System email [from] address

[Faan]

On a regular basis I receive emails from my website, i.e. from the contact page. The site is developed with Joomla. When I reply on such an email the reply address in the email is my own. My developer inserted a link so that I may click on the link to reply to the person who sent me the email in the first place. This to me is strange.

Unfortunately I do not know enough to try and find a better solution myself. I was wondering whether it is only me or whether other people have the same experience. How can this be made easier? I cannot understand that Joomla would not have a solution for the problem or perhaps in cPanel.

Thanks

[AndyD]

There's more than 1 way to skin this cat. You didn't state whether you mail is pop3 and whether you're using outlook so this info might be redundant.

If you use outlook, using the rules wizard, you can set it so mail from different email addresses goes to different folders. You can also set rules for which email account is used for replying.

You could also set up a separate new user profile in outlook and in the new profile set up the email account that you want your website enquiries to receive their reply from. Then set the new profile to receive all mail from the email address that you website is sending it to and remove that email account from the original outlook profile. Then when you start outlook you'll get an option box where you choose which account you want to log into. There will also be a separate 'pst' file for this new account which might mahe life easier for back-up's etc.

If you're a glutton for punishment you can also run your multiple mail accounts with an Exchange Server. Not an option for the faint hearted or weak willed.

[Faan]

I did not think at the time of writing the post to provide all the details mentioned.

Firstly I make use of the UBUNTU OS. Then I make use of Google Chrome as browser (mainly) and use gmail to collect and send all my email. The advantage of gmail is the online storage of emails. I do not make use of any specific mail handlers such as Outlook or MS Outlook etc.

Thanks

[irneb]

Most email clients could be setup to have different reply-to addresses. In each account's settings there is a Reply-to Address: effectively allowing you to send using email account X, but making sure that if your email is replied to it comes through account Y. Even Outlook has such

For my Thunderbird I've got it setup to use various sending settings depending on which folder I'm viewing / in which folder the source email was. And even then there's a drop-down at the top to change the send through setting to any of the others. I think I can remember something similar in Outlook (sorry I've stopped using that molasses thing about 5 years ago - so I can't tell for sure).

Edit: sorry only now saw your post. I'm not sure how to change the reply-to address in gmail's web interface. You might find something in a google search though. I also have a gmail address, though I use it as an IMAP server through my Thunderbird client. Very rarely do I open my gmail in a web browser.

Edit2: Actually just did a google. It seems there's something in gmail's own settings already: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/a...en&answer=7991

[Faan]

The problem for me does not lie in the mail handler as in gmail I can use different reply from addresses and I am doing it when it is personal, business etc.

The problem lies in the origin of the email. The email from the contact gets generated from the "contact us" page on my website. The person completes whatever is asked for and the email eventually lands in my inbox. Many a time that email requires from me to reply to the person who sent it to me in the first place. When I now click reply, the "to" address is that of mine (info@dial-a-chef.co.za) and not of the person who generated the email.

[irneb]

OK, now I understand. It seems this is one of those situations where the design has gone too far. Instead of a contact us message box on your web-site, a simple link to your email address would have worked a lot simpler. As the customer (or whoever) would simply click on this and write an email from their own email client. The method on your site means that each time a customer contacts you, they need to re-enter all their details. But that's as may be - perhaps you've got other reasons for such a complicated contacts page.

The way you have it shouldn't be impossible. You already ask the customer to enter their email, so this should be substitutable into the email's reply-to field. I don't know the exact working behind your site, it seems to be using php server scripts - but that's as much detail as I can figure out. Though, it can be done, e.g. look at PHP's mail function, example 2 on this page: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php

So what you're requiring is to use the From as is, but place the email entered into the contacts page's email field as the Reply-To field in the email header. Then when you reply to that email it should send to the customer, instead of your own email address.

[Faan]

Thanks, I have had a look at the php but at first sight it looks complicated to me. As soon as I have time I will have a look.

[irneb]

To most it would be "difficult". It's called programming. In this case PHP script programming, which to most programmers is actually rather "simple" in comparison to most other languages.

It's one of those things where I find "web designers", or rather the guys purporting to be such, unable to even grasp that there is such things going on. If the program they're using to "design" the page doesn't do everything auto"magically" for them, the answer is: "That cannot be done".

For professional web pages, these guys need to be both Graphics Artists as well as Web Programmers. Usually in web design companies they'd place one of each (at least) on any of their projects, since rarely do you get a Graphics Artist who's also a good programmer and visa-versa.

[Mark Atkinson]

Hi Faan,

Are you using a specific email component?

If you PM me again with your login details I'll take a quick look for you.

If you're using a dedicated Contact form component you can usually configure the Reply-To email address right from your Joomla backend.

[Mark Atkinson]

Just a configuration issue in Chronoforms which, admittedly, is not the most user-friendly component around.

[irneb]

Apparently there is just such issue with ChronoForms: http://www.chronoengine.com/forums/v...p?f=26&t=49746

Also I've checked the form on your contacts page. Field names are a bit strange though. It's as if they were simply placed and never adjusted to describe what they actually are. E.g. Name=text_2, Surname = text_3, Email Address = text_4, etc. Would Joomla/Chrono not require specific names for these fields? Or does it have some sort of mapping in the form's action page which maps each of text_# to its correct position in the email?

Anyhow, there seems to be a fix (or rather a hack) to make Joomla actually perform correctly and map dynamic content into the mail's header: http://www.chronoengine.com/forums/v...p?f=26&t=27348

[Mark Atkinson]

There wasn't a bug, per say.

The issue was that Faan is using Gmail, and Gmail doesn't seem to pick up the dynamic "Reply_To" fields I put in. (It worked fine in my Outlook.)

I just worked around that by making the "From" field dynamically generated according to what the user enters in the form.

[Faan]

Thanks very much Mark, I think the problem is solved.