How to get ChronoForm to create Article in Section(s)

I have 3 CHronoForms that I have created and I can't seem to find what I have to do, so that the FORMS once completed, create a page in a section.

Thanks,

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

create a page in a section.

you mean create an article ?

Max

Hey Max.

Okay, I've been digging around for a few hours now. This is my current status.

I've got the e-mail verifications working now from a form submit. I only have the e-mails going to the admin account, however the e-mails are not substituting the variables I'm using {J_user} and {J_email} in the body... it is sending them as is. I have the Joomla registration plugin enabled for the form and I have set the fields with the variables I mentioned.

What controls the e-mail that goes out? The "Email Validation" link on the left of the control panel? or the when you "Edit" the form and go to the "E-mail Templates" tab?

I've downloaded submitcontent.cfbak but I do not know how to install it?

p.s. Yes I was talking about an Article when referring to a "Page in a Section"


Aaron

Hey Guys!!!

I've downloaded and restored the submitcontent.cfbak file which gave me another form in the ChronoForm UI. I enabled and used the FORM which does create an Article that is not published or put into any section. I'll try and get this to work and rename if needed (title, parameters... etc). I'm having a hard time figuring out where the code is that submits it (article that is just created) to a section -> category.


Aaron

Hi Aaron,

the code you need to change is inside the onsubmit box, check it, you need to configure some parameters there, this info is written just below the .cfbak file in the downloads area!!

Regards
Max

So it seems you have to enable "DB Connection" to have the article created upon submitting the form. I'm now investigating if the table has to be the one that ChronoEngine sets (jos_contents), or can you copy/create another one with the same structure, but just rename to something more appropriate... like the article/category/section it's going in?

"jos_content" is the default Joomla articles table, don't change or drop this table!!

the submitcontent form saves to this table so that you can see the new articles using Joomla BUT if you saved to any other table then that's fine, but you will not see them in Joomla's table manager!

Max

it seems if I change the name of the form or if change the name of text boxes and labels it also breaks... I think this is expected. I can't find where I can make the associated changes so it doesn't break.

I'm going to buy the license for the ChronoForms. Can you send me the link the forum that explains the benefits and stuff of acquirring one? Thanks Max!! I also want to help out with testing if I can.


Thanks,

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

thank you, just look at the table jos_content in the database, your form fields names should be similar to the table's column names, so that the posted data is bind to the table! you can set extra fields using the onsubmit code, if you open the onsubmit code box you will see that more fields are there which are necessary but don't exist in the form itself!

the new version is not yet ready for testing, however if you have time to do this then you can send me a message through the contact us page and I will give you the first installer available!🙂

Regards
Max

Hey Max,

Am I write in thinking that the way to see the DB (jos_content) is by using the form and then looking at the records in the UI. I don't know where else I can go to see the structure of that table.



Aaron

Hi Aaron,

Either PHPMyAdmin or the Joomla EasySQL extension are better tools for looking at the DB structure and contents. ChronoForms only has a very basic (but adequate) data viewer.

Bob

So to have articles published in Joomla, the article has to be read from jos_content which shouldn't be changed. The form should match the DB. So all articles from submitcontent have to be the same?

Hi Aaron,

It depends on exactly what you mean by 'article'. In a normal Joomla implementation that would be true - but other extensions could create pages that look and feel like 'articles; but are stored elsewhere.

Bob

Basically I want users to be able to fill out a FORM, upload an .mp3 file and have that submission (Article) posted in a certain Section -> Category. But it seems for that article to be published (or seen by Joomla) it has to use the jos_content table. It also appears that I can't change that table to contain the fields I need. So I feel like I'm at a loss.

How do I use ChronoForms to do this with Joomla? Do you want the URL of my site/Form?


Aaron

I have a SECTION in my site called 'DJ Mixes'
I have a CATEGORY in that SECTION called 'DJ Mixes'
I have the permissions on the 'COMPONENTS' dir set to 'writable'

I want users to fill out the form (capture their 'name', 'mix name', 'body of article = tracklisting') and have it displayed in an article.

