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ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook
ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook

ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook: 80 recipes for building attractive and interactive Joomla! forms

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ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook

Chapter 2. E-mailing Form Results

In this chapter, we will cover:

  • Replying to e-mails

  • Getting your e-mails delivered safely

  • Sending a "Thank you" e-mail to the form submitter

  • Choosing e-mail addresses from a list

  • Attaching uploaded files to the e-mail

  • Attaching a "standard" file (for example, terms and conditions) to the e-mail

  • Creating a "dynamic" subject line using information from the form

Introduction


One of the two main things that forms "do" when they are submitted, is to send e-mails. We saw in Chapter 1, Creating a Simple Form how to send an e-mail, including values from the form, to a site administrator.

In this chapter, we'll learn more about this and look at different ways of sending e-mails from your ChronoForms forms.

Replying to e-mails


Sending an e-mail to the site administrator is great, until he decides to reply. Then we have a problem. When you click Reply, the e-mail that opens is addressed to the site administrator (actually, we set it to info@example.com if you recall). So, he sends the e-mail to himself, and not to the person who submitted the form.

Yet their e-mail is right there in the e-mail text. Can't we put that in the From Email field? Then the reply will go just where we want it.

Well, yes we could put the e-mail in there (technically using a Dynamic From Email field). But then we find that the administrator no longer receives any e-mails at all!

This is most likely because the site ISP is checking for spammers and one of the checks that they run is to compare the site domain with the domain in the From Email header of the e-mail. If they don't match, the e-mail is marked as "likely spam" and dropped in the bin.

The answer is to use the Reply To Name and Reply To Email headers.

Getting ready...

Getting your e-mails delivered safely


We've seen how easy it is to set ChronoForms up to send e-mails in response to a form submission. The difficult part is to make sure that your e-mails are delivered safely. Here are four checks to ensure safe delivery.

How to do it...

  1. 1. Checking if your e-mail is working:

    Your Joomla! site needs to be configured to have access to a working mail-server. The easy way to check this is to browse to any article and look for the email to a friend icon.

    Note

    These icons are turned on by default in Joomla!, if you don't see them you can enable them for an article in the Article Editor under the Parameters (Advanced) section, look for the E-mail Icon setting.

    Enter your email in the E-mail to box, complete the other boxes with anything you like and click Send.

    Note

    When testing e-mails like this, use a good working e-mail address that auto-filters e-mails as little as possible. You want to be testing the ability of the site to send e-mails, not the spam filters...

Sending a "Thank you" e-mail to the form submitter


We've already sent e-mails to the administrator with the form information in it. Sometimes you also want to thank the form submitter too. These e-mails seem to fall into two broad groups — confirming the details on the submitted form, and simpler messages that say "thanks" with maybe a little extra info.

ChronoForms will do either (or a combination) quite happily. Here you are going to see how to create an e-mail from the second group.

How to do it...

  1. 1. We'll use the same form again. Go into the ChronoForms Form Manager, open up newsletter_signup in the Form Editor, and go to the Setup Emails tab. Now click the envelope icon to create a new e-mail setup.

  2. 2. A new pink workspace opens up at the bottom of the screen. This works in the same way as the first one. We can drag elements on there and ChronoForms will "fill in the blanks" when the form is submitted, and send a second e-mail.

    Note

    You can keep on adding e-mail setups here though it...

Choosing e-mail addresses from a list


You don't always want to send the e-mail to the site administrator. Sometimes you want to send it to different people depending on the information in the form. One example might be customer support where some queries are technical, some are sales related, and some are about billing queries.

We'll create a form that uses a set of radio buttons to choose a department to receive the e-mail. One easy way to do this is to put the e-mail addresses in the form code but we really, really don't want them to appear anywhere on the website (even if they aren't visible to human readers, the bots will find them). So we'll also add code to look up the correct e-mail address after the form is submitted and use that in the e-mail that is sent.

Note

Note: This recipe uses some PHP and Joomla! code and is more advanced than the earlier recipes.

Getting ready

We'll use that same form again, our old friend newsletter_signup.

Open it up in the Form Editor | Email Setup tab...

Attaching uploaded files to the e-mail


We'll be seeing later on in Chapter 8, Uploading Files from your Forms how to add file inputs to your forms and handle the files after the form is submitted. Here we are going to anticipate that and look at how to add an uploaded file to an e-mail.

Getting ready

Any form with a file input and an Email Setup will work.

How to do it...

  1. 1. Open the Email Setup by clicking the Setup Emails tab for the form and in the Email Properties box and set Enable Attachments to Yes (actually that's the default setting so you probably won't have to do anything).

  2. 2. Test the form.

That's it!

See also

  • Chapter 8, Uploading Files From your Forms is where we talk about uploading files from your forms. See the first recipe in that chapter to add a file input to your form.

Attaching a "standard" file to the e-mail


In the preceding recipe, we saw how to attach a file uploaded by the user, here we'll look at the similar task of attaching a file to an e-mail sent to the user. This time the file is not uploaded but is in a folder on the server somewhere.

