Frequently Asked Questions v2

Anonymous forms are similar in function and design to the Add / Edit item page. The main difference is they are placed outside of the AA Control Panel and thus do not provide the AA authorization and have a design of their own.

The most common usage is to allow web readers to suggest new content. After filling the Anonymous form it is sent to the Holding Bin and a Thank you page appears. But you can also allow readers to edit items with the Anonymous form.

Two scripts handle the anonymous forms. The first, filler.php3, stores the info coming from the form into the database. It also validates the data and prooves permissions to edit or update the item. The second, fillform.php3, refills the data into the form shown to the reader. It retrieves the data from database or in some special cases directly from filler.

In the previous AA versions until version 2.4, the process of creating Anonymous forms was very simple: Copy the code of the “Add item” page with only a few necessary changes. But as the form now allows to edit items and to use several options for it, a new wizard was created. This wizard creates the HTML code for a complete form with the SSI include of fillform.php3 necessary to edit items. The resulting form differs depending on whether Anonymous editing is allowed or not.

You may change these settings in the wizard or later in hidden fields:

If you are interested to know more about what the form contains, here are some remarks:

If you want to edit items with anonymous forms, first you must allow to choose which item to edit. You can create a view and add a link to the headlines, which links to the anonymous form and contains the parameter my_item_id=11a7cc0908d77c22bf2c7ca43cdd8480. Another approach is used in Reader management slices, see below.

You must choose the correct setting in Slice Admin - Settings - Allow anonymous editing of items, which is used by the filler.php3 script on an item update request. The options are:

Each reader has her or his own item in the Reader management slice. Thus the HTTP authentication described above may be used directly to determine which item (reader personal details) to show in the form.

In this case two forms are needed, one being the publicly accessible subscribe form and the second being the HTTP protected “Change personal details” form. Because the fields on both the forms may be the same, you can use one form and include it into two different .shtml pages.

For webs not using Auth we need a way to ensure nobody not only edits but even views the data. This is achieved by assigning a special “Access Code” (see the Reader management documentation) to each reader, which must be added to the URL in order that the data are prefilled. The password authorization described above is than used on item update.

Sending the data to AA results in adding the data into database or in an error. Some of the errors may be excluded in advance by Javascript validation (function proove_fields). But some of them, like a username being already used, can not.

By default, the fillform.php3 script shows standard error messages. They always appear at the place where fillform.php3 is SSI-included in your shtml page.

You may create your own PHP script (see an example in doc/script/show_result.php3) and send its URL as a value of a show_result variable. Add it as a parameter to the fillform.php3 SSI include created by the Wizard, e.g.

<!--#include virtual="/aaa/fillform.php3?show_result=http://ecn.cz/show_result.php3&form=..."-->

An array $result with the results will be sent to the PHP script and you may print appropriate messages, see the example.

The $result array content is created at various places in filler.php3 array. Look there for accurate info. At this moment the messages are:

Discussion: A similar result may be achieved by adding several fields to the form, e.g. fields

err_page[validate][username......]="err_username.shtml"
err_page[validate][*]="err_validate.shtml"
err_page[*]="err_unrecognized.shtml"

and by creating the .shtml pages with a static message concerning the particular error. The main advantage of this approach is the web administrator may not know PHP. The disadvantage is the necessity of creating many pages but using SSI includes the pages could look only like:

<!--#include file="err_top.shtml"-->
The username you entered has already been used. Please try another username.
<!--#include file="err_bottom.shtml"-->

<aafaq id=1777> ~ToDo: 1777 How to create a form allowing anonymous posting from public website? </aafaq>