Subscribe to RSS feedmail(), not mailto:
By Martin / (X)HTML & CSS / Thursday October 9th, 2008 / 4 comments
The mailto: pseudo-protocol seems to be a very popular method of mailing form data. May I point out it is not very efficient? The main problem is that the user is forced to open up their email client just to send the mail. Also, the format isn't very good, and the to address is revealed.
Instead, you can use a simple server-side command in your preferred server-side language to send mail smoothly, and silently. The client doesn't even know the data they submitted is being mailed, unless you tell them. You can even format the data any way you like, plain-text or HTML, and send it to anyone you want. Sound better than mailto:?
The PHP function is mail(). It takes three to five arguments - the to address, the subject, the message body, and optional headers (such as content-type), and optional parameters for the mailer program. If you want to send HTML mail, just set the content-type (and MIME) headers, Windows newline delimited.
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4 comments
Nathan You will not believe how many mailto: links I see around the web today. Glad I use mail() too.
Drew Caspar i think that using mailto: links stink and i have never used them, since it simply opens up a microsoft outlook browser, so i like mail() much better...
Let me see Lol.. You seems to be very funny.
Lets consider .. i m end user. Now i saw some such mailto: link at some site.
Now how will i use mail() funciton of PHP. Where as i m normal user. i dont have php installed, iis or apache installed..
forget installing i even dont know whats mean PHP.
How wil i use mail()?
Lolz...
instead of making script in PHP. i would copy that mail and go in gmail
and send it via gmail.. or some other mail provider.
Martin @Let me see
The good thing about the site's developer using the server to send mail is precisely that - as the end user, you do not need to have any interaction. All you do is submit a form, as you may do on this site's contact page, and the mail is sent from the server. No need for you, the "normal user", to install Apache or PHP on your computer, or even open a mail client!
If a server-side method is used, _the server does everything_.
"Now i saw some such mailto: link at some site.
Now how will i use mail() funciton of PHP." - the developer has to change the action from the mailto: pseudo-protocol to a page that handles the form and calls mail().