Dynamic Contact Form

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:59 pm

Ok, folks, I just commited a new version of the Contact form plugin ( 1.8 ). This version allows you to create forms which include more/other types of input fields. All you have to do is set "Use the dynamic tpl?" to "Yes"

The creation process is a little cumbersome, but it should be pretty well documented. Please let me know if you have any problems/suggestions/comments.

And I hope you find it useful!

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 5:09 pm

oh yeah, much needed improvement, dang, spartacus needs time to catch up, oh well I'll check it out tomorrow.

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:30 pm

Matt that is some seriously good stuff you've implemented. I love the config options, wasn't too clear what was expected, but once I got the gist of it it works a charm. I encourage everyone to try this out.

I do have a suggestion to imrpove it.

Instead of the text box for entering the dynamic values, could you change it to a combination of select followed by text input. Let me explain my thinking, provide users with a select box that includes a variety of different contact form inputs, eg blog contact form (our existing format), small business contact form (includes first name and last name, telephone number), detailed contact form (also asks for address), and finally custom. If custom is selected then the plugin reads from the following text box and then users need to edit the values themselves as per your current method. These sorts of options would minimise the number of support requests in these forums, would provide some real meat to the plugin, and you'd be making a lot of people very happy.

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:27 pm

That's a good idea!

I'll give it a shot next time I have time... Unfortunately this week is really starting to hammer me. *sigh*

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:24 am

yeah I know the feeling

mgroeninger · Post by **mgroeninger** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:25 am

Ok, I just got an update into CVS...

I added two default settings other than custom so that we offer three types of forms without users having to enter custom strings (per Carl's suggestion above). I also added the handling of select inputs for forms, per Carl's suggestion on his blog.

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:37 pm

Fantastic news. I just tested it and it seems to work as expected. It will be interesting to see what other users do with this functionality. I'll be writing a followup entry on my own blog with some additional layout options for users, then I'll post the url here once its done. I'm also thinking we might want to make an announcement on the s9y blog that an updated contact form is avail. A lot of users will want this.