[Wayne]

Is there a way to customize the labels Ex: Change ZIP code to Postal Code , State to Province?

I apologize in advance if this is covered somewhere else in your site, as I did try searching for it however could not find anything that looked like this feature.

BTW: I am also looking forward to the implementation of custom fields, I am looking for a field to store Search Keyword/Tags and an extra hidden field only the admin can see. The hidden field then can be used in the short code as a custom filter ex: show only with a certain word in field.

[Steven Zahm]

@ NetWarden

To change field names. Install the Say What? plugin.

It’ll add a new Text Changes menu item. Click Add New, enter the string exactly as shown in Connections, enter connections [notice the lack of capitalization, that's important!] as the domain and then enter your new text.

The great thing about using this plugin is that it will be update safe and you can use it on any other plugin that has been properly internationalized.

You can grab the latest dev build from Github. I suggest looking at the Hours extension at how to add custom fields. Several other dev are using the dev version on client sites, so it should the dev version should be mostly stable.

Hope that helps!

[Wayne]

With ‘Say What’, WordPress Plug-ins warned that it has not been tested with my version of WP, otherwise it seemed to install with no problems. Using the ‘connections’ domain I tried:

state -> province
State -> Province
State: -> Province:

Did not seem to change in the ‘add-entry -> Address Type’, maybe the ‘Connections-Form’ is a different domain?

As for Connections-Business-Directory -> Hours I can’t seem to figure out how to use it. Actually other than being listed in my WP Plugins, I can’t find it anywhere? Maybe I did not install it correctly or I am missing something here?

[Steven Zahm]

@ NetWarden

Yes, Say What? is safe to use, even with the warning. WordPress would have to change quite radically for it to stop working.

Yes, Form does have a different domain (has to be that way). The next version of Form will use far more code from core Connections. Any way the domain is connections_form

You did install the dev version of Connections, right? It will not do anything in the current version because none of the code that makes it work exists.

[Wayne]

RE: Say What?

Thank you. I thought that a different ‘domain’ might of been the reason causing it to not work. Is there other ‘domains’ for your ‘connections’ that I should know about (especially any that would use the words Zipcode or State)?

RE: You did install the dev version of Connections, right?

Nope, I missed that. Now have ‘connections-develop’ installed, I’ll go and see if I can figure this out…

[Steven Zahm]

@ NetWarden

re: domain

None that I can think of off the top of my head. The domain for each plugin can be found by going to the Plugin Editor admin page and choosing the plugin you want to know the domain. The domain will be at the top of the initial file that is loaded in the editor when the plugin is chosen. I hope that is clear…

re: dev-connections

Alrighty, just let me know if you have any questions.

[Wayne]

re: domain

Thanks, I will keep that in mind.

re: dev-connections

OK, I removed connections and hours then installed and activated connections-dev, then installed and activated hours-dev. I do see the hours thing in the Manage -> Edit entry also in the Add entry page, however it does not show in the form that the client would be using.

I don’t see how this helps? I don’t know where or what I do to modify this thing to do what I want it to do (add an extra field to the connections form and use it throughout connections)?

This is getting way to complex for a simply adding an extra form field. I think when I mentioned ‘hidden’ field you misunderstood me, I was describing possible options not that field had to be hidden. Sorry for the confusion if so.

I think what I will do instead is use the ‘notes’ field and change it to ‘keywords’ or ‘tags’ as a workaround. If I go this route, is there a way to make the field ‘text’ only (no formatting allowed)?

What I really want is to have a sub-region field ex:

Address Line 1: 123 fake street
Address Line 2:
City: Thunder Bay *
Province: ON *
Region: North West Ontario *
Postal Code: H0H 0H0

* I suggest being able to choose the field type to use in the form (text, selection, or combo-box) as text is too open ended for search ex: in province people may possibly use ON, Ontario or Ont. for a single province, this poses a problem for filtering and/or searching.

combo-box ex: http://simpletutorials.com/tutorials/javascript/jquery/ddcombobox/alexis_ddcombobox/index.html

Using the short-codes I can then make it so if somebody goes to my site for example:
mysite.com/nwo that page would show only entries that have sub-region of North West Ontario.

Note: I noticed the categories drop-down in the form is no-longer a drop-down selection in the dev version of connections. Might I suggest you set it up like you did with the other boxes (keep the drop-down selection and have a ‘add category’ button) or a multi select drop-down.

[Steven Zahm]

@ NetWarden

I apologize, I guess I wasn’t clear enough … with the dev version of Connections, you could create custom fields but you would actually create a new plugin, like Hours, to add them. I was pointing you at the Hours extension because that has all the necessary code, as an example only, to add custom fields. There is no point and click interface at this time.

re: Form and custom fields

I don’t think I realized you were using Form, until the domain question came up. To show the Hours in Form, you would actually need the dev version of Form too. But that is in no shape to be used at the moment. It is going under major changes to support custom fields and front-end use editing when Link is installed.

re: regions

Why not use categories. The you could use links like this:
mysite.com/directory/cat/north-west-ontario/

re: category drop-down in Form

That is likely just a bug in the dev version of Connections.

[Wayne]

That would explain why I could not figure out how Hours-dev was going to help me. I will remove Hours-dev as I am not going to be developing a new extension.

re: regions

I am already using categories for ‘Business/Organization Type’ (Advertisers, Agriculture, etc.). If I try to incorporate ‘Regions’ into it it would make things a lot more complicated. I would have to either add duplicate Region and/or Sub-regions in each B/O Type or duplicate B/O Type in each Region and/or Sub-regions category (ouch). Unless there is a way to create a separate categories group, then we may have something here! (ex: Categories1)

Otherwise we are back to gaming the existing system.

If there was a way to re-organize the address group fields in Form, perhaps I would be able to change ‘Address Line 3’ to ‘Region’ and place it just above the ‘Country’ field.

Oh BTW, is there a way to hide fields within a group (ex: address) and/or set a default value for them? I don’t need people setting the ‘Country’ field as ALL entries will be in Canada.

I guess ultimately you are going to have to make a new extension that allows creating new field groups and fields within Form and can be used throughout Connections just like the native Form fields. (Ex: Categories1 or Sub-Regions)

[Steven Zahm]

@ NetWarden

Unfortunately I don’t have a clear enough picture of how the region and business type relate and how you want users to be able to filter them…

So, why not use Say What? to rename the Country field to Region that way there is no reason to hide it. I guess one issue will be ensuring consistent input by users. They only way I can see that is if you edit Form to make the country field a hard coded drop down for the user to select the correct region.

The intent for Form is a simple plug and play front-end form for Connections, it really is not designed for custom data. The next version will allow for a bit more customization, but that is mainly to support the upcoming meta field support. The core of what you see will still be the same.

I don’t really plan on make a custom form builder (at this point) … I actually intend to create “bridge” extensions so form builder plugins like Ninja forms and Gravity Forms can be used to create form that can feed data into Connections.

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