Server-Side form submissions - how do they work?



  • So, my friends and I are going to try out a new burger joint tonight.  I decided to check out their website to see if they offered any coupons.  Apparently, they have an "email club" where they send out coupons.  I figured I would sign up with a throwaway e-mail address just in case they offered something for new signups....

    http://www.burgerstarusa.com/findus.html

    Imagine my surprise when Firefox asked me if I wanted to open Thunderbird when I clicked "Submit."  Yes, they actually have the form action set to a mailto.  I remember doing something similar on my geocities page back in 1996.  At least I had the excuse of only being 12 years old at the time



  • Hey, at least it uses a proper email instead of hiding behind a web form. I get to see it in my sent items, I get threading that works properly, I get to see exactly what email address they are using. As a user, I love this.
    Seriously, I hate these stupid feedback forms that make me fill in my email content in a textarea then I have to hope I can remember what I sent to them when they reply to me. I would love for more sites to use an actual email for contact. Forms are only needed when you want to force the user to provide certain details, or if you are afraid that your users won't know how to use an email client (and would you really want them to contact you if they are that inept, if you were allowed to choose?). Or if you want to hide behind an anonymous corporate face.



  • @TarquinWJ said:

    Hey, at least it uses a proper email instead of hiding behind a web form. I get to see it in my sent items, I get threading that works properly, I get to see exactly what email address they are using. As a user, I love this.
    Seriously, I hate these stupid feedback forms that make me fill in my email content in a textarea then I have to hope I can remember what I sent to them when they reply to me. I would love for more sites to use an actual email for contact. Forms are only needed when you want to force the user to provide certain details, or if you are afraid that your users won't know how to use an email client (and would you really want them to contact you if they are that inept, if you were allowed to choose?). Or if you want to hide behind an anonymous corporate face.

    The thing about being a "corporation" is it's usually more than just one anonymous face. It's possible that the web form uses those pesky category selections to determine which face your message actually needs to go to so it doesn't end up in someone else's trash. Maybe you like having to keep a contact list for every company you would ever interact with but I personally like being able to just go to a website, select a drop-down and enter a message to quickly get things to the right person.



  •  Wow. I don't remember when was the last time I used a separate email client (with the exception of corporate Outlook, but I won't use that to get burger coupons). In fact, I think it's impossible to use e.g. Hotmail with a pop3 client, isn't it? And gmail is actually better than desktop applications.

    I can only imagine: clicking "Submit", then wait... wait a little more... ooh it's Thunderbird! And it's starting to download one year old messages!

     Khaaaaaan!!!



  • @Kiss me I'm Polish said:

     Wow. I don't remember when was the last time I used a separate email client (with the exception of corporate Outlook, but I won't use that to get burger coupons). In fact, I think it's impossible to use e.g. Hotmail with a pop3 client, isn't it? And gmail is actually better than desktop applications.

    I can only imagine: clicking "Submit", then wait... wait a little more... ooh it's Thunderbird! And it's starting to download one year old messages!

     Khaaaaaan!!!

    I changed my mailto: handler to a small program I wrote that just displays the various fields in a browser window so that I can copy/paste them into Gmail if I wanted to actually mail someone.

    That being said, I think 99% of the time I just used it to view the contact gag in Dinosaur Comics. Usually I just copy/paste the email address straight from the page.

    (Speaking of which "user{at}host{dot}tld"-style address listings need to die violently in a fire. Those only confused spambots for like, what, two months back in the mid-90's?)



  •  @MiffTheFox said:

    I changed my mailto: handler to a small program I wrote that just displays the various fields in a browser window so that I can copy/paste them into Gmail if I wanted to actually mail someone.

    Or you could just, you know, set gmail as the default mailto handler in any decent browser...

     



  •  I suggest we email Julie and let her know how great the site is.



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    Dinosaur Comics.

     So, why do people like dinosaur comics?

    I mean, the art is non-original and also shit, so people who read it obviously don't care about the visual aspect. Then why isn't this "comic" in the form of small bits of text-only dialog?

    I'd respect the comic more if the guy'd drew his own shit, even if he cant draw very well. Look at XKCD: he can't draw very well either, but over time, you can see he definitely improved, and it's become a style of its own, and it's clear and supports the writing very well, even if it's still not very good art.

     


  • Garbage Person

    @dhromed said:

    Look at XKCD: he can't draw very well either, but over time, you can see he definitely improved
    This is a pattern for every webcomic I've ever found worth reading. Horrifying, shit art early on shading into good/excellent artwork that's more or less a parody of its craptastical roots, backed up by an artist who is clearly of the opinion that they haven't made any progress at all. The day a web cartoonist decides "I can draw good!" is the day they start failing miserably.

