How to Use the thing!

As a newby and a particularly old and think one at that I have found the 'tutorials' excellent.
I have made just the form I want etc
But how do my end users get to it?
In other words how does a menu item link to it? Do I have to cut and paste it onto an article ??
Also I have a problem moving the elements about on the form.
(using Joomla 1.59)
Help Please !!
--
Dave :?

Hi Dave,

There are a couple of ways of connecting. The simplest is to go into the Menu Manager and create a new menu item of type ChronoForms and put the form name in the parameter box on the right hand side.

Bob

Thanks Bob,
Your first suggestion works, So the 'form' has to be an article in its own right.
This is excellent software...how now do I move elements about on the form.
When I placed them there seemed not to be enough room to put them. I tried altering the HTML but that was only a 'view' so changes did not stick.

I had been trying for 3 days to put two nice little calendars on an article because I am writing a hire system.
Thanks again.
--
Dave

Hi Dave,

So the 'form' has to be an article in its own right.

No, not necessarily, there is a ChronoForms Mambot/PlugIn that lets you embed forms in any content page; and a module that lets you put them in template boxes.

Bob

PS Will reply to the other points later.

Hi Dave,

If you created your form with the Wizard, then you can re-edit it with the Wizard (but you will lose any manual edits if you do so). Otherwise you can manually edit all of the Form HTML in the Form Code tab.

Calendars should be a straightforward drag and drop - if not there are several posts here about using different calendars in your forms.

Bob

Thanks Bob.

The more I play with chronoforms the better it seems.
Just now I am having problems with the WIzard editor. After I have a few items on the form It will not let me place one below the previous one it always comes into second-to-last position.

Because I am used to using Transactions I have used pspmyadmin to change the engine created to innodb from MyIsam. Will that cause any problems ?

Being a newcomer to Joomla I am wary of anything calling itself a mambot. I reach for the insecticide. I assume it is a hangover from Joomla 1. Is it OK with J1.59 etc.

--
Dave

Hi Dave,

a) Drag into the narrow coloured border at the bottom to add an item at the end. (Or add your Submit button early and drag into the space just above it).

b) I've no real idea about innodb, but can't think of any reason why it should cause problems.

c) Mambots are (mostly) harmless. Joomla started out as a fork of another CMS called Mambo and Joomla 1.0 had a lot of Mambo dependent code (e.g. many variables called $mos. . . from Mambo Operating System). Mambot's were code snippets that automated common actions in Mambo - Mam+bot - like search, editors, inserting images. Joomla 1.5 was a very big code-rebuild and lost most of the Mambo inheritance, and Mambots were re-named PlugIns. But the Mambot name still persists and 'PlugIn' is a bit generic (and ChronoForms has it's own completely different plugins) so I tend to call the Joomla versions Mambot/PlugIn.

Ah well, you did ask (didn't you) and it's Sunday afternoon.

Bob

Thanks again Bob,
What are you doing watching your computer on a Sunday Afternoon !
Ok So I have put the insecticide away.
(I suspect Mambot-Joomla is an alternative to Mumbo-Jumbo but you never know.)
I must now see if I can make the mambot work.

I notice that the only tables that are offered a connection are jos_xxx
I have some of my own tables in the joomla database which for distinction I call djb_xxx
Is there any reason why these should not be included ? And if so how ? Or shall I have to relabel those tables. Why the prefix except to allow other prefixes in the same database?

Thanks again
--
Dave

ALas No I cannot make the mambot work.
I did as told and created a new 'article', Put a few words in followed by

abcdefg hijklmnop {chronocontact}hiredates{/chronocontact} as advised. Then a few more random words.

The whole Article came out exactly as written above when 'previewed'.
dave :?

Hi Dave,

The Mambot thingy does work . . . so silly question time.

I am not sure that it works in preview mode. Have you published and viewed the page?

If that doesn't help. Have you downloaded, installed and published the correct version of the ChronoForms Mambot?

