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Hi,

I'd like to find out if the following idea would be possible with ChronoForm.
I haven't used ChronoForm before so please bear with me. I might ask stupid questions 😶

So here it goes.
On a joomla site, you go to a page with a form. (you don't need to log in to use the form)
The form will have some fields like, NAME, EMAIL, JOBFUNCTION, PICTURE1, PICTURE2, PICTURE3, PICTURE4, PICTURE5,...

When the submit button is pressed, a mail should be send to what was filled in the EMAIL field.
The mail itself will contain a message with a link. The link will contain those fields as parameters.
something like: <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.domain.com/index.php?name=john">www.domain.com/index.php?name=john</a><!-- w --> [email]doe&email=johndoe@abc.com[/email]&jobfunction=manager

When someone clicks on the link they will be redirected to a page that will contain an swf where I will try to pass those parameters as flashvar. That's why I want to construct the link to put those values of the field in the link as parameters.

The questions:
1) I suppose it's possible to make the form with several upload fields but is it possible to send a mail to the address in the EMAIL field.
2) Is it possible to send custom message/mail. Is it possible to construct the link in the message with the fields in the form and use them as parameter? I don't know if ChronoForm works with tags or something similar.
3) Is there something that wouldn't be possible that I described above?

Thanks a lot.

Hi SAGO,

Yes, Yes, No.

Bob

hi,

Great.
I will be using joomla 1.5

1) Is there a tutorial where I can see how to use the fields like tags in the message? And where we can set up a custom message to send to email field?
2) Should I use ChronoForm 3 or 4 for this? Which would you advice? Does one have an advantage over the other? (like one being more documented than the other or that it's easier in the 4 than in the 3?)
3) Are all the values of the fields stored in one table in the Database?
4) Where are the uploaded files stored? Is the path then stored in the database?

We want to show use the info(values of fields in form) in the swf and load those uploaded images picture in the swf so that why I ask question 3 and 4.

It's seems that ChronoForm is pretty powerful. Just don't know if there are any limitations.

Cheers

Hi SAGO,

I recommend that you use ChronoForms v4 if you can as it is still being developed runs on the current Joomla! releases as well as Joomla! 1.5 (you may want to upgrade some time in the future).

The documentation is probably better for v3; once you get the hang of it it's easier to work in V4 and v4 is more flexible.

You can save data in one or more tables.

You can specify the upload path. The path isn't stored by default but you can use PHP to add it to the image name before the DB Save runs.

There aren't many limitations - there is a limited* set of 'built-in' functionality but because you can use PHP in many places you can extend and customise pretty much as you like.

Bob

* The built-in functionality covers 95% or more of what most form builders need; but not the other 5% . . .

Thanks for the reply Bob, I appreciate it!

I've been using joomla 1.5 since I'm used to it and with all the new versions planned it was a bit confusing which one to choose and also not knowing if all components would be compatible was a reason.

Which version of joomla would you suggest in your experience?

The form would be used by hundreds of times. I mean one person can enter it for example for 20 people in his division and another for example only 8 times (so for 8 people)
The form would have around 5 upload picture fields.
Would these images all be uploaded in one specific image folder? and only the names are stored in the table in the database? Is this how it works by default?

I hope the learning curve isn't too steep :-)

EDIT: Would the book(ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! Site Cookbook) be good in my case, even for ChronoForm 4? Or should I stick with version 3 and use the book with that version

Cheers

Hi SAGO,

If you are starting a new site then use the current Joomla! release which is 1.7 (2.5 is due out on January 24th - the numbers are just odd, it's not that big a change). Joomla! 1.5 is now close to the end of life.

It's up to you to decide where the images are stored. The default values are as you describe but they can all be changed to meet your site needs.

The learning curve for Joomla! 1.7 and ChronoForms v4 are both a bit steep but quite short. Just needs a bit of effort to get into the new ways of working with them.

The book is still good for ideas and most of the recipes can still be made to work with CFv4 but the Admin pages and the process flow in CFv4 are quite different so they need to be adapted.

Bob