    This is not an excuse for making NO progress, however.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @TarquinWJ said:

    Forms are only needed when you want to force the user to provide certain details, or if you are afraid that your users won't know how to use an email client
    Or you want to piss off 3rd parties that want to report spam that's been generated/passed by your service and your abuse@ address 'isn't good enough' or your company is 'important enough' to not want to bother with such things.



  • @Kiss me I'm Polish said:

    And gmail is actually better than desktop applications.


    You ARE kidding, right? Give Google my personal details to be kept forever? Know that even when you delete something in Gmail, they'll probably store it for years afterwards anyway? Naah. Outlook is fine for my needs if I want something desktop-based, and there are plenty of leaner, meaner, faster web e-mail services (like BigStirng or e-mile, to name but two) that aren't burdened down with unnecessary crap like Gmail is.



  • @Weng said:

    @dhromed said:

    Look at XKCD: he can't draw very well either, but over time, you can see he definitely improved
    This is a pattern for every webcomic I've ever found worth reading. Horrifying, shit art early on shading into good/excellent artwork that's more or less a parody of its craptastical roots, backed up by an artist who is clearly of the opinion that they haven't made any progress at all. The day a web cartoonist decides "I can draw good!" is the day they start failing miserably.

    This is not an excuse for making NO progress, however.

    Not just web comics, look at Dilbert or Foxtrot or The Far Side. People who are good artists and good comedians and have the patience to do comics are pretty rare... Calvin and Hobbes or Pogo is a once-in-a-generation thing.

    That said, Dinosaur Comics isn't really a traditional comic at all. Think of it as more like a short play each day... especially the ones where T-Rex is speaking to people off-panel, and the numerous ones where Dromiceiomimus doesn't say a word. I find it funny most days, a much better "hit" ratio than most comics.

    And if it makes you feel better, Ryan North isn't making a living from the comic. His income comes from the Project Wonderful ad exchange he founded.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    That said, Dinosaur Comics isn't really a traditional comic at all. Think of it as more like a short play each day...
     

    I get that, I just contest the presentation. I opine that he should change form to be text-only. At the very least, compose the comic a new each time to aupport the dialogue.

    I am touchy-feely about this because I possess The Craft of drawing shit and go all :( when people don't take it serial seriously.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Ryan North isn't making a living from the comic. His income comes from the Project Wonderful ad exchange he founded.

    Oh, he did that?

    Good on him. I sometimes click those banners because they have often taken me to some excellent stuff.



  • @dhromed said:

    I get that, I just contest the presentation.

    I have the exact opposite opinion. This guy wants to make a comic, he definitely has the writing chops, but he doesn't want to spend 10 years learning to draw, or utterly rely on some other party. I think his solution to the problem is genius, frankly... and, hell, it could be much worse, it could be a game sprite comic! Those are excrement.

    How do you feel about good comics that barely scrape by on the art? Like, again, Dilbert?

    @dhromed said:

    I am touchy-feely about this because I possess The Craft of drawing shit and go all :( when people don't take it serial seriously.

    Well, let's see your webcomic then. Maybe he's more successful because he jumps at chances for self-promotion and you don't, haha.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    This guy wants to make a comic, he definitely has the writing chops. I think his solution to the problem is genius,

    I don't mind that he doesn't want to draw, that's perfectly okay. We don't all have the same interests, skills and priorities.

    I think his "solution" is cop-out shit.

    he doesn't want to spend 10 years learning to draw

    He doesn't have to seclude himself for 10 years to learn cartoon-fu at some Tibetan monastery, then come and produce the Finest Thing Ever Witnessed. He just needs to start drawing. It'll get better.

    I personally derive great pleasure from watching the art progress over the years.

    @blakeyrat said:

    How do you feel about good comics that barely scrape by on the art? Like, again, Dilbert?

    I don't like Dilbert.

    I like XKCD a lot, which also scrapes by. As I said, XKCD is actually drawn with a sense of wanting to produce something visual, and the drawings support the writing perfectly.

    SMBC: He's made precious little progress in over 2000 strips. His style is clear and alive, though, and I love the jokes.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Well, let's see your webcomic then.

    I can't write.



  • @dhromed said:

    I don't mind that he doesn't want to draw, that's perfectly okay. We don't all have the same interests, skills and priorities.

    I think his "solution" is cop-out shit.

