Do I need a field in FM for every web form tag?

[Jason Barker]

On my custom web form, I would like to have a text input field to allow the user to enter an email address. When the user submits the form, I want to create an email that would be sent to the address entered (if one was entered). I don't want to save the email address in the database as it would only be for this purpose. When I try to submit the form with this text element included, FileMaker complains. How should I do this? How do I get FileMaker to do this process of sending an email when a new record is entered?

Thanks for your help!

[Anatoli]

WC can send the email, but it has to have the email address. To send the email from previous page, the address has to be pulled from somewhere -- ideal for this is FM database.

So you will get the email, create new record for it or update existing record and use it for sending the email.

[Steve T.]

Hi, JB! I think there are several ways to do this and my guess would be that JavaScript would be best for you (but I know squat about JavaScript) because you do not want to store the e-mail address. In FMP, I store the mail address and use a variation of Vaughan's method that goes in 2 steps with 3 pages:

1. input page (SUBMIT makes new record)

2. follow-up / mail request page (SUBMIT sends mail)

3. thank you page

I'm fairly certain you could use an INLINE ACTION on the follow-up page, but I gave up on it and just went with the 2 steps (I did not feel like learning tokens at the time). Keeping the address may be a good idea, anyway, though, and it's just one more field, eh? Good luck! --ST