Form action attribute not working properly - php

Question

I wrote a simple php script for a form, tested it out, and worked as expected. But when I actually added the script into the original project that I am working on, it suddenly stopped working? I am sure it has nothing to do with the php script as for it worked properly when I tested it; so basically what I am thinking about is that I probably wrote the action attribute wrong? I am pretty sure it is a rookie mistake. Eventually, I am really new to php.
Regards.
HTML code:
<div class="modal fade" id="exampleModal" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="exampleModalLabel">
<div class="modal-dialog" role="document">
<div class="modal-content">
<div class="modal-header">
<button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close"><span aria-hidden="true">×</span></button>
<h4 class="modal-title" id="exampleModalLabel">New message</h4>
</div>
<div class="modal-body">
<form action="contact.html" method="post">
<div class="form-group">
<label name="email" class="control-label">Email:</label>
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="recipient-name">
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label name="phone" class="control-label">Phone:</label>
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="recipient-mobile">
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label name="message" class="control-label">Message:</label>
<textarea class="form-control img-responsive" rows="5" id="messageText"></textarea>
</div>
</form>
</div>
<div class="modal-footer">
<button type="button" class="btn btn-default" data-dismiss="modal">Close</button>
<button type="button" id="resetText" class="btn btn-default">Reset</button>
<input type="button" value="Send message" name="send" class="btn btn-danger colorbg"/>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
PHP Code:
<?php
if(isset($_POST['send'])){
$to = 'domain#mail.com';
$subject = 'Solutions';
$mail = $_POST['email'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$mailHeader = "From: $mail \r\n Phone: $phone";
$formcontent="Message: $message";
if (!filter_var($mail, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
echo "<script language='javascript'>
alert('E-mail address is not valid');
var email = document.getElementById('recipient-name');
email.className += ' border-red';
</script>";
} else {
echo "<script language='javascript'>
var email = document.getElementById('recipient-name');
email.className = '';
email.className += ' form-control';
</script>";
if (mail($to , $subject, $formcontent, $mailHeader)) {
echo "<script>
window.setTimeout(function () {
window.location.href = 'test.html';
}, 3000);
</script>";
} else {
echo "<script language='javascript'>alert('There was an error. Please try again.')</script>";
}
}
}
?>
Please note that I uploaded the project on my website in order to actually test the script so the link is something like this: website.com/project/index.html. And I changed the action to action="script/contact.php", action="./script/contact.php, action="contact.php" none worked.

Answer 1

There are two things that makes this not work.
The "submit" button (or any of the other buttons for that matter) is not inside the form-tags. They can be outside, if you assign an ID to the form and assign inputs outside the form, to that form.
There isn't actually a submit-button. You have a regular button. It should be of type="submit", not type="button" (and type="reset" for reset buttons).
In HTML5, you can assign inputs to a form, even outside the actual form-tags. You can do that by assigning an ID to the form (in this example, "myform") and then specifying the form-attribute on your input, like this.
<form id="myform" method="get" action="something.php">
<input type="text" name="name" />
</form>
<input type="submit" form="myform" />
You also, as the other answer already pointed out, the action targets a .html file, which under normal configurations would not parse PHP, but display it as text instead.

Answer 2

I don't see any submit.
Or is that handled by JavaScript somewhere?
Also, the form action= is a html file, if you want the php to work in there, you'll need a .php file.
There is nothing being posted in the html you're showing that is named "send". ( if(isset($_POST['send'])) )

Answer 3

I found the solution here for a similar problem. I hope this is the right place for my answer.
I use buttons A-Z to filter last names in 'listContacts.php'.
Each button triggers a submit. The submit was working from the beginning on
var $char='';
var $characterfilter=function charfilter($char){;
$('#coll').prop('value', $char);
var val2=$('#coll').val();
$('#listcontacts').submit();
};
$('#a').click(function(){
$characterfilter('a');
});
The problem:
<form id='listcontacts' href='' title='use the tabulator to move in the form' style='position: relative; overflow:hidden; height:25em; width:95%' method='post' accept-charset='UTF-8' action='admin.php?listContacts'>
A switch-function in 'admin.php' as below controls the actions:
switch ($action){
case 'login':
login();
break;
case 'logout':
logout();
break;
case 'editService':
editService();
break;
case 'deleteService':
deleteService();
break;
case 'listContacts':
listContacts();
break;
case 'newContact':
newContact();
break;
case 'editContact':
editContact();
break;
case 'deleteContact':
deleteContact();
break;
default:
listServices();
}
When I submitted the form, the Switch in 'admin.php' always returned the default, so I saw the form 'listServices.php' instead after submitting 'listContacts' by using one of the filterbuttons.
The reason for this flaw was: the first call to 'listContacts.php' had been executed by a command:
<a href='admin.php?action=listContacts' >List Contacts</a>
so 'action' had already been set to 'listContacts'
After removing 'action=...' from the formcall as below the form was working.
<form id='listcontacts' href='' title='use the tabulator to move in the form' style='position: relative; overflow:hidden; height:25em; width:95%' method='post' accept-charset='UTF-8'>
It was a little puzzle, took me a few hours and I hope I can help others saving time by posting this.