    More or less "cop-out shit" than game sprite comics? You didn't answer that one. Because I think he's on a fucking pedestal compared to most sprite comics. Oh, and what about comics like SUPER MEGA COMICS or Pokey the Penguin, where the poor drawing is part of the joke?

    I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. If the comic is funny, I don't give a shit what the visuals look like. And I've seen a hell of a lot of well-drawn comics that are so boring I fell asleep after 3 strips. (Although I'm not an artiste... maybe boring was the point?)

    @dhromed said:

    he doesn't want to spend 10 years learning to draw

    He doesn't have to seclude himself for 10 years to learn cartoon-fu at some Tibetan monastery, then come and produce the Finest Thing Ever Witnessed. He just needs to start drawing. It'll get better.

    I personally derive great pleasure from watching the art progress over the years.

    I spent three years trying to learn calculus and all I learned is that my brain can't do calculus.

    @dhromed said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Well, let's see your webcomic then.

    I can't write.

    First of all, if you can't write, and you're aiming to produce a web comic, you should learn to write first. Since your art is already average or better.

    Secondly, no RSS means no follow, sorry. Also your home page doesn't have a "previous" arrow which is kind of busted-- you have to click to get to the latest post, THEN you can click back to the previous post. So... fix your site if you want to show your work.

    Thirdly, I can't for the life of me figure out what happened in the 7th panel. Ok, so he got air-horned and he dissolves into dust or whatever, fine... then... some... thing... happens... then suddenly he has a cannon? Sorry but I don't get it.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    if you can't write, and you're aiming to produce a web comic, you should learn to write first. Since your art is already average or better.

    Or find a writer. It could get very interesting.



  • @b-redeker said:

     It could get very interesting.

    Or not.  I personally dislike people that litter and the internet is already full of crap, both figuratively and not, that is why I keep my presence online to a minimun, I'm not an interesting person and I don't find others interesting as well, so there.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    First of all, if you can't write, and you're aiming to produce a web comic, you should learn to write first. Since your art is already average or better.

    Secondly, no RSS means no follow, sorry. Also your home page doesn't have a "previous" arrow which is kind of busted-- you have to click to get to the latest post, THEN you can click back to the previous post. So... fix your site if you want to show your work.

    Thirdly, I can't for the life of me figure out what happened in the 7th panel. Ok, so he got air-horned and he dissolves into dust or whatever, fine... then... some... thing... happens... then suddenly he has a cannon? Sorry but I don't get it.

     

    You are correct on all accounts, and I have no excuses other that I'll promise to shape up on slacking off on the ol' website. It's all homegrown, because hey, I am a webdeveloper after all, but I'm considering dumping this amatr PHP shit and moving to tumblr; trning pliv.com into a prtfolio type deal or whatevr asprations I have.

    By the way, in case it wasn't clear, I don't currently aim to produce a webcomic. :)

    @blakeyrat said:

    More or less "cop-out shit" than game sprite comics?

    I've never seen a sprite comic where I thought the writing was good enough for me to stick around. But if it were, then certainly. At least sprite comics don't use the exact same goddamn picture every time (barring the minor variations now and then).

    @blakeyrat said:

    Oh, and what about comics like SUPER MEGA COMICS or Pokey the Penguin, where the poor drawing is part of the joke?

    Writing/jokes would have to be pretty damn good to ensnare me into looking at... that.

    @blakeyrat said:

    If the comic is funny, I don't give a shit what the visuals look like. And I've seen a hell of a lot of well-drawn comics that are so boring I fell asleep after 3 strips. (Although I'm not an artiste... maybe boring was the point?)

    Absolutely! It happens often enough that I come across a well-drawn comic that I just don't find very interesting. At the same time, really bad art starts to grate after a while, and I bin the bookmark,

    You gotta have enough of both.

    @blakeyrat said:

    I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

    No accounting for taste. :)



  • @dhromed said:

    You are correct on all accounts, and I have no excuses other that I'll promise to shape up on slacking off on the ol' website. It's all homegrown, because hey, I am a webdeveloper after all, but I'm considering dumping this amatr PHP shit and moving to tumblr; trning pliv.com into a prtfolio type deal or whatevr asprations I have.

    I tried starting a Tumblr. I emailed it a post, then 4 hours later it still wasn't posted. (Oh look, it's still not posted, an entire week later: http://blakeyrat.tumblr.com/. So add "silently errors" as a gripe.) As an added bonus, I got a 500 error about 60% of the time I tried to load a new page. Tumblr's shit.

