如何通过以下方式提交表单：PHP发送电子邮件，使用Ajax进行屏幕刷新，然后在不进行屏幕刷新的情况下在表单旁边发布消息？

Question

When the user clicks on the submit button I need: (1) The form data to be sent to me via email using PHP, without refreshing the page. (2) A thank you message to appear next to the form using Ajax.

I've got most of it working. I'm not to sure what coding I need to make the page NOT refresh as the PHP script is sending the form data to me via email. Also, once the PHP script is done running, how do I get the Ajax code to run? I've done a ton of research and have found a lot of people use jQuery to resolve this issue. However, I am not using jQuery for this just JavaScript. I know I am close, but need some help. Here is my code thus far:

PHP - Just sends the form data to me via email:

<?php
$persons_name = $_POST['fname'];
$email_address = $_POST['email'];
$comments_questions = $_POST['moreinfo'];

$to = 'fireplace_tea@yahoo.com';
$subject = 'Email - JulesMyers.com';
$msg = "$persons_name has sent an email.\n" .
"You can reply to $persons_name at: $email_address\n" .
"Question or Comment: $comments_questions\n";
mail($to, $subject, $msg, 'From: ' . $email_address);
?>

HTML Form:

<form id="contactMe" method="post" action="contact.php">
 <input type="text" class="inputElement initialColor" name="fname" id="fname">
 <input type="text" class="inputElement initialColor" name="email" id="email">
 <textarea rows="6" class="inputElement" name="moreinfo" id="moreinfo"> </textarea>
 <input type="submit" class="sendButton" id="submitbutton" value="Send">
</form> 
<div class="errormsg"></div>
<div class="formsent"></div>

Ajax: I have the Ajax working when I click the formsent div, but I need it to run after the PHP script does. Is there an event I can listen for?

(function() {
  var httpRequest;
  var b = document.querySelector('.formsent');
  b.onclick = function() { makeRequest('thanks.txt'); };

  function makeRequest(url) 
  {
    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari, ...
      httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
    } else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
      try {
        httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
      } 
      catch (e) {
        try {
          httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
        } 
        catch (e) {}
      }
    }

    httpRequest.onreadystatechange = alertContents;
    httpRequest.open('POST', url);
    httpRequest.send();
  }

  function alertContents() {
    if (httpRequest.readyState === 4) 
    {
      if (httpRequest.status === 200) 
      {
        /*alert(httpRequest.responseText);*/
        b.innerHTML = httpRequest.responseText;
      } 
    }
  }
})();

Thanks for any help. :)

Answer 1

WooHoo! I figured it out without using jQuery...in other words I did it the long way. I did a ton of research and trying things out. How it works is when the user clicks on the button labeled submit JavaScript\\DOM gets and stores the values from the three form fields, than XMLhttpRequest\\AJAX gets the values that JavaScript\\DOM stored and sends them to the PHP file, than the PHP file sends me an email with the form data, and finally httpRequest.responseText puts a thank you message next to the form for the user to see. All of this gets done withOUT the page refreshing. Yeah! Here is the coding that works:

HTML

<form id="contactMe">
 <input type="text" class="inputElement initialColor" name="fname" id="fname">
 <input type="text" class="inputElement initialColor" name="email" id="email">
 <textarea rows="6" class="inputElement" name="moreinfo" id="moreinfo"> </textarea>
 <input type="button" class="sendButton" id="submitbutton" value="Send">
</form> 
<div class="errormsg"></div>
<div class="formsent"></div>

JavaScript

function makeRequest()
{
    var httpRequest;
    var personName = document.getElementById('fname').value;
    var emailAddress = document.getElementById('email').value;
    var comments = document.getElementById('moreinfo').value;

    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { 
      httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
    } else if (window.ActiveXObject) { 
      try {
        httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
      } 
      catch (e) {
        try {
          httpRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
        } 
        catch (e) {}
      }
    }

    httpRequest.onreadystatechange = alertContents;
    httpRequest.open("GET", "contact.php?name="+personName+"&email="+emailAddress+"&comment="+comments, true);
    httpRequest.send();

    function alertContents() 
      {
        if (httpRequest.readyState === 4 && httpRequest.status === 200) 
        {
            var thankYou = document.querySelector('.formsent');
            thankYou.innerHTML = httpRequest.responseText;

            var clearForm = document.getElementById('contactMe');
            clearForm.reset();
        }
      }
}

PHP

<?php
$name = $_GET['name'];
$email = $_GET['email'];
$comment = $_GET['comment'];

$to = 'email@fakeDomain.fake';
$subject = 'Email From Website Form';
$msg = "$name has sent an email.\n" .
"You can reply to $name at: $email\n" .
"Question or Comment: $comment\n";
mail($to, $subject, $msg, 'From: ' . $email); 

echo "Thank you " . $name . ".<br>";
echo "The form has been sent.";
?>

The hardest part was figuring out how to pass variables from JavaScript to PHP. It took time to find really good full examples, and to also find explanations of how it works. Here are a couple of resources I found very helpful:
tutorials2learn.com/tutorials/scripts/ajax-scripts/submit-html-form-ajax.html
javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/ajaxgetpost.shtml
javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/ajaxgetpost2.shtml
openjs.com/articles/ajax_xmlhttp_using_post.php
webcheatsheet.com/php/passing_javascript_variables_php.php
stackoverflow.com/questions/13840429/reference-why-does-the-php-or-other-server-side-code-in-my-javascript-not-wor

A few notes:
* I used AJAX (XMLHttpRequest object) to open a communication line between JavaScript and PHP.
* This entire operation can be done in jQuery with less lines of coding. But, I wanted to know how it worked the long way. So, now when I look at the jQuery coding I understand what it is doing.