PHP Feedback Form was always intended to be a general purpose form to mail processor but ended up trying to support everyones needs. As such it ended up more complex than it needed to be for most users.
Please send me requests for features for the next version of the Action but at the moment I am thinking that it will be a very simple version of the current Action with maybe other Actions that will piggy back on the core Action to offer any extended features.
OK Walter. Thanks for that. I of course appreciate that such an action even exists, but with the new site design now live for my client, requests are coming thick and fast and processing them is not easy. I will take another look somewhere else.
I think in the very near future I am going to need to look at something different because I had a request to see if the details from the form could also be added to a database as well as trigger an email, so I have been looking at other solutions - maybe along the lines of how cart based systems send out html formatted email notifications.
However, in the shorter term, with your action it seems I can’t control the order of how the form choices appear on the email.
I have radio buttons whch sit to the right of the text fields, and they are unfortunately appearing in between First Name and Last Name, although having read all the posts I could find regarding this, it seems the only way around that is to change the layout of the form.
From a formatting point of view, it would be good to at least be able to have the field name on one line, with whatever the visitor types into the form on the line below so it is easier to follow.
I have looked at the go.php file your action creates, but it seems beyond me.
The order of the form elements is derived from the source order of your page, which in Freeway can be entirely different than the visual layout of the page. To gain a measure of control over this order, try using a drawn table to lay out your fields. A two column by number-of-fields table, with the borders set to 0 so it’s invisible, provides two huge benefits for your form and your users. First, it makes the captions and the fields stick together, even when text is zoomed or a creaky old browser decides to make text fields the size of freight cars. Second, it provides a measure of semantic structure, since Freeway doesn’t create normal HTML label tags to describe each field, and this helps visually-disabled visitors with screen readers (and Google) to figure out what each field is for.
If you can’t use a table for some reason, then at least click on the Site title on the site pane (left of the design area) and toggle it to Page. Then look at the list of elements you see there. If you click on a form field in your design, the corresponding element name will light up in the list. You can usually drag the elements up and down the list (which changes their stacking order, and thus source order) without disrupting the appearance of the page. If you get the list into the same order as the fields appear on screen, your form submission e-mail will not be scrambled any more.
But seriously, use the table. It’s a better way to solve the problem all around.
Walter
On Aug 10, 2012, at 5:36 AM, Jonathan Riddle wrote:
However, in the shorter term, with your action it seems I can’t control the order of how the form choices appear on the email.
I have radio buttons whch sit to the right of the text fields, and they are unfortunately appearing in between First Name and Last Name, although having read all the posts I could find regarding this, it seems the only way around that is to change the layout of the form.
FormsToGo can do this for you. I’ve often used to capture sign ups into a MySQL database, send a complimentary reply to the user. FormsToGo can also set up a simple HTML table paginated list so you can see them all in a browser.
On 10 Aug 2012, at 10:36, “Jonathan Riddle” email@hidden wrote:
I think in the very near future I am going to need to look at something different because I had a request to see if the details from the form could also be added to a database
I don’t have access to how exactly the emails are returned but the radio button choices get mixed in with the text field entries. For example off the top of my head:
Company Name
First Name
Trade
The Wood Book
Surname
FormsToGo can do this for you. I’ve often used to capture sign ups into a MySQL database, send a complimentary reply to the user. FormsToGo can also set up a simple HTML table paginated list so you can see them all in a browser.
I don’t have access to how exactly the emails are returned but the radio button choices get mixed in with the text field entries. For example off the top of my head:
I can see that is what you will get from looking at your page.
While FTG is a great product and will deliver you can really get what you want from the PHPFF action - it is just a matter of laying outr the form table in a logical manner.
Also in the action if you combine the First Name and Last Name fields into 1 ie name then the email will appear to come from ‘name’ .
Suffering some serious HD problems here so cannot create an example for you just now but I will as soon as I can.
Fields are set with the longer term idea of adding to an existing database and so I need First Name and Last Name separate. Don’t worry for now anyway Dave. It’s the weekend and the Olympics are on! But it would be good if I can sort the order before I look at a more in depth overhaul.
I think in the very near future I am going to need to look at something different because I had a request to see if the details from the form could also be added to a database as well as trigger an email.
I built this functionality into a couple custom forms using Walter’s MAR
framework but it’s definitely a more hands-on approach. If you want to
learn to build that kind of stuff yourself then it’s an option but if
FTG (or similar) can do this for you then that might be preferable and
definitely quicker.
What I’ve done when I needed two columns of a form, but needing source order to be correct (e.g. for the php Feedback form to display them correctly) is to make a two column div areas.
Make two tables or divs (one for each column)
Create a HMTL box wide enough for two columns and paste inline (if a box model site) float it left and make the overflow hidden
Inside that paste in your first column table, float it left.
After that table paste the second column table, float it left.
The source order will now be correct for the php Feedback form to list.