How to display the message sent on the contact form in PHP

Question

I have created a contact form and it does work but now I want to display "Message Sent" after submitting the form right below the "Send" button.

HTML file

<form action="send_mail.php" id="footer-form" method="post" role="form">
    <div class="form-group has-feedback">
        <label class="sr-only" for="name2">Name</label>
        <input class="form-control" id="name2" name="name2" placeholder="Name" required="" type="text" />
    </div>

    <div class="form-group has-feedback">
        <label class="sr-only" for="email2">Email address</label>
        <input class="form-control" id="email2" name="email2" placeholder="Enter email" required="" type="email" />
    </div>

    <div class="form-group has-feedback">
        <label class="sr-only" for="message2">Message</label>
        <textarea class="form-control" id="message2" name="message2" placeholder="Message" required="" rows="8"></textarea>
    </div>

    <div class="6u 12u$(small)">
        <input id="copy" name="copy" type="checkbox" />
        <label for="copy">Email me a copy of this message</label>
    </div>

    <input class="btn btn-default" type="submit" value="Send" />
</form>

PHP Code (different file)

<?php 

$name        = $_POST['name2'];
$email       = $_POST['email2'];
$message     = $_POST['message2'];
$formcontent ="From: $name \nMessage: $message";
$recipient   = "hello@domain.com";
$subject     = "Contact Form";
$mailheader  = "From: $email \r\n";
mail($recipient, $subject, $formcontent, $mailheader) or die("Error!");

?>

Answer 1

Just as Funk Forty Niner said:

Use a if/else statement:

<?php 

$name        = $_POST['name2'];
$email       = $_POST['email2'];
$message     = $_POST['message2'];
$formcontent ="From: $name \nMessage: $message";
$recipient   = "hello@domain.com";
$subject     = "Contact Form";
$mailheader  = "From: $email \r\n";
if(mail($recipient, $subject, $formcontent, $mailheader)) {
    die("Error!");
} else {
    echo "Success!";
}
?>

if/else Documentation: http://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.elseif.php

Answer 2

You can simply redirect your php to your html with a parameter like success=true after your mail() function

mail($recipient, $subject, $formcontent, $mailheader) or die("Error!");
header('Location: index.php?success=true');

rename your .html to .php

and in your html (now php) under the

<input class="btn btn-default" type="submit" value="Send" />
<?php
  if ( isset($_GET['success']) && $_GET['success']==true ) 
    echo "Message Sent";
?>

Answer 3

Real simple, use a conditional statement with an if/else .

if( mail($recipient, $subject, $formcontent, $mailheader) ){
    echo "Sent";
} else { 
    echo "Error, check your logs"; 
}

Plus, if your entire code is in the same file, you best be using a conditional statement for all inputs/POST arrays and checking for empty() fields.