Bob

Thanks again Bob.
My test was done in haste last night and I see that I left the slash out of the closing {/chronocontact}.
--
dave

Hi Dave,

Yes, that will break it - amazing how those odd characters like commas and slashes sneak off and hide late at night.

Bob

Hi Dave,

If you created your form with the Wizard, then you can re-edit it with the Wizard (but you will lose any manual edits if you do so). Otherwise you can manually edit all of the Form HTML in the Form Code tab.

Bob

How do you edit a form that has already been created with the form wizard?

Hi aprilfool2001,

In the most recent release there's a Wizard Edit icon in the Admin Toolbar.

Note: the Wizard uses a separately saved special copy of the 'form html'; any changes you made manually in the Form HTML box will be lost if you re-edit with the Wizard.

Bob

Sorry to keep you busy BUT:
On the 'Forms management page' there is Menu Creator and Menu Remover. I have not read anything about these.
ALso there is a reference Plugins referring to joomla login etc. Just what are these?
Perhaps I am being lazy and should search some more.
I have a hire system and visitors are guests until they are serious when before anything else we must know dates.
So I want the login to be requested on the page where they enter dates in my chonoforms dates form.
Does this Joomla-login plugin help that ? 1. login 2. enter dates.
Then and only then can they proceed to try to hire.
Thanks yet again.
--
Dave

Hi Dave,

I think that the Menu Creator & Remover allow you to add menu items in the back-end to access saved database records. The ChronoForms data viewer is functional but basic, I prefer to use the MySQL Query Browser if I can get remote access, or the EasySQL Joomal Extension if I can't.

The Joomla and Community Builder PlugIns are ChronoForms PlugIns (not to be confused with Joomal Plugins or Mambots) that make it fairly simple to build a Joomla Registration form using ChronoForms - this is particularly useful if you want to collect and save extra data at the same time.

Yes I think this would let you add login functionality to your dates form, you'd need to either collect or generate a Name, UserName, Password and Email from them. In practice yoiu've probably already got name and email so I'd generate a username (I last used {lastName}{first_name}nnn - with the random digits to avoid duplicates) and Joomla has a password generator function you can use.

Bob

Hi aprilfool2001,

In the most recent release there's a Wizard Edit icon in the Admin Toolbar.

Note: the Wizard uses a separately saved special copy of the 'form html'; any changes you made manually in the Form HTML box will be lost if you re-edit with the Wizard.

Bob

Thanks for the reply

I am sure I have downloaded the latest version, can see a 'Wizard Edit' option

its in V3.1 RC2

Max

Hi aprilfool2001,

It's here . . .

[attachment=0]11-03-2009 12-09-38.png[/attachment]

Bob

Thanks for pointing this out.


Do you recommend using this on production sites?

of course thats fine!🙂 the admin area wizard may have a bug or two of javascript, nothing sensitive!

Hi aprilfool2001,

In the most recent release there's a Wizard Edit icon in the Admin Toolbar.

Note: the Wizard uses a separately saved special copy of the 'form html'; any changes you made manually in the Form HTML box will be lost if you re-edit with the Wizard.

Bob

Hi,

I have been trying to get this to work, but if you use the wizard edit button you seem to lose your email settings.
Anybody any idea what I am doing wrong?

Hi aprilfool2001,

The Wizard Edit *shouldn't* affect the email settings . . . but I rarely use it so haven't noticed.

Bob

Hi aprilfool2001,

Which Chronoforms version do you have ? clear your website and browser cache before going to the wizard

Cheers
Max

Hi Dave,

So the 'form' has to be an article in its own right.

No, not necessarily, there is a ChronoForms Mambot/PlugIn that lets you embed forms in any content page; and a module that lets you put them in template boxes.

Bob

PS Will reply to the other points later.

Hi, I have been trying to get more information on how to embed forms into content pages. I am teaching myself and a bit new to this but quick to learn and love the tutorials I have found. Thanks heaps if anyone can help. Cheers Shannon