Having a 'safe' way to contact you on your website is a good idea. In 2008, Mike Challis of 642weather.com released a contact page for both standalone and Saratoga templates that used a built-in PHP script to create a captcha that minimized the ability of spambots to post messages. The bad news is that the spambots have caught on to the algorithm/structure of that captcha and so now can freely post spam using the old form/captcha that was released.
The spammer's technology has improved and so Google reCaptcha and hCaptcha challenges can now be solved by automation and the spam flood gates seem to have reopened. This script now uses a resistant-to-automatic-solution called Login Pad. It was written by Pierre Fauque to create a shuffled keypad that requires click/touch to enter a numeric code. Since click/touch is required, bots have a hard time with trying to solve this puzzle. As a bonus, there's no external service used, so no API key is needed.
This script retools Mike's original form to use the Login Pad class which is very much more resistant to spambot postings. The scripts come as a standalone contactLP.php/contactLP-inc.php which are English only. The Saratoga template wxcontact.php/contactLP-inc.php/wxcontact-LL.html offers multilingual use in the template for all supported languages.
Configure contactLP-inc.php with the settings for your website.
############################################################################
# begin settings
############################################################################
# always configure these options before use
# always test your contact form after making changes
#
$kpChallenge = '26304915'; // pick 8 digits, no repeats for the challenge
# optional file to contain the
$kpChallengeFile = './contactlp-key.txt';
# Optional log file. use '' as the name if a log file is not desired.
$logFile = './contact-loglp.txt'; // optional text log of messages. use '' to disable.
# email address to receive messages from this form
$mailto = 'somebody@somesite.com';
# Site Name / Title
$sitename = 'My Sitename';
# enable debug display for testing only, should be off (=false;) for production
$showDebug = false; // =false; suppress debug message, =true; enable debug messages
############################################################################
# end settings
############################################################################ ?>- $kpChallenge
This variable specifies your numeric challenge code. It should be 8 digits long, with no repeat digits. - $kpChallengeFile
This variable specifies your OPTIONAL file to read the 8 digit $kpChallenge key from. This allows you to change the $kpChallenge key without updating the script. - $logFile
This variable controls the optional text logfile of messages sent by the script. The default is './cache/contact-log.txt'.
$logFile = ''; will disable creation of a log file. - $mailto
This is the full email address to receive the messages sent via the script - $sitename
This is a short name for your website. Email messages will arrive to $mailto address with a Subject line of:
""$sitename contact: $subject" (where $subject is from the submitted message form).
There are two areas to configure for multilingual configuration. The language-LL.txt and wxcontact-LL.html files are the two files to configure for each LL language on your site.
The following entries should be made to language-LL.txt:
#
# wxcontact.php entries
#
langlookup|Full Name:|Full Name:|
langlookup|E-Mail Address:|E-Mail Address:|
langlookup|Enter E-Mail Address again:|Enter E-Mail Address again:|
langlookup|Subject:|Subject:|
langlookup|Message:|Message:|
langlookup|Thanks for taking the time to submit your feedback.|Thanks for taking the time to submit your feedback.|
langlookup|Send|Send|
langlookup|Reset|Reset|
langlookup|Input Forbidden NL|Input Forbidden NL|
langlookup|Input Forbidden|Input Forbidden|
langlookup|A proper email address is required.|A proper email address is required.|
langlookup|The email addresses are not the same.|The email addresses are not the same.|
langlookup|Your name is required.|Your name is required.|
langlookup|A subject is required.|A subject is required.|
langlookup|Please complete the captcha before Send.|Please complete the captcha before Send.|
langlookup|Please make any necessary corrections and try again.|Please make any necessary corrections and try again.|
langlookup|Please enter your name and correct e-mail address here.|Please enter your name and correct e-mail address here.|
langlookup|A few people mistype their e-mail addresses, making it impossible for us to respond.|A few people mistype their e-mail addresses, making it impossible for us to respond.|
langlookup|Please double-check carefully.|Please double-check carefully.|
langlookup|Please click the buttons on the keypad below to enter|Please click the buttons on the keypad below to enter|
langlookup|Too many errors - reload page to retry.|Too many errors - reload page to retry.|
Right-click in the above textbox, Select ALL, right-click, Copy then paste to the end of language-LL.txt and change the third field (delimited by | ) with the language translation. Make sure the translation is done using the ISO-8859-n character set appropriate to your translation, and not UTF-8. Save and upload to your website.
Copy wxcontact-en.html to wxcontact-LL.html to make a new
boilerplate file for language LL. In the new file, the parts to
edit are below the $main_top_text, $welcome_intro and
$thank_you variables. You can use a mix of text, HTML and PHP if
you like.
If you need to use literal dollar signs ( $ ), escape them by using
( \$ ), otherwise you'll have a PHP error.
Make sure the translation is done using the ISO-8859-n character set
appropriate to your translation, and not UTF-8.
Also be careful to not disturb the end markers for each section.
Translate the text as desired for each section, save and upload to your
site.
Note: If wxcontact-LL.html is not available on your site for
language LL, then the wxcontact-en.html will be used, and if
it is missing, the text in the gen_boilerplate() function in
contact-inc.php will be used.
