What is “Form”?
Well “Form” is the extremely creatively named add on for Connections that adds the very often requested feature; a front end form to allow users to submit entries for approval. Yep, I said it! Finally a front end form for Connections.
I do have to warn you, this is not a final release version. I’ve been encouraged by many users to early release a beta. Well, that’s what this is, a beta release. And for a limited time it’s for sale at half price.
Now, don’t let the “beta” word scare you off. It’s only being called a beta because it’s not feature complete. Many hours have been devoted to the design and testing so it is considered it to be pretty stable. Some great features are already done such as being able to selectively enable/disable data field types and being fully AJAX driven, meaning no page refresh once a user submits an entry. The features not yet implemented are custom field names [change the labels of the various input fields], custom ordering of the data field types, custom required fields and internationalization.
Want it? Here’s where to get it: http://connections-pro.com/pro-module/form/
Great news! Is it possible to localize it for other languages?
@owcv
Not yet, give me a few weeks.
Will there be category submission included in the final release?
@owcv
Yep. It’ll be in the next beta update.
Great news. Already downloaded and working with the new FORM beta. Features I would like to see:
(1) Add or allow access to some type of Captcha (or similar) security
(2) Send a confirmation response to the user and the web site admin
(3) Allow a user, with proper approval, to edit their data.
Thanks for the improvements in your package!
It gets better and better! This must answer the prayers of all webmasters/mistresses who simply haven’t the time to do the data entry as well as everything else.
Just one question, will it have some kind of Captcha to weed out spam?
Thank you Steve!
@Toni
I will include some anti spam bot measures in before the final release, tough I expect that spam will not be to much of an issue.
Will it be possible to integrate a payment gateway into the Form submission process (without an excess amount of coding)?
@Nick
I’m a long way from even considering payment gateways for Form. You might want to consider a membership plugin like s2 Member and put the form behind a member only paywall.
I think I actually rushed to download the file before I even got to the second paragraph. :) Great stuff!
I know you say custom field names and some order types changes are coming, so this may already be on your roadmap; but I’d really like the option to only have selected ‘types’ in the Fields (e.g. only ‘Phone’ not work phone/home phone/cell phone, same with address, etc…)
Also, it would be nice to have the option to have the page redirect somewhere after entry submitted notice hits the screen.
I can’t wait for some of your other features adds.
Thanks again for great work.
In testing this, is there a limit to the image size upload? or if not, can we place one?
I added a test entry with large image files, it never showed in connections admin panel, either moderated or approved. I then checked php myadmin about 10 min later, and the entry was not there at all. Thoughts?
I also sent you an email with another question.
Thanks.
@Mitch
The upload will be limited to the server PHP settings of memory limit, max execution time, max post size and max upload size. Any one of them could throw a wrench into the works. I recommend small images. Really anything larger than what is being used is overkill.
I know you will not be able to control what users upload and I do have a plan. The current upload method will be replaced. I’m going to use the same drop & drag upload that WP uses to upload media. That should solve most upload issues quite nicely. But one will remain, PHP memory limit. If someone tries to upload a 12 megapixel JPEG and the memory limit isn’t set high enough it will not be able to be processed to create the various Connections caches.
Most Important Feature Request, the ability of the owner of the listing to modify their existing listing. Had to do several today already. What a work load saver that will be.
Thanks for all the hard work on this, this is really vital.
In regards to the CAPTCHA, I believe it is needed, however since I am using this on a Members Only Page (managed by S2member), that’s not going to be a issue on my end. I will report back as to how well this “plays” with S2Member.
@Roy
I have something more like this in mind:
http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials:Safer_Contact_Forms_Without_CAPTCHAs
Another good addition, thank you. Eagerly waiting for customer to be able to modify their entry and then I can make full sue of this.
In the meantime… Using CSV import but this doesn’t import images and the data in my database will be regularly updated. The databse is going to extend to 10,000+ entries and using CSV import to change the data regularly is not ideal (slow for 10,000 entries).
Is it possible to upload straight into the wp_connections tables? I would have to maintain the links between tables (straight forward) but I’m not sure what the A1:s32:{“long number”} entries do. Presume it’s some kind of unique identifier – can I make my own number or must it be created by wordpress?
@Stephen
No, it’s not a unique identifier. Those are PHP arrays the were serialized for storing in a database. You will see this for each of the data types address, phone, email … and such. These are being used sort of as an object cache of the data relevant to the entry in the corresponding tables. These allow me to keep the complex database queries to a minimum. Any time you’re view an entry all the data is for the entry is extracted from these caches and displayed. The only time you actually see or use the data from the other tables is when you’re editing an entry, searching or using the filters. I guess, long story short, you can not just make these up.
Is it feasible to upload data via pho control panel straight into tables? I couldnt see how the tables linked to each other.
That should say MySQL control panel
Ignore my replies, Steven. I was reading too much into those php arrays.