The farthest I can get is having the article created and added to the appropriate CATEGORY/SECTION but it has no data to display (because the FORM elements don't match the jos_content DB). I can't change the structure of jos_content and if I use another table, then joomla can't use it/see it or something. I don't understand that part because when I go into PHPmyadmin I see the tables that I initially created for this form.



Aaron

Hi Aaron,

Joomla articles only have the fields set up in the jos_content table. You'll need to re-work the form input in the OnSubmit code box to create an appropriate set of html to be saved and display the way you want it to. IIRC there was a recent thread on doing something along these lines.

Bob

Okay... so I have a FORM element called "Mix name"... and somehow I have to use:

$_POST['catid'] = '44';
$_POST['id'] = '';
$_POST['sectionid'] = '5';
$_POST['state'] = '1';
$_POST['created'] = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
?>

(with some modifications) to get that field to show up in a standard Joomla article (jos_content)

Thanks,

Aaron

Hi Aaaron,

Yes and No. If you start with a new form then Yes; but ChronoForms has a SubmitContent form that will do most of that for you.

Bob

Does
Global Configuration -> System -> Restrict Uploads
have to be disabled in order to have the uploads work? I have that disabled and the directory is enabled, but I can't upload a file to the dir???

I've almost got the forms working now. Much harder than anticipated.


Aaron

in this code:

<div  class="form_item">
 <div class="form_element cf_textbox">
  <label class="cf_label">Title:</label>
   <input class="cf_inputbox required" maxlength="150" size="30" id="text_5" name="title" type="text">
    <a onclick="return false;" class="tooltiplink">
     <img  src="components/com_chronocontact/css/images/tooltip.png" class="tooltipimg" width="16" border="0" height="16">
    </a>
   <div  class="tooltipdiv">Title: :: Your story title please!</div>
 </div>
 <div class="clear"> </div>
</div>

does the line:

<label class="cf_label">Title:</label>

control what the user sees in the UI (label of the text box) and/or control how it is bind to the DB? Does it do both???

Aaron

... 10 minutes later

Doh! found it
name="title"

I have another form that I've captured the 'urls'. what method do you use to add that to the content of an standard joomla article?

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

Sorry but I can't understand your last question!

Regards,
Max

I have a FORM where the user enters a valid URL in the form_element cf_textbox with the name "urls". You see this entry in the DB (jos_content) upon completing the form. I want to be able to put what they entered in that text box into the article. The way I have it working now, is that I make them put that URL in the "fulltext" text box also to show up in the article.

is there a way to get the URL from:

<div class="form_item">
  <div class="form_element cf_textbox">
    <label class="cf_label">URL to .mp3</label>
    <input class="cf_inputbox required validate-url" maxlength="150" size="30" id="text_8" name="urls" type="text" />
  <a class="tooltiplink" onclick="return false;"><img height="16" border="0" width="16" class="tooltipimg" src="components/com_chronocontact/css/images/tooltip.png"/></a>
				<div class="tooltipdiv">URL to .mp3 :: Direct URL to the .mp3 file.  (host.com/mix.mp3)</div>
  </div>
  <div class="clear"> </div>
</div>

to show up in the article that they create??

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

I know this has been done before using a place holder in the article text to show the extra data, but I can't remember exactly the code used to achieve this, please try to run a quick search and let me know!

Regards
Max

okay... I'll give this a whirl tonight too! Btw - which timezone are you in. I'm in EST (GMT -5)

:-)

I'm not tied to any time restrictions!🙂

LOL... I just wanted to know so that if you are sleeping (I hope you do that) I won't log something until the next day or wait for responses that won't come for a bit

:-)

Hi Aaron,

I'm in Europe on the real EST and sleep more or less normal hours - but I've seen Max posting at all hours of his day and night so it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Bob