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As a relatively "unwashed heathen" where it comes to throwing forms and CSS code, I spent a long and at times frustrating day today trying to figure out how the mail template for ChronoForms was supposed to receive the information collected by the form I made.

At last I managed to make a matched pair of Form and Mail Template that does what I need.
It is a simple form, and a simple mail template. However, it does just what I need (which fortunately is a simple task), and looks good enough.

A few pointers for other newbies:

1. Do read the instructions thoroughly, and look at the tutorials that show how to make forms. It is important to be aware that, although you can easily make a form using a WYSIWYG html editor like Dreamweaver, you will:
a. need to be aware that only the code between the <form> and </form> tags should be included in the "Form HTML" box under the Form Code tab. The *only* exception to this is the link to your CSS stylesheet, if you're using one. In the case of y enclosed samples, I included the <style> definition right in, because I wanted to be done with it quickly, it's just a couple of lines of code, and I couldn't be bothered with messing with making a separate stylesheet just for this purpose.
b. need to be aware that you will need to rename a few elements within the form you created, in order for it to work correctly with your mail template. You can see what I mean by examining the code that corresponds to the radio buttons and the checkbox in my form.

If you have no idea what the heck I mean by all this, then a day spent going through a basic HTML tutorial probably would be a good investment. Really. Joomla and ChronoForms are about as easy as these sort of technologies get for now. Still they require some basic knowledge of at least HTML and CSS, in order to be able to perform even the slightest customization.

2. My samples are in Spanish, because they were made with a Spanish-language project in mind. Nevertheless, the operational part of the matched pair should be clear enough, even if you don't understand what's written there.

3. The form permits the user to select an item from a drop-down list, make a selection with radio buttons, write some text, write a name and mail address, and check (or not) a checkbox. My mail template simply collects the text and selections entered by the user, and display them in a readable and informative fashion by the mail recipient. There is no validation, scripting or programming involved whatsoever.

4. The most difficult part for me was to figure out (because of me being and "unwashed heathen" and all that) how to receive the radio-button selection made by the user. I don't know whether my solution is quite orthodox, or the best way to go about it. I'll be happy to receive further instruction. However, it works, it suits my purpose, and that's all I needed for today.

5. There you go. I just hope this helps someone like me, who needs a practical yet realatively un-geeky solution and explanation to get the basic, specific task accomplished. Cheers! [file name=form_template.zip size=2506]http://www.chronoengine.com/components/com_fireboard/uploaded/files/form_template.zip[/file]

Hi geckosan,

A nice example thank you.

I spent a long and at times frustrating day today trying to figure out how the mail template for ChronoForms was supposed to receive the information collected by the form I made.

If you hover over the little blue 'i' icon by the field you'll see a tooltip that reads "This is the submission results email template, you can create a template of HTML for what you want to receive, plz use {fieldname} to be replace with the field submitted result."

Maybe the English isn't impeccable but it does tell you want you need to do right there by the input box. (Update, you can also use php in the template field, that hasn't made it into the tooltip yet!)

Bob<br><br>Post edited by: GreyHead, at: 2007/12/08 15:27

Hello, Bob, and thank you for your prompt and kind commentary.

There are two observations I have regarding your comments:

1. Yes, the tooltip information is there, and yes I read it - eventually.

For some reason, Firefox is not able to show the full text of the tooltip, so all you can see is "This is the submission results email template, you can create a template of HTM..." I had to read the page's HTML code in order to see the full message. I later found out that Safari does show the complete text.

2. While the tip is accurate, it's meaning, I'm afraid, is not immediately clear to inexperienced "hacker-wannabes" like myself. There is nothing much that can be done about that at tooltip level, which perforce must be brief and to the point. However I think that there is a lack of REALLY easy-to-follow, truly basic-level guides for newbies and non-geeks in the open-source world. Something that takes you by the hand and shows you step-by-tep everything you need to know and do in order to get certain things accomplished.

3. Thus, the tutorial videos and sample templates published here so far are clear and good enough if you have a certain working knowledge about CSS, Forms, and PHP. In my case, for example, I had a very dim understanding of how forms worked until yesterday. After my day of playing around, I came out knowing and understanding a lot more. However, a full day for practicing and playing is not always a luxury all can afford. Specifically in the case of the templates I submitted, it is not enough to simply add {radiobutton} or {checkbox} to the mail template. If you do that, without altering the code generated by Dreamweaver, all you get in your return mail is "radiobutton", and "checkbox" in the text. I eventually figured out you have to modifiy the values of radiobuttons and checkboxes in a somewhat creative way, in order to get a meaningful return mail.

I also know that if you add a little JavaScript and/or PHP to your form code or your mail template (not sure which one, yet), you may get even more meaningful and elegant results. Obviously this requires a better and deeper understanding of coding and template building, and logically is out of the reach of rank beginners. However, I do believe it is possible to compose a tutorial to help newbies understand everything they really need to know in order to successfully implement simple, yet highly functional forms with their respective mail returns. My little contribution posted above is meant as a step in that direction.

4. I have reached a level of understanding that allows me to figure out that you should be able to insert PHP code within the template, even if the tooltip does not specifically say so. In a way, it would not be congruent if you couldn't, since the whole Joomla structure relies heavily on PHP, and you're just inserting HTML code in the template box. So, HTML, PHP, CSS and JavaScript intutively ought to work within all the Form Code boxes. However, if you're at a level of understanding where you can knowlegeably apply PHP, CSS and JavaScript, then you have no need of the tutorials and explanations I'm referring to in here! :-D

Anyhow, Oh Greying One, I believe that you have done a great job of greatly simplifying a task that would otherwise be truly complex for non-programmers and casual users. I am satisfied that ChronoForms works as advertised, it did allow me to implement a mail-form in a web site on my own for the first time in my life, and it is well worth the license fee that you request.
If I manage to sell the project I'm working on, I'll make sure to send the payment along.

Thank you very much,

Alex<br><br>Post edited by: GreyHead, at: 2007/12/08 17:20

Hi Alex,

Thanks for that, I agree with most of what you write. A couple of comments and corrections though.

First off, this is Max's project, he does the coding, I just do some technical support, so all kudos to Max for what ChronoForms can do (and what it doesn't do).

I agree that more tutorials (FAQs, sample forms, etc.) are needed, and when I can I'll write some more. For me there's a kind of trade off between answering the *urgent* problems in the forums, and sitting back and doing some of the more basic tutorial work.

I'm really not sure how basic we should go though. ChronoForms is a Forms Manager, it doesn't make any pretence to help users write forms or css or html or php or JavaScript. We do post useful answers here in the forums when someone asks a specific question but that's about the limit. I think that probably those topics are better covered elsewhere: W3Schools, Wufoo, DreamWeaver, NVU, etc. all have info on building forms one way or another.

Assuming that the basics are covered elsewhere then I do believe that we can do better to help users apply those to their Joomla forms.

Thanks for the heads up on the tool-tip. They are fine in FireFox in Joomla 1.0.x but I now see that they are truncated in Joomla 1.5 . . .

Bob<br><br>Post edited by: GreyHead, at: 2007/12/08 17:32