Setup

Test

Basics

Advanced

PRO!

Help

Abuse


Home

Refer Me
Advanced Features
These advanced features are FREE, but please attempt them only if you're familiar with HTML tables and forms.

Why not try Refer Me PRO for more powerful customisation and some other great features!


Creating Your Own "More Friends" Page

Set up your custom 'more friends' page on your own server, then call it from your Refer Me form like this:

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="result" VALUE="http://yoursite.com/more_friends_page.html">


Customisation Tips

  1. Sample page: Here's a sample 'more friends' page. Feel free to copy it and use it as a template for your own page.

  2. The lazy method: Note the 'magic' element in the sample page - [b_fwd] - which will automatically duplicate all original form elements in hidden fields instead of having to list them all verbosely.

  3. User-driven customisation: To duplicate any dynamic info from the original form, enclose the original field name in square brackets, for example:

    Thank you for your referral [sendername], please send a few more...

    You're not restricted to the existing form fields I've used either. For example, how about asking the user what their favourite colour is, then displaying your 'more friends' page with that colour background (or even a background image - the possibilities are endless):

    Ask the user for their input:

    What's your favourite colour?

    <INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="bgcolor"
    VALUE="FFFFFF" CHECKED>White<BR>
    <INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="bgcolor"
    VALUE="EEEEFF">Blue<BR>
    <INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="bgcolor"
    VALUE="FFCCCC">Red<BR>
    <INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="bgcolor"
    VALUE="EEFFEE">Green<BR>

    ...then carry the result over to the <BODY> tag in your 'more friends' page:

    <BODY BGCOLOR="#[bgcolor]">

  4. Speeding things up: The server response will be slower if you use a custom page since the browser has to get data from two different servers (yours and mine) and there's also some extra processing to be done. However, if your custom page uses absolute URLs for links and graphics instead of relative ones, it'll speed things up considerably.

    Example of an inline image using an absolute URL:

    <IMG WIDTH="324" HEIGHT="63" SRC="http://referme.deadlock.com/refer-me.gif">

    Examples of the same image called with a relative URL:

    <IMG WIDTH="324" HEIGHT="63" SRC="images/refer-me.gif">
    <IMG WIDTH="324" HEIGHT="63" SRC="../refer-me.gif">
    <IMG WIDTH="324" HEIGHT="63" SRC="refer-me.gif">

  5. Multiple result pages: Several webmasters have asked if they could have a thank-you page instead of asking the user for more referrals. Of course you can! The result page can be anything you like, use your imagination!

    You can take things one step (or many steps) further. When you create your original custom page, redirect the result to a different custom page the second time around - simply use a new URL for the "result" value on your custom page. Make sure it's AFTER YOUR [b_fwd] ELEMENT.

    A couple of interesting applications for this: a) if you want to offer a free gift to users who send three referrals, make two custom pages, each with only one pair of referral fields (and a comment like "only one more to go!") then give the free gift instructions on the final page. b) you could take your user on a mystery tour with a chain of many result pages. Perhaps you could tell a story and the user has to send another referral to find out what happens next.


Allowing Users To Enter Their Own Message

Instead of fixing your own message, you can provide a box for the user to enter their own message.

First, REMOVE this element:

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="message" VALUE="
Some extra text describing your site would appear here,
and it's also a good idea to sign off using your own name...

All the best,

Jim
">

Then add a new ROW to the TABLE:

<TR BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF"><TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><B>Your<BR>message</TD><TD COLSPAN="2"><TEXTAREA NAME="message" COLS="35" ROWS="5" WRAP="on"></TEXTAREA></TD></TR>

Checking Users' Messages

If you're allowing users to write their own comments about your site, chances are you'd like to see what they're writing!

If you change NAME="message" to NAME="user_message", the message will appear in your webmaster notification, along with the list of recipients - provided you have webmaster_email switched on, of course.

Tip: You can use your own message AND allow users to enter their message too by having a hidden "message" field and also a <TEXTAREA> box for the "user_message". This is probably overkill though.


Foreign Languages

Change the language of your default opening paragraph and taglines using a "lang" value, like this:

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="lang" VALUE="francais">

Your choice of languages:

  • deutsch
  • francais
  • portuguesa
  • espanol
  • nederlands
  • dansk
  • norsk
  • svenska
  • islenska
  • magyar
  • korean

If your language is not listed, please ask Jim

How about allowing your users to choose their own language using a drop-down list? You can tuck it in next to your 'Send' button, like this:

  

Here's the code:

<SELECT NAME="lang">
<OPTION SELECTED>English
<OPTION>Deutsch
<OPTION>Francais
<OPTION>Portuguesa
<OPTION>Espanol
<OPTION>Nederlands
<OPTION>Dansk
<OPTION>Norsk
<OPTION>Svenska
<OPTION>Islenska
<OPTION>Magyar
<OPTION>Korean
</SELECT>


Escaping Frames

Note: this will not work if you have a customised result page.

If your site is in frames and you find that clicking back from the 'More Friends' page produces a frames-within-frames scenario, use this field:

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="frames" VALUE="yes">


| Setup | Test | Basics | Advanced | PRO! | Help | Abuse |