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Hi,

I cannot get a simple Chronoform to send an e-mail. I thought that maybe by upgrading to v4, it might help but it hasn't (I've got several other issues with that).

So, with v3, I have it displaying correctly in an article using {chronocontact}online_reservations{/chronocontact} (I did not set this up, I inherited it from someone else). I cannot use that same syntax to display the form that was created using v4 (I tried replacing chronocontact with chronoform and chronoforms but neither of those worked either).

With v3, I can have the form, upon submission, correctly take the submitter to a Thank You page (but an error code shows at the top of that page). With v4, I get a whole bunch of code displaying on the Thank You page.

With v3, the date/time field only displays date. With v4, it displays both date and time but the time is in 24 hour format and I have no idea how to change it. Also, date seems to be in m/d/y format and I'd like to change that to d/m/y.

This page shows the v3 form, which is currently live on the site: http://lechene.com/reservations. This page shows the v4 form: http://lechene.com/index.php?option=com_chronoforms&chronoform=online_reservations2

I'm happy to create and provide a super admin login if that helps. I'm really scratching my head on this!

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Ron

Hi Ron,

You may well have problems running ChronoForms V3 & v4 on the same site. They will install together but ChronoForms v3 requires the MooTools Upgrade plug-in disabled and ChronoForms v4 requires it enabled. (You are currently running with it enabled and are using a Custom validation script on the CFv3 form.)

You have the correct syntax for the CFV4 plug-in {chronoforms}form_name{/chronoforms} but is the plug-in installed - it is different to the CFv3 plug-in? You should also check the HTML view in the article editor. If there are <p> tags round the plug-in code IE will get upset (<div> tags or nothing are OK).

With v4, I get a whole bunch of code displaying on the Thank You page.

What code is that? Normally you will only get the HTML + PHP from the Thank You page option. I see "PHPMAILER_EXECUTE/usr/sbin/sendmail" which suggests a problem with the Email setup on your site.

The DatePicker configuration has checkboxes to turn the Time & Date Pickers on or off. The Custom DatePicker action will let you change the Date time format.

None of this diagnoses a problem with the emails. Does your site send emails? I usually check with the 'Email a friend' link from an article page but these are turned off.

Bob

Hi Bob,

Thanks so much for the quick reply. Sorry if I sound a bit inept but I'm new to Joomla and to Chronoforms so I'm playing lots of catch up!

What plug-in do I need for v4 to be able to insert the form into the article? Where do I download that? I'll definitely check the HTML view for the <p> tags...thanks for the tip!

I think the code that I was referring to has changed. I've tried various things so that was probably a few versions ago...sorry!

How do I check the email setup for my site? I assume you mean somewhere inside Joomla. You mentioned checking with the Email a friend link from an article page but they're turned off. I don't know where/how to turn them on.

Again, sorry for sounding so inept. I really appreciate your help!

Thanks,

Ron

Hi Bob,

Thanks so much for your quick reply. I responded to you shortly thereafter but it doesn't look like that's shown up here so I'm responding again. I apologize if this turns out to be redundant.

Which plug-in do I need for CFV4? I'll check for the <p> tags...thanks for the tip!

Not sure about the code I was referring to. I've changed settings and tried various things so that was probably from a previous version of the form. Sorry about that.

I didn't see a Custom DatePicker action so I'll have to look for that again.

The site was recently moved from another host so perhaps that's the problem with the e-mails. I know that the v3 form was working but the e-mails were arriving inconsistently and in an untimely way (it's for making reservations in a restaurant so sometimes, the e-mails were arriving after the time of the reservation, which isn't good!). In any event, now they're not arriving at all!

I looked at the e-mail settings for the site and it's currently set to Sendmail, as follows:


Mailer - Sendmail
Mail from - [email]info@lechene.com[/email]
From Name - [email]admin@lechene.com[/email]
Sendmail Path - /usr/sbin/sendmail
SMTP Authentication - No
SMTP Security - None
SMTP Port - 25
SMTP Username - (blank)
SMTP Password - (blank)
SMTP Host - localhost

Should I be using PHP mail or SMTP Server? How can/should I set up and use an "Email a friend" link?

Sorry but I'm new to Joomla and Chrono Forms so I appreciate your patience with my ineptitude.

Thanks so much for your help!

Ron

Hi Ron,

Sorry about your post not displaying. We are having a big spam problem at the moment (around 15,000 posts last week) so new posters with less that three posts are put into a moderation queue and I missed some yesterday.

You need the ChronoForms 4 plug-in for Joomla! 1.5 or 1.6/1.7 from the Downloads area here.

You can turn 'Email a Friend' on for a single article in Article Manager | Edit article | Article Options.

Any of the Email setup options should work provided that it is configured correctly. Check your Hosting provider's help for the correct settings. Generally I use the default PHP Mailer or SMTP.

Bob

Hi Bob,

No worries...I was thinking maybe my questions were too dumb and posts were denied!! :-)

As it turned out, there was a problem on the host end with the e-mail. I contacted the hosting company and they had to reset the server. Apparently, they said we were over our daily quota to send e-mails, which can't be correct because the site is brand new. I think it was just not set correctly in the first place. In any event, after resetting the server, the form now works correctly and the e-mails are properly sent and received.

I got around the inability to use CF4 in an article by simply adding what I need to the header section of the form and changing the type of link (the Menu Item Type) that gets you there from the menu in Joomla. You can see the result here: http://lechene.com/reservations. Everything was done within CF4 and this alleviated the need to put anything into an article.

