Collecting web visitor information

[Ems]

I have some downloadable documents (PDF) on my website for visitors to download. But I want to collect their personal information (name, email etc) before they are able to doanload them. Can anyone tell me if there's a simple way of doing this?

[peter_budo]

You can do simple html form, however that can be cheated. So you need to look in some server side technology with ability to talk to database like PHP, ASP, JSP or AJAX (not exactly server side but can chat with database)

[Ems]

Thanks Peter - I'm a newbie to this, can you talk me through it or point me to some code I can use???? Thanks :-)

[peter_budo]

Depends what you want to do:

• simple form with html
• html with JavaScript validation
• use PHP/ASP/JSP/AJAX

[Shanti C]

restrict your user to download only after providing his/her information...
this is done by sessions concept in php or provide login form....

[Ems]

I think our server supports ASP or could go for HTML and JavaScript - I'll go with whatever you suggest!!

[peter_budo]

restrict your user to download only after providing his/her information...
this is done by sessions concept in php or provide login form....

PHP is not only technology with sessions :D I can do it nicely in JSP ;)

I think our server supports ASP or could go for HTML and JavaScript - I'll go with whatever you suggest!!

Find out what your server supports, so you can take advantage of technology

[Ems]

I've checked with IT and as I thought the server supports ASP or I can script HTML with JavaScript - can you help?

[MidiMagic]

JavaScript can NOT collect user information, because it runs on the user's computer, not your server.

[peter_budo]

I did suggest JavaScript as way to validate form in the case if Ems do not want to go into other options.
ASP is not my speciality but you should be able to work out your requirements on these tutorials

[Ems]

That's great, thanks for your help :-)