Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 03/14/06 13:36

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, Rebekha Ljoekelsoey wrote:

> Can I ask for clarification regarding hidden elements in forms and
> the use of the mailto:
>
> I have recently been told that the inclusion of the mailto: will
> render the form inoperative

> <input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="mailto:name@server.co.uk">
>
> Mailto: in the hidden field shouldn't be there are
[as?]
> it makes the form inoperable.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That is obviously meaningless in the terms in which it is stated.
"The form" will do nothing more nor less than submit an appropriate
character-string value to the server. What then happens, depends on
the server-side script, which is not in evidence here.

> Mailto: should only be used in a normal email link.

There isn't any "link" in evidence here - only a "form control" (to
use the language of the HTML4 spec). Its value is just a string of
characters - with no particular meaning until the server-side script
does something with them, and thereby assigns them meaning.

Maybe they're trying to tell you that the server-side script cannot
process this value in its terms? We really have no idea.

> Your comments would be warmly appreciated

Then again, maybe your critic is confusing it with:

<form ... action="mailto:...">

which is surely not a good idea. Or maybe you are?

By the way, it would be CRAZY to allow a script to accept an email
address from an unidentified web user, and then send a mail to that
address: that's called a "spam relay", and will cause severe
headaches as soon as the usual suspects find it.

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