Now, my only problem is that I can't get the dateTime picker to show the desired format. The way I created the form was to drag the DateTime Box from the Drag (Elements) section, to the Drop (Preview) Section. I then dragged the Custom DatePicker from the Drag (Actions>Utilities) section, to the Drop (Events>OnLoad) section and changed the parameters in there to show the format that I need. Unfortunately, that's not working right. What did I do wrong?

Incidentally, CF3 is still installed on the site so apparently, the form is working correctly (except for the dateTime thing) even with that there.

Thanks again for your help!

Ron

Hi Ron,

You can have CFRv3 and CFv4 installed together on Joomla! 1.5 and the basic functionality of both will work but anything that depends on JavaScript may well in one or the other depending on which MooTools library is loading.

To get the Custom DatePicker acion working you probably need to check that you have a distinctive class set for the element and have also put that class in the Custom Datepicker box. (At one time you also had to remove the default class - I'm not sure if tht is still true.)

Bob

Hi Bob,

So, should I just remove CFRv3?

For the Custom DatePicker, I'm afraid I'm not quite following you here. Do you mean a CSS class? How do I know what to call it and what it will do?

Thanks,

Ron

Hi Ron,

I mean a normal HTML class attribute like class='my_datepicker'

Bob

PS Keeping the CFv3 installed will do no harm. Uninstall it when you are sure it is redundant.

Hi Bob,

OK, I put my_datepicker into Field Class in the Settings section of the Custom DatePicker OnLoad event. I also put my_datepicker into Field Class in the General Settings of the Datetime Box for the form. I was thinking that by setting them the same in both spots, the field in the form would pull the formatting from the OnLoad event. It didn't work so obviously, I'm still not understanding this properly.

Thanks,

Ron

Hi Ron,

That sounds correct to me. Please take a Form Backup using the icon in the Forms Manager and post it here (as a zipped file) or PM or email it to me and I'll take a closer look.

Bob

Hi Ron,

I strongly recommend that you do *not* use the Dynamic From Email element in your Email Setups. Using this often results in your emails being marked as spam and dropped into a spam filter. Instead use the static From Email with an address that matches the site domain name and use Dynamic ReplyTo Email for the user email. The result is the same but with a much better chance of good delivery.

The problem is that many hosts check the from email domain against the site domain and drop the email if they don't match.

Bob

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the tip! I went ahead and changed that e-mail set up, as you suggested.

Any luck on the date and time formatting?

Thanks so much for all your help!

Ron

Hi Bob,

Just wondering if you found anything with the file I sent you yesterday and if you know how I can correct the date and time formatting. If just having the form backup file isn't enough, I'm happy to provide a super admin login for the site, if that helps.

Thanks so much for your help!

Ron

Hi Ron,

Please try dragging the Custom DatePicker action up before the Show HTML action.

Bob

Hi Bob,

I would love to but for some reason, I've got a new problem. Whenever I click on any of the other tabs (Events, etc.), nothing happens. I can't get to the screen where I would drag the Custom DatePicker action above the Show HTML action.

Also, on the Preview tab, the form looks like a complete mess, with all the items displaying over the top of one another.

I've tried refreshing, tried 2 different browsers (Safari and Chrome) and tried Restoring the form from the backup file I made for you, which was made when I did not have any of these problems, and none of those things worked.

Any idea what's going on there?

Thanks,

Ron

Hi Ron,

At a guess the MooTools Upgrade plug-in is disabled.

Bob

Hey Bob,

It appears you were right on both counts! I don't know how the MooTools plug-in became disabled, since it wasn't before...that's very weird.

In any event, after re-enabling it, I was able to make the change to the form that you suggested and it appears that the formatting for the datePicker is now working.

Do you know if it's possible to allow the user to choose AM or PM from the time component part of the date picker? Or maybe it's better to not use the time component and just insert another field into the form, that's a simple drop-down, listing times (they only want to allow people to select times that fall every half hour anyway)?

Thanks so much for your help...I really appreciate it!!!

Ron

Hi Ron,

I checked the DatePicker options here and I don't think that you can do anything much to customise the time picker.

Bob

Hey Bob,

Yeah, I had checked there too...that's where I found the correct codes to change the formatting...but I didn't see anything either.

Oh well, no worries...I just thought you might have another idea.

Thanks again for all your help...I really appreciate it!!

Ron

Hi Ron,

If you don't need the two combined then the simple Time Spinner that I used in the Watchman plug-in for ChronoForms v3 is very nice and more configurable (but it only does time). It doesn't have am/pm though :-(

Bob

Hey Bob,

Oh, cool...thanks for the tip...I'll check it out!

Ron

Hey Bob,

I've got a new problem. There are 2 other forms on the site that were done with CFv3 and I want to re-do them using CFv4 so that I can just delete v3. I created one and got most of the way through it but I can no longer save or apply any changes that I make to the form, either in Advanced or Easy Edit mode. Any idea why I can't save these changes (I did try disabling the chronocontact plug-in)? They're very simple forms.

Thanks!

Ron

Hi Ron,

Two possibilities. Most likely the MooTools upgrade plug-in is disabled (or being over-ridden by something else). Just possibly there's a bug in one of the pieces of code you entered and a PHP error is being thrown.

Bob

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the quick response. It must have been something with some code but I didn't actually figure it out. I just rebuilt the form from scratch, saving after I set up each element, and it worked fine this time. Weird!

Thanks!

Ron