Hey, I have a couple of observations.
One is that the Form Wizard is nice, as long as you don't have a MooTools conflict (i.e. a Joomla 1.5.19 or higher install)
and the ability to import form code is nice, as long as you don't have to make changes.
and the ability to save to database is nice, except that you have to create the table manually, then link it to the form, and after doing that, none of the fields from my Wizard form is being exported. It turns out that Create Table is not creating columns in the database for any of my fields, in multiple attempts, whereas it did so for my imported form. It may be that I have to manually enter a comma separated list of field names in the form parameters to get my data to save. This seems antiquated.
It would be nice if just ticking the box to save data would prompt like : "Should we go ahead and create a database table with all your fields, which is probably what you are expecting?"
But the imported form, it exported only the codes from my Select fields, like 1,2,3 instead of "this week, this month, next month", which is not useful to my users.
It seems like ChronoForms is built more like a puzzle than a business application.
I think I heard that there will be a new version now that 1.6 is out, and hopefully, some of these tiny but significant points can be addressed.
Thanks to Greyhead, though, for excellent support! IOU a beer.
One is that the Form Wizard is nice, as long as you don't have a MooTools conflict (i.e. a Joomla 1.5.19 or higher install)
and the ability to import form code is nice, as long as you don't have to make changes.
and the ability to save to database is nice, except that you have to create the table manually, then link it to the form, and after doing that, none of the fields from my Wizard form is being exported. It turns out that Create Table is not creating columns in the database for any of my fields, in multiple attempts, whereas it did so for my imported form. It may be that I have to manually enter a comma separated list of field names in the form parameters to get my data to save. This seems antiquated.
It would be nice if just ticking the box to save data would prompt like : "Should we go ahead and create a database table with all your fields, which is probably what you are expecting?"
But the imported form, it exported only the codes from my Select fields, like 1,2,3 instead of "this week, this month, next month", which is not useful to my users.
It seems like ChronoForms is built more like a puzzle than a business application.
I think I heard that there will be a new version now that 1.6 is out, and hopefully, some of these tiny but significant points can be addressed.
Thanks to Greyhead, though, for excellent support! IOU a beer.
Hi kenlyle,
Just a couple of observations.
Looks like a few of these problems are a result of having the MooTools Upgrade plug-in enabled. ChronoForms works fine with the Joomla! 1.5 standard MooTools 1.1. The upgrade plug-in is optional and pretty much guaranteed to cause problems with some extensions if you enable it.
The Create Tables dialogue works fine to create a table - it isn't clear that the form tables aren't selected by default. In my experience it's pretty good at extracting a list of 'name' attributes from the Form HTML provided that there is valid HTML in the box. I often use included files here - then I do need to copy and paste the Form HTMl from the browser page, or to create a few dummy inputs to feed the info to ChronoForms.
I'm not sure on the comment about Select fields. It will show whatever you have set as the values of the options. There are pluses and minuses to using short codes or full text. I prefer short-codes but that does require a bit more work to look up the values before showing them to the user.
Bob
Just a couple of observations.
Looks like a few of these problems are a result of having the MooTools Upgrade plug-in enabled. ChronoForms works fine with the Joomla! 1.5 standard MooTools 1.1. The upgrade plug-in is optional and pretty much guaranteed to cause problems with some extensions if you enable it.
The Create Tables dialogue works fine to create a table - it isn't clear that the form tables aren't selected by default. In my experience it's pretty good at extracting a list of 'name' attributes from the Form HTML provided that there is valid HTML in the box. I often use included files here - then I do need to copy and paste the Form HTMl from the browser page, or to create a few dummy inputs to feed the info to ChronoForms.
I'm not sure on the comment about Select fields. It will show whatever you have set as the values of the options. There are pluses and minuses to using short codes or full text. I prefer short-codes but that does require a bit more work to look up the values before showing them to the user.
Bob
Hey, Bob, Thanks.
Regarding Select fields, the point is that my client wants to see "When would you like to start your project?" as "two weeks" rather than, say, 6, whether in the email or in the downloaded/exported data. This doesn't work correctly when the form is imported as HTML, but does work correctly in the Wizard. It would be very nice, if the Wizard were a little smarter here.
I have a couple of new Usability issues, and since this is my thread, I am posting them here.
The default Submit button seems to have a CSS clear associated with it, but I couldn't find it for some reason. It was knocking my right column down the page, and took me an unreasonable amount of time to isolate the issue, and edit in a standard submit button.
Also, if you have copied a form, which has a database table attached, when you Create Table for the new form, it does create the correctly named table, say _contact5, but leaves the form associated with _contact1, say. This could cause a mess. It's incumbent upon the user to notice, and it would be nice to have a popup notice like "hey, since you just created a table, and the new table name is not the same as the linked table, do you want to link the form to the new table?"
I hope that some of these will be considered for v4.
Regarding Select fields, the point is that my client wants to see "When would you like to start your project?" as "two weeks" rather than, say, 6, whether in the email or in the downloaded/exported data. This doesn't work correctly when the form is imported as HTML, but does work correctly in the Wizard. It would be very nice, if the Wizard were a little smarter here.
I have a couple of new Usability issues, and since this is my thread, I am posting them here.
The default Submit button seems to have a CSS clear associated with it, but I couldn't find it for some reason. It was knocking my right column down the page, and took me an unreasonable amount of time to isolate the issue, and edit in a standard submit button.
Also, if you have copied a form, which has a database table attached, when you Create Table for the new form, it does create the correctly named table, say _contact5, but leaves the form associated with _contact1, say. This could cause a mess. It's incumbent upon the user to notice, and it would be nice to have a popup notice like "hey, since you just created a table, and the new table name is not the same as the linked table, do you want to link the form to the new table?"
I hope that some of these will be considered for v4.
Hi Ken,
As I said, short codes are a matter of taste, I prefer to use them but it does require more code to look up the appropriate value to display. I typically do this by including a file with a set of 'value arrays'.
Not sure about the 'clear' issue with the submit button. All of the ChronoForms input elements include a 'clear' div. By themselves these shouldn't affect the layout of other columns but they can do if there are unclosed divs in the page structure.
I partly agree with you on the table question. Not sure that Max will though. I think my preferences would be to see the DB Connection disabled on copy (and the form given a distinct name).
Bob
As I said, short codes are a matter of taste, I prefer to use them but it does require more code to look up the appropriate value to display. I typically do this by including a file with a set of 'value arrays'.
Not sure about the 'clear' issue with the submit button. All of the ChronoForms input elements include a 'clear' div. By themselves these shouldn't affect the layout of other columns but they can do if there are unclosed divs in the page structure.
I partly agree with you on the table question. Not sure that Max will though. I think my preferences would be to see the DB Connection disabled on copy (and the form given a distinct name).
Bob
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