README

Browning is a tiny PHP function to send emails with Mailgun, that uses CURL instead of Mailgun's (slightly porky) library.

Installation

composer require eustasy/browning-a-mailgun-script

Then include the Composer autoloader in your project:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

This makes both Browning() and Recaptcha_Verify() available without any manual require calls.

1. Setup with Mailgun

Make sure you have the following packages installed. CURL is required.

libmagic-dev php-dev libcurl3 php-curl

Create a config file anywhere outside your vendor/ directory, for example config/browning.php, and fill in your details:

// Mailgun API URL — replace example.com with your verified Mailgun domain
$Browning['URL'] = 'https://api.mailgun.net/v3/example.com';

// Mailgun API Key — found at https://mailgun.com/cp (use the private API key, not the public key)
$Browning['Key'] = 'key-123456-abcdefg-789012-abc-34567';

// Display name for the sender
$Browning['Default']['Regards'] = 'Example Support';

// Reply-to address — should match the domain in your API URL
$Browning['Default']['ReplyTo'] = 'support@example.com';

Add config/browning.php to your .gitignore to avoid committing credentials.

2. Code

Load the settings and function, then call Browning():

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
require 'config/browning.php';

$Mail = Browning(
    'recipient@example.com', // Required: recipient address
    'Message Subject',       // Required: subject line
    'Text or HTML body',     // Required: message body
    'Sender Name',           // Optional: overrides $Browning['Default']['Regards']
    'reply-to@example.com',  // Optional: overrides $Browning['Default']['ReplyTo']
    false                    // Optional: set true to enable debug output
);

if ($Mail['Success']) {
    echo 'Email sent successfully.';
} else {
    echo 'Failed to send email: ' . $Mail['Error'];
}

The function always returns an array with two keys:

Key	Type	Description
`Success`	`bool`	`true` if the email was accepted by Mailgun.
`Error`	`string\|false`	Error message, or `false` on success. With `$Debug = true`, error messages include technical detail.

3. Setup with reCAPTCHA

To protect your contact form with Google reCAPTCHA v2, add your site and secret keys to your config file (e.g. config/browning.php):

$Recaptcha['Enable'] = true;
$Recaptcha['SiteKey'] = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
$Recaptcha['SecretKey'] = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';

Keys can be obtained from the Google reCAPTCHA admin console.

4. CAPTCHA Form

Add the reCAPTCHA widget to your HTML form. Include the reCAPTCHA script and add the g-recaptcha div with your site key:

<script src="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js"></script>

<form method="post" action="">
    <input type="email" name="dear" placeholder="Recipient email" required>
    <input type="text" name="subject" placeholder="Subject" required>
    <textarea name="message" placeholder="Message" required></textarea>
    <div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey="your-site-key"></div>
    <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

5. CAPTCHA Validation

Before sending the email, verify the reCAPTCHA response server-side:

$Recaptcha['Validity'] = Recaptcha_Verify(
    $Recaptcha['SecretKey'],
    $_POST['g-recaptcha-response'],
    $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] // Optional: user's IP address
);

if (!$Recaptcha['Validity']['Success']) {
    echo 'reCAPTCHA failed. Please go back and try again.';
    if (!empty($Recaptcha['Validity']['Error'])) {
        echo ' ' . $Recaptcha['Validity']['Error'];
    }
} else {
    // reCAPTCHA passed — send the email
    $Mail = Browning($_POST['dear'], $_POST['subject'], $_POST['message']);
}

eustasy / browing-a-mailgun-script

Maintainers

Package info

Fund package maintenance!

Statistics

Security