formidable - a simple form sending appliance

I wrote this little piece of python to have a simple POST request to email service without having to think too much.

Prerequisites

• python3
• pipenv

What is it?

It's a little flask application

Run it

$ pipenv install
$ FLASK_APP=formidable.py pipenv run flask run

Configure

I recommend to copy the default.py file in config and call itlocal.py. Adjust all configuration parameters to your needs. Refer to flask documentation and flask-mail documentation for additional information.

Set the env variable FORMIDABLE_SETTINGS_MODULE to config.local to have your config file applied.

$ export FORMIDABLE_SETTINGS_MODULE=config.local

Usage

The app exposes the /submit endpoint. Formdata sent there will be picked up and sent to your configured e-mail address.

Just create an HTML-Form similar to this:

<form method="post" action="formidable.yourdomain.com/submit">
    <input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Your Name">
    <input type="text" name="message" placeholder="Type your message">
</form>

You may want to define a GOTCHA_FIELD in the config and add it to your form. If the form is submitted with text filled into the field the mail will not be sent. This aims to prevent spam.

If a message is not sent because of this the (presumed) bot will be redirected to SPAM_PAGE_DEFAULT or THANKYOU_PAGE_DEFAULT if SPAM_PAGE_DEFAULT is not set.

Example for GOTCHA_FIELD "fname":

<input type="text" name="fname" placeholder="First Name" style="display:none">

Deployment

For now no ready-made docker / heroku / vagrant or whatsoever deployment configuration. There are propably hundreds of ways of hosting a simple python application.

Here just an example what a uwsgi configuration on a debian 9 box could look like:

[uwsgi]
chdir = /var/www/apps/formidable
module = formidable:app
venv = /var/www/.local/share/virtualenvs/formidable-85KupQM6
master = true
processes = 2
uid = formidable
gid = formidable
plugins = python3
socket = /var/www/apps/formidable/formidable.sock
chmod-socket = 660
vacuum = true

The you might want to put a nginx proxy before that with a configuration like this:

server {
    server_name formidable.yourdomain.com;
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    location / {
        uwsgi_pass unix:/var/www/apps/formidable/formidable.sock;
        include uwsgi_params;
    }
}

Development

Set your environment variables in .env
Presumably your file will look like this:

FLASK_ENV = development
FLASK_DEBUG = 1

You may want to use curl to send a message:

curl -d "name=fupduck&message=my%20message." -X POST http://127.0.0.1:5000/submit

Roadmap

In this state it's just a little hacky thing, do not expect too much of it. Probably it will receive some kind of captcha integration.