Need help w/registration form to d/l files

[buckeyeaz]

Hello -

I am a newbie to FT, and php, and am looking for guidance (or help) with creating a form and additional functionality.

My client wants his site visitors to register before downloading files. The visitor sees a list of document links in a page, clicks on the wanted document link and is taken to a registration form. After submitting the form, the 'thank you' page includes a link to download the wanted file.

Is this functionality available in FT? Or can anyone direct me to further information to be found on the internet on how to configure this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ben]

Hi buckeyeaz,

Sure, no problem! This is certainly do-able, but it would take a little configuration.

Here's how I picture it working.

1. On the page that lists the documents, each link would be the same, only passing the name of the document to the form. Something like this:

Code:

<ul>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc1">Document 1</a></li>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc2">Document 2</a></li>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc3">Document 3</a></li>
</ul>

2. Next, on the form page (form.php), you'd store that information in a hidden field to be passed along with the form submission.

Code:

<input type="hidden" name="document" value="<?php echo $_GET["doc"]" />

3. Assuming this is a POST form - not hooked up with the Form Tools API - you'd configure Form Tools to pass along the document value to the thank you page (this is actually really easy - this tutorial explains something very similar).

4. Lastly, on the thankyou page, figure out which document is passed viat the query string and display the appropriate (real) link to the file. This is kind of explained in the previous tutorial.

Hope this helps!

- Ben

[buckeyeaz]

Hi Ben -

Wow. That looks pretty easy. I really appreciate your response and information.

Now I just have to convince the client to activate mysql on their website. (See what happens when you assume...?)

Thank you!!

Hi buckeyeaz,

Sure, no problem! This is certainly do-able, but it would take a little configuration.

Here's how I picture it working.

1. On the page that lists the documents, each link would be the same, only passing the name of the document to the form. Something like this:

Code:

<ul>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc1">Document 1</a></li>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc2">Document 2</a></li>
  <li><a href="form.php?doc=doc3">Document 3</a></li>
</ul>

2. Next, on the form page (form.php), you'd store that information in a hidden field to be passed along with the form submission.

Code:

<input type="hidden" name="document" value="<?php echo $_GET["doc"]" />

3. Assuming this is a POST form - not hooked up with the Form Tools API - you'd configure Form Tools to pass along the document value to the thank you page (this is actually really easy - this tutorial explains something very similar).

4. Lastly, on the thankyou page, figure out which document is passed viat the query string and display the appropriate (real) link to the file. This is kind of explained in the previous tutorial.

Hope this helps!

- Ben

[Ben]

Haha :-) Good luck with that!

- Ben