integrated Popups Means No Extra WebPage I will show you how to integrate the content of a popup into the JavaScript code itself. No URL to a separate web page file is required. JavaScript Syndication Feeds To JavaScript-Disabled Browsers If you have syndicated content delivered with JavaScript, the increasing number of folks who turn their browser's JavaScript off can be a concern. Find out what percentage of folks who land on your landing page actually buy (or subscribe or take other desired action). Let Your Visitors Recommend Your Website Making it easy for your visitors to recommend your web site can increase the number of folks who visit. It can be very effective or not, depending on how you present it If your hosting company lets you have your own log files, a lot of good information can be extracted. How many old, unused (or under-used) CGI scripts do you have lingering on your server, taking up space? Master Merry-Go-Round has been updated so content can be inserted with with JavaScript and with PHP, in addition to the SSI and popup methods the earlier version was limited to. Moving CGI Scripts to a New Server Moving a web site to a different server can be a breeze, or it can be a real headache. When scripts or other server programs need to be moved to the new location, a bit more care needs to be taken. Multiple Products Order Form For PayPal (a $79 PayPal e-commerce software solution) The multiple product order form method presented here allows you to have a list of products with either checkboxes to check or text areas where the customer types in quantities. New Automatic Form Submission Prevention System Automatic Form Submission is troublesome and annoying. I've been working on a prevention for some time. And, now, I am happy to announce the new auto-submit prevention system! Non-Display Image Silently Causes CGI Program to Run JavaScript can be used to load an image into memory on demand. The image load can cause a CGI program to run. "OnLoad" Attribute Activates CGI Script Launch a CGI program when a page loads using the "OnLoad" attribute. PayPal Link instead of "Buy Now" Button Let me show you how to bypass the hassle of creating a new PayPal "buy now" button every time your selling information changes, and protect your email address at the same time. Perl CGI Script 'Environment Variables' The more technical parts of Master Pre-Installation Tester's output are described here. CONTENT_LENGTH, CONTENT_TYPE, DOCUMENT_ROOT, etc. Personal Search Engine For Your Site You've got yourself a nice site. And you want to make it nicer with a search engine. To clarify, "search engine" and "directory" are different concepts. Printing the Year Day with Perl Using Perl and SSI or JavaScript to print the current year day onto a web page. Computerized random selections are pseudo-random, sometimes tending to slant toward certain results, depending on the randomizing algorithm and the operating system the program is running on. Reasons Why Scripts Won't Send Email There are numerous reasons why scripts won't send email as they should, why everything else works, but no email arrives. Redirect pages are useful tools -- they can provide a vehicle for counting the CTR on ads, and initiate downloads of your ebook or other files. With this redirect page generator, you can create a redirect page with the ability to cause click logging and/or to send an email with each click. This system can be used for automatic downloads as well as for "normal" redirects Restoring Files When FTP Can't Some servers present special difficulties when restoring file backups in directories created with scripts. Rotate Content with Ease, Elegance, and Style Content Carousel has superseded Master Merry-Go-Round as the premium content rotator of partial pages and whole pages. Running a CGI Program On Page Load Many different methods of launching a CGI program when a page loads. Running a CGI Script When Page Loads From statistics gathering to silent webmaster notification to email subscription solicitation, there can be any of many reasons for triggering a CGI script to run when a web page loads. Search Engine Spider-Friendly JavaScript Content If you have syndicated content delivered with JavaScript, the content might not be indexed by the search engines. Here is a solution. Simple Database Search (number search) Upload this script. Create a database with your spreadsheet program and upload it. Just like that, you have a database you can search for numbers within a range. Simple Database Search (text search) Upload this script. Create a database with your spreadsheet program and upload it. Just like that, you have a database you can search for matches to a string of text. Here is a simple file upload script. It has a dual purpose, something easy to install for those who can use it and something to study for those who want to see how it's done. You're undoubtedly aware of the fact that some browsers display only some of the source code used to render pages. Some browsers won't display non-HTML URLs like .js (JavaScript) and .css (Cascading Style Sheet) source code pages, as examples. And, you can never get a browser to reveal the source code of a frameset page. Software Bugs, and How They Can Happen One of the reasons computer programs can have bugs- Programmers are human. (It's actually true!) If you use any forms that send email, know that there are many, many software titles, probably hundreds, with the vulnerability described in "Web Page Form Anti-Hijacking Considerations" found at /hijack1 and in "How Spammers Hijack Your Forms" found at /hijack2 Visitor feedback forms have been around ever since browsers have supported CGI. Statistics for Syndicated Content Want page view and domain name statistics for your JavaScript syndicated content, yet don't want to pay for features in Master Syndication Gateway V2 that you won't use? Here is an answer: Use Master Syndicator V4, instead, along with the statistics gathering script presented here. Sometimes it's desirable for form submission results to be printed on the same page as the form. The form can then be used again without clicking to another web page. I'll show you a way to do that. Submitting a Form To a Web Page Sometimes it's desirable for form submission results to be printed on the same page as the form. The form can then be used again without clicking to another web page. Suppose you required the results of 1000 surveys before making a decision about something. Suppose further, that you wanted to publish how many more surveys are still required to reach that number. I'll show you how to do that countdown. Syndicating Content With JavaScript or PHP Syndicate content using JavaScript or PHP, for better control over your intellectual property. Without CGI, there would be no contact forms on web sites, no live surveys, no shopping carts, no search engines. Web sites would be static things that provide information and pretty pictures but offer no interaction. The Multi-Action Form Submission System We received 3 inquires, each spaced 2 days apart, about how one would go about submitting a form to more than one CGI program. A solution has been found. The complete article is at The Top 10 CGI Program Support Queries A surprising number of people choose a Master Series CGI program for their first script installation. Here are self-help resources for answers to questions about CGI in general and installation in particular Using Master Merry-Go-Round To Increase AdSense Revenue I've been testing something for 6 weeks and am now ready to make a report. I doubled AdSense click-throughs at a 250-article Possibilities ezine archives site. Using Temporary Download Links To Help Your Business Giving away free stuff? Giving purchase bonuses? Providing incentives? You'll want to read this article. Viewing Files in Your CGI Directory If you should find yourself wanting to monitor a log file or database in your CGI directory, yet don't want to download the file every time just to view it, this article contains an answer. What To Do About CGI Installation Error Messages Here are step-by-step rundowns for solving annoying server error messages you might see when you install a CGI script. Invisible characters, sometimes referred to as gremlins, interspersed in text files, can nevertheless become visible as strange characters when displayed in a browser. Further, if the file is used as a template where certain sequences of characters need to be replaced, gremlins within the sequence can abort the replacement. |
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