Steps to Create Form

The Flash form consists of 2 basic parts. One part is the group of text
fields that make up the form. These are actually contained within a movieclip
aptly named “form.” Secondly, you have the send button. This will be the
button that activates the code that sends the form information to the PHP
file. At that point, Flash’s job is done. It’s then up to the PHP script to
make sure the email gets sent.

1. Start off by making the appropriate form fields. Make sure these are
input fields and not static or dynamic text fields Include as many as you want. Each will be sent to the PHP file where they can then be sorted.

2. Assign each text field a var value. This is NOT an instance name. The var field allows you to associate a variable with the given text field Because loadVariables is being used to transmit the information, this is needed to make the value of these text fields easily recognized as variables to that command. This example uses name, email, and body for field variable names.

3.

Once you have created and named each field, select them all and create a new movieclip out of them. This will be the form movieclip. Give it the instance name form when you’re done.

4.

Next, create a button. This will serve as the send button. This will exist
not within the form, but in the same place as the form. It’s on this button
that the loadVariables script will be added. That script is as follows:
form.loadVariables(”email.php”, “POST”);
This calls loadVariables through the form movieclip sending all variables
saved in that movieclip to email.php using the POST method. Because all the
text fields in form have variables associated with them, this effectively
sends all information filled out in those fields to the email PHP page. From
that PHP page, the sent information can be retrieved using each field’s var
name. One thing to be cautious of is that you need to make sure the
movieclip you are using loadVariables with exists long enough for it to send
its variables to the URL specified. Because this mailer has a thank you
screen after sending an email, you’ll need to wait until Flash does that
before showing that screen and losing the form movieclip.

5.

You can tell when a movieclip has sent its variables out from its
onClipEvent(data) event. This is event is called when the movieclip receives
data from the server either confirming its variables have been sent or in the
case where new variables are brought into Flash. We aren’t bringing
variables in, just sending out. But we do need to know when that’s taken
place. So on the form movieclip we can add the script that checks for that.
When the event runs, we can then go to the next frame showing the thank
you screen.
onClipEvent(data){
_root.nextFrame();
}

Steps in Scripting PHP
Now we can write that PHP script, email.php, that really makes this happen.
Luckily, it’s not really all that difficult to write. Maybe not as easy as the
previous Flash script, but not difficult nonetheless. The PHP all revolves
around one function; the mail function. All you need to do is to grab the
information sent from Flash and pass it in to this mail function in PHP to
have that information sent to your email of choice.
1. Create a PHP file if you haven’t already. If you’re not sure how, just
make a text file. A PHP file is basically nothing more than a text file with a
.php extension instead of .txt. To a server, though, a php file is seen not as
text, but as a script for carrying out commands – commands like our email
command.
2. Using Dreamweaver or your text editor of choice, start writing your
PHP script. This will consist of 3 basic parts. One will be a place for constant
variables that will always remain the same. This will include things such as
your email. Another is the capturing of those variables sent to the script
from Flash – those filled out in the Flash form. Finally, that information is
then setup in the third part, the call of the mail function.
3. Part 1: Begin the file with a php tag and the setting up of constant
variables. This includes your email and most likely a subject line as well.
$sendTo = “senocular@hotmail.com”;
$subject = “My Flash site reply”;
4. Part 2: Now you can start getting the variables that Flash sent. Since
Flash sent the variables using post, we would use $_POST to get them into
variables of our own. $_POST is a special global variable in a PHP script that
contains all of the posted variables sent to that script as an associative
array. Using brackets ([]) and a variable name, you can then retrieve those
variables. For those variables sent by this particular example, you would
obtain their value in PHP using $_POST["name"], $_POST["email"], and
$_POST["message"].
$headers = “From: ” . $_POST["name"];
$headers .= “<” . $_POST["email"] . “>\r\n”;
$headers .= “Reply-To: ” . $_POST["email"] . “\r\n”;
$headers .= “Return-Path: ” . $_POST["email"];
$message = $_POST["message"];
*Name and email here are assigned to a single variable, headers, because
of how the mail function works…
5. Part 3: Finally the mail function. This function is set up to take 3 to 5
different parameters. We’re only concerned about 4:
mail(recipient, subject, message, other headers);
With our previous variable definitions, we can easily just plug and play to
run this command in the final php script. Note that “from” and “reply-to” are
not separate parameters within the mail call. These are part of the 4th
parameter, additional headers, where information beyond the recipient,
subject and email message go. With that, we can finish off the script with
the following.
mail($sendTo, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>
6. Save as email.php and you’re set.
Putting it All Together

All that remains now is uploading your published swf (with accompanying
html) and PHP file to your server. Be sure you keep the PHP file in the same
directory as your swf and html or your script may not be found when called
from Flash. If you don’t want it to be in that same directory, be sure you
correctly reference the location of the PHP file in the loadVariables
command used in Flash. Once uploaded, play your movie and send yourself a
message! It’ll be fun – and it will also test to make sure this actually works
since, if you didn’t already know, you can’t test from your own computer’s
hard drive unless you have the proper configurations and PHP installed
(which, more than likely, is not the case). It’s ok though, since you don’t
need it on your personal computer, just your server. And if its working from
there, then you should be in the clear.