CakePHP Contact Form - php

Question

I have built a contact form using CakePHP on my site. The controller logic is as follows:
<?php
class ContactController extends AppController
{
var $helpers = array ('Html','Form');
var $components = array ('Email','RequestHandler');
var $name = 'Contact';
function beforeFilter()
{
parent::beforeFilter();
$this->Auth->allow(array('*'));
}
function index()
{
if ($this->RequestHandler->isPost())
{
$this->Contact->set($this->data);
if ($this->Contact->validates())
{
$this->Email->to = '###';
$this->Email->subject = 'Contact message from ' . $this->data['Contact']['name'];
$this->Email->from = $this->data['Contact']['email'];
$this->Email->send($this->data['Contact']['message']);
$this->render('success');
}
}
}
}
?>
What I want to do is when a user submits the form is show another view file such as success.ctp but what happens is even though they have a new view they could refresh the page and send the data again and again. How do I stop this...
Can anyone help? Thanks

Answer 1

after you process their form data, redirect them to the same contact page (to avoid the refresh problem)
If you're not aware, you can setFlash to show a success message. But if you want to customize it the way you want, you can write a variable to Session to signal the view.
function index()
{
if ($this->RequestHandler->isPost())
{
$this->Contact->set($this->data);
if ($this->Contact->validates())
{
$this->Email->to = '###';
$this->Email->subject = 'Contact message from ' . $this->data['Contact']['name'];
$this->Email->from = $this->data['Contact']['email'];
$this->Email->send($this->data['Contact']['message']);
$this->Session->write('Contact.postmessage', true);
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));
}
}
$this->Session->delete('Contact.postmessage');
}
And in the view:
if($this->Session->check('Contact.postmessage'){
// write out content of success.ctp
}else{
// write out form
}

Answer 2

You could try an approach of finding the count with the posted email less than five minutes ago or pop a Session flash message like 'Sorry you can only post every x minutes'
$this->Contact->find('count',array(
'conditions'=>array(
'email'=>$this->data['Contact'] ['email'],
'created <'=>date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime('-5 minutes)));

Answer 3

To avoid sending message more then one time - place session value and check which view to render according to if that session value is placed.
e.g. on your email sending code add $this->Session->write('sent',1);
and when rendering: if ($this->Session->check('sent')) $this->render('common_view'); else $this->render('alternate_view');
And please make sure that page is redirected after email sending to itself via $this->redirect().