Dave,

The VERY first thing you need to do is isolate the set of conditions that
are causing this.  This will require feedback from the users.  You may find
that they are using a common browser/version or something similar.  By doing
this, you can then work towards the solution.

Once you can duplicate the problem, then you can almost always create a
solution.  Unless you are encountering some weird server related issues
(which seems doubtful in this situation), then there is probably something
common to the users that is causing this.

Start there and see what you find.  It may be a bug that you are forced to
compensate for or may be something else entirely, but at least you will have
a starting point.

Thanks,
Keith D Sellars
WebGraffix
www.webgraffix.com

"Making database sites seem easy"


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Burlingame" <drbexe(at)tampabay.rr.com>
To: <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 10:37 PM
Subject: Form Problem


>
> Hi... I don't mean to interrupt the "morals" discussion, but I have a real
> problem with a form, and this list is really awesome for problem
> solving..... here's some details:
>
> It's a "Product Search" form on a web site for about 60 stores to use.
It's
> in a password protected folder, as it's only for the 60 stores to use, but
> if anyone would like to see the code, I'll post it below (with some extra
> "dots" for those with HTML on...).
>
> Now, the problem. For some users, this form works fine. For other users,
it
> only transmits part of the form. The forms that don't transmit properly
are
> all cut off at exactly the same place.... about 25 characters into the
last
> field, the "Parts You Are Searching For" field. Some users put about two
> pages worth of information in this field, and everybody gets it fine.
Other
> users get cut off at exactly the same place, every time.
>
> I've made all the fields "textarea"s so the form doesn't get "Submitted"
> when a user hits the "Enter" key. I don't think this has anything to do
with
> the problem, but if there's a better way to do this, please let me know.
> I'll try about anything.
>
> The form is set to e-mail to about 80 addresses, and I'm using Matt's
> FormMail (which is set up by my server, so I'm not sure I can change it).
>
> Can anybody give me any clues to try??? I'm at wits end!! I've tried a lot
> of things, like making all the e-mail addresses lower case, making the
> "Method" "Post" instead of "Get", etc.  By the way, one of the users that
> the form works for correctly is on AOL, so I guess that's not the problem!
>
> Dave Burlingame
> http://www.drbexe.com/
>
>
> Here's the code....
>
>
> <.!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">
> <.HTML>
> <.HEAD>
> <.META NAME="Author" CONTENT="David Roy Burlingame">
> <.TITLE>PRODUCT SEARCH</TITLE>
> <./HEAD>
> <.BODY>
> <.H1 ALIGN=CENTER>PRODUCT SEARCH FORM</H1>
> <.CENTER><.B>Simply fill in the form and press the Submit button at the
> bottom of the page!<./B><./CENTER>
> <HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="50%" SIZE=2>
>
> <.FORM METHOD=GET ACTION="/cgi-bin/formmail.pl">
> <.input type=hidden name="recipient"
> value="drbexe(at)tampabay.rr.com,jgrayragco@ .msn.com, .....{{{ there's about
> 80 e-mail addresses here, and it's *supposed* to be a confidential list,
so
> I've removed them. But they are all like the first two, which I've left
in,
> all separated by commas.}}}....,">
>
> <.input type=hidden name="redirect"
value="h.ttp://www.ragco.com/internal/">
> <.TABLE BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=5>
> <.TR><.TD><.B>Your Store:<./B><./TD><.TD><.TEXTAREA NAME="StoreName"
ROWS=2
> COLS=40><./TEXTAREA>
> <./TD><./TR>
> <.TR><.TD>
> <.B>Your Name:<./B><./TD><.TD><.TEXTAREA NAME="Name" ROWS=1
> COLS=40><./TEXTAREA><./TD><./TR>
> <.TR><.TD><.B>Your E-Mail Address:<./B><./TD><.TD><.TEXTAREA NAME="email"
> ROWS=1 COLS=40><./TEXTAREA>
> <./TD><./TR>
> <.TR><.TD>
> <.B>Company Phone:<./B><./TD><.TD><.TEXTAREA NAME="Phone" ROWS=1
> COLS=40><./TEXTAREA>
> <./TD><./TR><.TR><.TD>
> <.B>Company Fax:<./B><./TD><.TD><.TEXTAREA NAME="Fax" ROWS=1
> COLS=40><./TEXTAREA>
> <./TD><./TR><./TABLE>
> <.CENTER><.B>Now, please describe the parts you would like to search
> for:<./B><./CENTER>
> <.CENTER><.FONT SIZE="-1"><.B>Note: You are not limited by the size of the
> box. You can enter as much text as you like.<./B><./FONT><./CENTER>
> <.CENTER><.TEXTAREA NAME="Parts" ROWS=10 COLS=60><./TEXTAREA><./CENTER>
> <HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="50%" SIZE=2>
> <.CENTER><.B>Note: Be specific; besides the product name you're looking
for,
> don't forget size, quantity and any other important
> information!<./B><./CENTER>
> <HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%" SIZE=4 NOSHADE>
> <.CENTER><.INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit Form">
> <.INPUT TYPE="RESET" VALUE="Reset Form"><./CENTER>
> <./FORM>
> <HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="50%" SIZE="3">
> <br>
> <.CENTER><.B>This site created by...<./B><./CENTER>
> <.CENTER><.A HREF="http://www.drbexe.com/"><.B>DRB.EXE OF TAMPA
> BAY<./B><./A><./CENTER>
> <./BODY>
> <./HTML>
>
>
>
>
>

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