Skipping the required field "Email Address(es)"?

First of all I would like to say thank you for a great product - and as far as I can see great support.

I am having trouble figuring out, exactly how I can skip the required field "Email Address(es)" found in the "General" tab on chronoforms. The reason is, that we are using the form as an application and pre-registration. As soon as the user has filled out the form, it is sent using our email template to both the user and those who will review the application - as a means of confirmation for the user and as a way of informing the reviewers of the awaiting application.

The ideal situation: The email is sent to the applicant via the "special fields" tab using the email address which the applicant has supplied in the form and to the reviewers using the "BCC Email" in the "General" tab.

The current situation: Same as above, however the email is also sent to the admin's email, since the field "Email Address(es)" is required and because we do not want to disclose the email addresses of the reviewers to the applicant.

It is obvious, that the version of Chronoforms we are using at the moment does not allow this, but is there a workaround, which would enable us to achieve the ideal situation?

Best regards
Esben

Hi Esben,

You are using the old version of ChronoForms 2.5.x - this does have a bug that requires a value in this field. As a quick fix you can put a dummy address in there like [email]user@example.com[/email] - it's just needed to get past the form validation.

Somewhere in the forums is a way of deleting this dummy entry in the OnSubmit Before box - I can try to search for it in the morning.

Are you on Joomla 1.0.x? If so can you upgrade to 1.5 - it is more secure and ChronoForms v3.0 is better suited to this kind of form.

Bob

Thank you very much. I would really appreciate it, if you could find the workaround.

We are running Joomla 1.5, but apparently the version of Chronoforms I installed for our site six months ago wasn't the newest version.
Should we update to chronoforms 3.0, how much of the already working forms will be kept and how much need to be done again?

Also: I wonder if you happen to know, which file to alter, in order to remove registration link from the frontpage of joomla? I am not interested in disabling user registration, since I use the aforementioned form as a (pre-) registration of an inactive user, which the admin later will activate - if the reviewers find the applicant suitable.

/Esben

Hi Esben,

Try putting this code into the OnSubmit Before box - it *should* remove the dummy email:

<?php
$rows[0]->extraemail = "";
?>

If the forms are working OK then there is no need to upgrade. However, if you are likely to be creating new forms, or developing them then it's certainly worth thinking about. We still support the old version of ChronoForms but now abotu 90% of the questions here are for the new version (it changed around six months ago so that may be why you have the older release.)

There is no automatic upgrade process but it's fairly simple to do manually and will take 5-15 minutes for each form, maybe less.

Bob

Thank you very much - worked like a charm.

/Esben

Hi,

I'm using Joomla 1.0.15 and Chrono Forms 2.3.9 and have the same problem. I want to use the Special Fields - Email field name.
The work around is a good solution because it will remove my dummy from the General - Email address(es).

However, the form will not be send because the To field still contains a preceding komma: To: , [email]recipient@domain.com[/email]
This held the send process.

Is there also work around for this?
Maybe a code hack?

Thanks in advance.
Rgds, Jos

Hi Jos,

Sorry but I can't remember the old version very well, where is this To field ? can you post a screenshot ?

Cheers
Max

Hi Jos,

Looking at the code for 2.3.9 as far as I can see there shouldn't be a comma left in there. Difficult to know quite what is happening.

You could try this

<?php
$rows[0]->extraemail = NULL;
?>

but I don't think that it will make any difference :-(

Bob

Thanks for your suggestion,

I tried both of your suggestions but without succes.

On Submit code - before sending email:
<?php
// $rows[0]->extraemail = "";
$rows[0]->extraemail = NULL;
?>

Were extraemail = [email]dummy@domain.com[/email]

The Post array is filled correctly however.

Debug On:

_POST: Array ( [Email] => [email]recipient@domain.com[/email] ) // is forms address were the dummy is stripped off
Case 1: Use table layout
E-mail: 'Yes' custom
Email not sent

The email is not sent because the Recipeint array is build (as far as I can see) from two parts, the "General - Email address(es)" field and the "Special Fields - Email field name" field wich result in an empty string and a filled string seperated with a comma, so you get: ", [email]recipient@domain.com[/email]"
From: [email]info@domain.nl[/email] [info@domain.nl]
To: , [email]recipient@domain.com[/email]
Subject: (Title) SubTitle.

This result halts the form from mailing.

The solution should be somewhere in "components\com_chronocontact\chronocontact.php" I think where we should exclude the empty field names from being build in the array to avoid the empty string so the comma is not needed to separate the first field from the second.
Or maybe there is a kind of solution in there to strip the first comma, but I can't find it yet.

Hi bladerunner,

I checked the code this afternoon and, as far as I can see the two address lists are array merged *after* the point where this code should clear the standard enter - so there shouldn't be any comma added.

Maybe I got it wrong, I'll look again in the morning. Which versions of ChronoForms / Joomla are you using?

I have confirmed with a couple of people this week that the CC & BCC fields do not appear to work with "PHP Mail Function" site setting - but they do seem to be OK with "SMTP Server".

Bob

I use Joomla 1.0.15 and Chrono Forms 2.3.9

Bob,

I think of this:

In chronocontact.php I put in:

...
490 echo "<p>recipient_a = ".$recipient[0]."</p>";
491 echo "<p>recipient_b = ".$recipient[1]."</p>";
492 echo "<p>recipient_c = ".$recipient[2]."</p>";
493
494 $email_sent = mosMail($from, $fromname, $recipient, $subject, $html_message, true,
495 $ccemails, $bccemails, $attachments, $replyto_email, $replyto_name );
496
...

This is the result:

_POST: Array ( [Email] => [email]recipient_b@domain.com[/email], [email]recipient_c@domain.com[/email] )

recipient_a = // empty Email address(es) field
recipient_b = [email]recipient_b@domain.com[/email], [email]recipient_c@domain.com[/email] // from Email field name
recipient_c =

To: , [email]recipient_b@domain.com[/email], [email]recipient_c@domain.com[/email]

So I'm starting to think it is de mosMail that causes the problem.
Probably it print array[0] and array[1] seperated with a comma.

So we should make $recipient[0] = $recipient[1] and clear $recipient[1]

>> I tried but then de comma appears at the end of the array and again the mail function failed.

Hi bladerunner,

Please try this. In chronocontact.php - around line 436 find this line

$recipient = explode( ",", $recipient );

and replace it with this line

if ( $recipient ) $recipient = explode( ",", $recipient );

This should prevent the extra comma.

Bob

PS Sorry, the code I checked yesterday was the later version - I missed that you had already said that you were on Joomla 1.0.x

Hi Bob,

Check! It works. Thanks.

The next challenge is to send emails to more than one recipient.

If I put in more than one address the email is again halt from being sent.
So both [email]name1@abc.def[/email], [email]name2@xyz.def[/email] OR [email]name1@abc.def[/email]; [email]name2@xyz.def[/email] doesn’t work.

B.t.w. I can confirm too that CC and BCC doesn’t work with php mail function in site config.
Maybe, this problem is also related to this?

Hi bladerunner,

Try a comma separated list with *no spaces*

Bob

Thanks,

That's it.
I should have thought about that.
Via SMTP it works smootly, including CC and BCC

Cheers,
Jos