    @dhromed said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    More or less?

    But if it were, then certainly.

    Grah. Certainly which!?

    @dhromed said:

    Writing/jokes would have to be pretty damn good to ensnare me into looking at... that.

    Super Mega Comics is the funniest webcomic around right now. (Pokey the Penguin is an acquired taste.)

    @dhromed said:

    You gotta have enough of both.

    I think established history proves that assertion wrong.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:
    You gotta have enough of both.
    I think established history proves that assertion wrong.

    eh?

    I thought you agreed to disagree - meaning you accept his right to want a different balance in visual/textual than you do.



  • @b-redeker said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:
    You gotta have enough of both.
    I think established history proves that assertion wrong.

    eh?

    I thought you agreed to disagree - meaning you accept his right to want a different balance in visual/textual than you do.

    I thought you understood how the blakeyrant worked, making sense is not a priority



  • @b-redeker said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:
    You gotta have enough of both.
    I think established history proves that assertion wrong.

    eh?

    I thought you agreed to disagree - meaning you accept his right to want a different balance in visual/textual than you do.

    Well, if he meant "you" as in "me, Dhromed, and only me", then you're right.

    If he meant "you" as in "people in general", then I was just pointing out that the established success of comics like Dilbert, The Far Side, etc. prove the statement wrong.

    So I probably shouldn't have typed that without knowing which "you" he was using.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Well, if he meant "you" as in "me, Dhromed, and only me", then you're right.

    If he meant "you" as in "people in general", then I was just pointing out that the established success of comics like Dilbert, The Far Side, etc. prove the statement wrong.

    So I probably shouldn't have typed that without knowing which "you" he was using.

    No, in both cases the assertion is correct, people that like Dilbert think that it have enough art to satisfy them.  The amount of art both real and perceived necessary for a person to find a comic strip worthwhile varies so....



  • @serguey123 said:

    I thought you understood how the blakeyrant worked, making sense is not a priority

    I like occasionally pointing it out if the hole is a bit too obvious. In general I like pointing out obvious things, I guess.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    More or less?

    But if it were, then certainly.

    Grah. Certainly which!?

     

    Here:

    I've never seen a sprite comic where I thought the writing was good
    enough for me to stick around. But if it were, then certainly.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Super Mega Comics is the funniest webcomic around right now. (Pokey the Penguin is an acquired taste.)

    I once followed one of those badly drawn mspaint comics about a gnome. He had an assault rifle, and his friend was a triangle. I thought it was funny, but I gave it up after a while.



  • @dhromed said:

    I once followed one of those badly drawn mspaint comics about a gnome. He had an assault rifle, and his friend was a triangle. I thought it was funny, but I gave it up after a while.

    This comic had me and my friends cracking up for weeks.



  •  yea that's pretty smirkworthy.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    This comic had me and my friends cracking up for weeks.

    @b-redeker said:

    De gustibus non est disputandem



  • @b-redeker said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    This comic had me and my friends cracking up for weeks.

    @b-redeker said:

    De gustibus non est disputandem

    Of the dead, There is no disputing. Uh. 'Kay...



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @b-redeker said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    This comic had me and my friends cracking up for weeks.

    @b-redeker said:

    De gustibus non est disputandem

    Of the dead, There is no disputing. Uh. 'Kay...

    Google translate is retarded, I'm pretty sure he/she/it meant disputandum instead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum



  • @serguey123 said:

    Google translate is retarded, I'm pretty sure he/she/it meant disputandum instead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum

    Whatever, I don't speak gibberish. If people are more concerned with looking smart by quoting obscure Latin phrases than they are in communicating clearly, I really don't care to jump through hoops to figure out what they were saying.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Whatever, I don't speak gibberish.

    Hey, it's what they speak in Latin America.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Whatever, I don't speak gibberish.

    Some people in here might disagree



  • @b-redeker said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Whatever, I don't speak gibberish.

    Hey, it's what they speak in Latin America.

    Fun fact: US English speakers will use much more obscure Latin phrases than Spanish-speaking countries. I've had to search what "ad hominem" means as well as other Latin terms, sometimes seen in legal terms like "habeas corpus".



  • @danixdefcon5 said:

    Fun fact: US English speakers will use much more obscure Latin phrases than Spanish-speaking countries. I've had to search what "ad hominem" means as well as other Latin terms, sometimes seen in legal terms like "habeas corpus".

    But those terms appeal to those trigger-happy Americans. One means you're aiming at the man and the other one means we have a corpse.


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