I’m late to the ‘party’ but what a wonderful addition!
Wanted to post this under CSV Import but cannot find the blog, so thought this might be an apt place to post since form and import do a similar job.
I’m using ‘Participants Database’ to gather members for my connections datbase, since it allows a member to go back and update the information stored about them (will be fantastic when Form can do this). I can export data that has changed in ‘Participants’ and use ‘CSV Import’ to bring this data into ‘Connections’. However, it’s an all or nothing import because I cannot import just records that have changed, since this creates a duplicate record in ‘Connections’.
Is there a way to update existing records in ‘Connections’ rather than create a duplicate record? If Connections recognise an ID for each entry being imported it could see when an ID already exists and know to over-write the existing data rather than create a new record.
Keep up the fantastic work.
Hey!
I am sending you tickets everyday. I paid already my transaction id is 7NY3129000449601A. Please send me the link to download it.
@sridhar
Yes, I know. I have not been able to contact you because my emails get blocked by the email server your account uses. I see you gave a Gmail address to post this comment. I’ll try to send the details that way.
Thank you! I’ve been eagerly awaiting this! Do you send out emails when new products are released? If so, need to get on your list. I’ve purchased 3 of your products but I’m not on your mailing list.
@Christina
Sorry, no mailing list yet. I’ve gone back and forth on this which is one of the reasons I’ve added the Dashboard to Connections.
I’ll just need to pay more attention to the dashboard then :-)
Thanks!
Downloaded, installed, and up and running on my site in 5 minutes :-)
“Plus 1” for notifications. I’d also like a way for the form to default to organization rather than individual. If that already exists, please let me know.
(I’d also like a way to subscribe to your comment threads so I don’t have to come back every day looking for a reply :-)
@christina809
Currently there is not a way to default to an entry type. That will definitely be an option in the next beta update which will also include categories.
I’ll look into what options are available for subscribing to comment threads. I know I miss that when I comment on other blogs.
A little off topic.. however are any of the connection templates “responsive”
Thanks
Bronwyn
@Bronwyn
None of the templates have responsive designs, officially. I’ve look at each on my Android phone during development, they work fine. I think that really needs to be implemented at the theme level. I guess I could purchase one or two responsive themes and see how the templates fit within them. I’ll put that on my to list.
Now, Form, I do plan on making a bit more responsive.
Hi Steven, thanks for getting back on that.
I’ll have a play with the Connections template that I am using over the next day or so and see how it goes in a responsive theme and borrow a friends phone to check it out (I live a sheltered life and dont have a phone that is net enabled). Was just something I have been wondering about so thought I would ask.
Responsive form would be useful.
Although if i was to put in a wishlist it would be for the ability to assign a listing to a particular subscriber/member so as they can make edits to their own listing.
Re comment subscription.. Im using chrome with the rss subscription addon and Im able to subscribe to the site’s generic/default comment feed without a problem.
I agree with
(1) Add or allow access to some type of Captcha (or similar) security
(2) Send a confirmation response to the user and the web site admin
(3) Allow a user, with proper approval, to edit their data.
I would also like to ask that it work with the SLIM template, that it has the option for links :Nofollow, and target new window (didn’t see that in demo)
As well as The Ability to add custom fields to the template such as Misc. Coupon Code, etc
Thank you for considering this.
Hi Steve, I just purchased the Form and ROT13 email encryption, Good work! Had been waiting for the form as I noticed a lot of us were. An important feature I guess cannot be mentioned enough by the look of already submitted comments. If users could edit their own submissions regularly it would be a Great Time Saver so that all we have to do as administrators of the website is just click approve. That would be awesome.
Looking forward to that as a consideration.
Otherwise thanks
cheers.
@Shiko
Already working on a separate add-on named link. This add-on will link a specific entry to a specific user to allow them to edit in on their admin profile page and eventually by using Form on the front end.
Hi Steve
I purchased Pro, a couple of templates, Form… But I can hardly wait for your link add-on!! I have such a need of that functionality… Do you have any release date estimation?
Even if it’s a beta version, I’d kill for it! If you need some kind of beta tester, here I am.
Thanks for your great work! Cheers!
@Van
Sorry, no release ETA yet. I’m currently knee deep into trying to get the next version of Connections out the door. Right after that, I plan on adding email notification support to Form. So, right now at least, I’m planning on starting Link after that. I’ll need beta testers, so keep an eye on the blog.
Is it possible to add the custom fields to form yet, so that people can edit all their profile details? I see the last post was 2012. Has this feature been added yet?
@ Terri
Custom fields can be added programmatically (developer require for now). You can see examples of this with these free extensions for Connections:
http://connections-pro.com/add-on/hours/
http://connections-pro.com/add-on/education-level/
http://connections-pro.com/add-on/income-level/
http://connections-pro.com/add-on/languages/