forms API

The forms API, available under https://forms.fsfe.org can be used to send form data from a web page submission, via email, to somewhere else. The API is highly configurable and can be adapted for a wide variety of situations in which you need to send emails from a web page, either with or without double opt-in.

Each application which intends to use this service must be registered in the API configuration, which is available in fsfe_forms/applications.json.

Table of Contents

• Install
• Usage
• API
• Contribute
• License

Install

See the file doc/install.md.

Usage

Sending a ticket to our ticket system

You’re writing a page in which you would like to create a form where submission of that form creates a ticket in our ticket system. There’s no need for an opt-in for this, and we don’t want to store information outside of the ticket system.

The application configuration could look like this:

  "totick2": {
    "required_vars": ["country", "message", "participant_name"],
    "register": {
      "email": "totick2-template",
      "redirect": "https://fsfe.org"
    }
  },

The HTML form could look like this:

<form method="POST" action="https://forms.fsfe.org/email">
  <!-- Parameter "appid" is required to identify what application configuration is used to send email -->
  <input type="hidden" name="appid" value="totick2">
  Your name: <input type="text" name="participant_name">
  Your e-mail: <input type="email" name="from" />
  Your country: <input type="text" name="country" />
  Your message: <input type="text" name="message" />
</form>

And finally, the template (totick2-template.eml):

From: {{ format_email(participant_name, from) }}
To: contact@fsfe.org
Subject: Registration of event from {{ participant_name }}
X-OTRS-Queue: "Promo"
X-PARTICIPANT-NAME: {{ participant_name }}

Hi!

My name is {{ participant_name }}.
I'm from {{ country }} and would like you to know:

  {{ message }}

Signing an open letter

In this case, we’re publishing an open letter which we invite people to sign. We want to store information about who has signed the open letter, and we want a double opt-in of their email address so we know we have a working e-mail. We don’t want to include anyone in the list without them having confirmed.

The configuration could look like this:

  "tosign": {
    "required_vars": ["name", "confirm", "country"]
    "store": "/store/campaign2.json",
    "register": {
      "email": "tosign-register",
      "redirect": "http://fsfe.org"
    }
    "confirm": {
      "email": "tosign-confirm",
      "redirect": "http://fsfe.org"
    }
  },

The HTML form could look like this:

<form method="POST" action="https://forms.fsfe.org/email">
  <!-- Parameter "appid" is required to identify what application configuration is used to send email -->
  <input type="hidden" name="appid" value="tosign">
  Please sign our open letter here!

  Your name: <input type="text" name="name" />
  Your e-mail: <input type="email" name="confirm" />
  Your country: <input type="text" name="country" />
</form>

Here, we have two email templates. The first one, tosign-register.eml, is used upon registration of a new sigature:

From: no-reply@fsfe.org
To: {{ format_email(name, confirm) }}
Subject: Your signature for campaign X

Dear {{ name }},

Than you for supporting your work by signing our open letter about X!
To confirm your signature, please click the following link:

{{ confirmation_url }}

Best regards,
the FSFE

The second template, tosign-confirm.eml, is then used when the confirmation link has been clicked:

From: admin@fsfe.org
To: campaignowner@fsfe.org
Subject: New signatory to open letter

Hi!

I support your work and sign your open letter about X!

  {{ name }} <{{ confirm }}> from {{ country }}.

No information will be stored, and no email sent to the To address before the user clicks the confirmation URL. When the URL is clicked, the email will be sent to campaignowner@fsfe.org as given in the configuration, and a JSON file /store/campaign2.json will be created with the following content:

[
  {
    "from": "admin@fsfe.org",
    "to": ["campaignowner@fsfe.org"],
    "subject": "New signatory to open letter",
    "content": "Hi!\n\nI support your work and sign your open letter about X!\n\n  John Doe <john@example.com> from Switzerland.\n",
    "reply-to": null,
    "include_vars": {
      "name": "John Doe",
      "confirm": "john@example.com",
      "country": "Switzerland"
    }
  }
]

Multi lang (optional)

If you want to send an email in a specific language you have to add an hidden field in your form: <input type="hidden" name="lang" value="it">

Now, for example when looking for the template “tosign-register”, the server will look for a file named “tosign-register.it.eml”, and if that does not exist, it will fall back to “tosign-register.eml”.

API

POST/GET https://forms.fsfe.org/email

This will trigger the sending of an email, potentially with a double opt-in according to the configuration.

The parameter “appid” is always required and will select the application from the configuration file applications.json. All other supported parameters depend on the selected application.

Please note that for applications requiring double opt-in, the parameter for the user’s email address must be called “confirm”.

GET https://forms.fsfe.org/confirm

This will confirm an e-mail address if using double opt-in. The following parameters are supported:

• id (required)

The id is generated automatically by the forms system. You should never need to generate this URL yourself.

Application configuration

Configuration of the applications is done in the file applications.json. It contains an object where each key is an application id and the value is the matching application configuration.

The application configuration is again an object with the following possible keys:

• required_vars: An array with parameter names that have to be present in a request. Required.
• store: If set to a filename, then information about emails sent is stored in this file. This does not inclue emails which have not been confirmed (if double opt-in is in use). Optional.
• register: Defines what to do upon registration of a user. Required.
• confirm: If present, forces double opt-in, and defines what to do upon confirmation of a registration. Optional.
• duplicate: If present, forces the check for duplicate registrations, and defines what to do when one occurs. Optional.

Each of “register”, “confirm”, and “duplicate” are again objects with the following keys:

• email: Template for the email to be sent.
• redirect: Address to redirect the user’s browser to after having accepted and processed a request

Contribute

See the file doc/hack.md.

Testing in a local docker container

In order to contribute, a local testing setup is very useful. All you need is Docker and docker-compose. In the repository, just run docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d --build to spin up the three default containers this application includes and an extra “fake SMTP” for local testing.

Fake SMTP server

To test emails, you are recommended to use fake-smtp-server linked as submodule in this repository. It allows you to use a local SMTP server which does not send the emails but lists them in your browser. Doing this, you can view and debug sent emails without having to set up this service.

The above command using the extra file docker-compose.dev.yml sets this up automatically.

More info on the fake smtp server on its official website.

Use the service locally

After running docker-compose, you can access all services locally:

• forms-web: http://localhost:8080
• forms-fakesmtp: http://localhost:1080

Now you either replace the URLs of a form with http://localhost:8080/email (for example in your browser with developer tools), or send POST requests via curl like: curl -X POST "http://localhost:8080/email" -d "appid=pmpc-sign&name=tester1&confirm=mail@example.com&permissionPriv=yes".

On http://localhost:1080 you can then see the sent emails.

License

This software is copyright 2019 by the Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. and licensed under the GPLv3 license. For details see the “LICENSE” file in the top level directory of https://git.fsfe.org/fsfe-system-hackers/forms/