Need some help on email form

[CGDesigns]

Hi,

I need some tips/advice/help for an email form. I've done small PHP email forms with just a few items in it. But, I am doing a larger one now and I need some tips on how to make it email in a easily-readable format, and tie in all the properties in the form. It's kind of like an order-form. Below each picture will be a checkbox group and someone can check however many they would like. At the end of the page there will be a submit button, which will email the items the customer wants to the business. The business will then bill the customer.

This is what it will kind of look like:



So, how would I tie this into a PHP mail-to form to get all these fields in? Thanks for the help!

Q

[mlseim]

How do they tell you how many (the quantity) of each?

And do you use a database, like MySQL to contain all of your items?


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[CGDesigns]

There will be a message option to include how many of each item either at the bottom of the page or at each item.

No, I'm not using a MySQL database.

[mlseim]

This will be too awkward and too hard to do without MySQL.
Every single change you wish to make will require "hand-coding" and updating HTML.
What if you want to add another option, or another item?
What if the price changes, or you are out of stock on items, or an item is removed?

Even the email part is sort of a bad idea. The business should be able to log-in to
an admin section where they can view all orders, not relying on email. What if the
recipient is on vacation, or doesn't see the email? If you email several people, how
do they know who sees it or not?

Maybe someone will provide you with some scripting, but I won't spend the time on
this because I think you're going to fall short on what you end-up with.

If this is important for that business, they should be hiring a programmer to do this right.
Spend the money, write-off for business expenses. They will have a system that can
grow, change, and be flexible enough to not require a web master.




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[CGDesigns]

Thanks for the ideas. I don't want to have to use a database unless I absolutely need to. The people who own this business do not want to have to go onto a database to view every order .

[mlseim]

They just view a webpage that only they can see.
The PHP script creates the page by getting orders from the database.