Very often these are "terms and conditions" that you want to send out but we'll stay with the Newsletter theme and assume that we have a sample newsletter in a PDF file.

Getting ready

We'll be using the same form but this time, please make sure that the User Email Setup is enabled. You can also disable the administrator Email Setup if you like; we won't need it for this recipe.

Note

You can enable or disable an Email Setup in the Email Properties box for the setup. Set the Enabled drop-down to YES or NO and click Apply.

You'll also need a file to attach. We'll use a file called newsletter.pdf that's been uploaded to the site with the site Media Manager into the root/images folder (that's the default folder for the...

Creating a "dynamic" subject line using info from the form


Here's one more "hijacking" example to end this chapter. ChronoForms gives you two choices for your e-mail subject — either a fixed phrase using the "subject" element in the Email Setup, or a value returned from the form using the "dynamic subject" element.

It's a frequent request to have a subject line that's a bit of each — a fixed text with a variable element. We can do this with another code snippet in the OnSubmit Before box.

Getting ready

We'll use the same form and alter the Admin Email Setup to include the value of the name field.

How to do it...

  1. 1. In the Form Editor go to the Email Setup by clicking on the Setup Emails tab and find the setup for the e-mail to the site administrator, delete the Subject element and drag in a Dynamic Subject instead.

  2. 2. Put subject (no quotes, no brackets) into the Dynamic Subject box, Enable the Email Setup, and Apply the changes in the Email Properties box.

  3. 3. Go to the Form Code tab and open...

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Key benefits

  • Develop feature-rich Joomla forms with the help of easy-to-follow steps and ample screenshots
  • Publish forms, that let you interact with your users, to a website using ChronoForms in minutes, not in hours
  • Explore the versatility of ChronoForms and use them to make your web site an interactive one
  • Part of Packt's Cookbook series: Each recipe is a carefully organized sequence of instructions to complete the task as efficiently as possible

Description

Joomla! is a fantastic way to create a dynamic CMS. Now you want to go to the next step and interact with your users. Forms are the way you ask questions and get replies. ChronoForms is the extension that lets you do that and this book tells you how. From building your first form to creating rich form based applications we will cover the features that ChronoForms offers you in a clear hands-on way. Drawing on three years daily experience using ChronoForms and supporting users there is valuable help for new users and experienced developers alike. We will take you through form development step by step: from creating your first form using ChronoForms’ built-in drag-and-drop tool; validating user input; emailing the results; saving data in the database, showing the form in your Joomla! site and much more.Each chapter addresses a topic like ‘validation’ or ‘email’ and the recipes in the chapter each address a different user question from the beginners’ question ‘How do I set up an email?’ through to more advanced questions like using some PHP to create a custom email Subject line.Over eight chapters and eighty recipes we cover all of the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ that new users and developers have about using ChronoForms. The recipe structure allows you to pick and choose just the solution that you need.

Who is this book for?

This is a practical hands-on book for people who want to add forms to their Joomla! site. Whether you just want to add a simple newsletter sign-up form or a complex multi-page interactive form you’ll find helpful suggestions and recipes that will get your forms working.Many recipes will work ‘out-of-the-box’ using ChronoForms built-in capabilities; other more advanced recipes require some knowledge of Joomla!, HTML, CSS ,PHP, MySQL or JavaScript. There is working code with each recipe that you can adapt to meet your specific needs.

What you will learn

  • Create forms using the drag-and drop wizard, HTML from an existing form, or built in Dreamweaver
  • Setup emails to send form results to a site admin, or to the user, or anyone else
  • Change the look and feel of your form to match your site
  • Save your form data in the Joomla database and export it again
  • Set up form validation and security
  • Display your form in its own page, in an article, a module or a light box
  • Add file uploads to your form, validate the file type, save files on your site, attach them to emails; re-size image files and display them in emails or article
  • Create common types of form: newsletter sign-up, custom ‘contact us’, image upload, PayPal purchase, Joomla registration, and more
  • Use ChronoForms plugins to enhance your forms: control access; send information to other sites; multi-lingual forms; multi-page forms
  • Develop more advanced features: send an SMS; add a bar code in the email; using Ajax to check email addresses; adding conversion tracking scripts
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Publication date : Aug 24, 2010
Length: 376 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849510622
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Concepts :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
Creating a Simple Form Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
E-mailing Form Results Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Styling your Form Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Saving Form Data in the Database Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Form Validation and Security Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Showing your Form in your Site Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Adding Features to your Form Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Uploading Files from your Forms Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Writing Form HTML Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Common Forms Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Form Plug-ins Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Adding Advanced Features Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.3
(4 Ratings)
5 star 75%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 25%
1 star 0%
Bambang Kamajaya Barus Feb 20, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
great!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
MRS PAULA BARNETT Sep 03, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
happy with the book very useful
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Juergen_Achtung Apr 29, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Auch wenn hier die Version 3.x im Mittelpunkt steht, ist es eine sehr gut geschriebene Anleitung, die auch auf die Version 4.x übertragen werden kann.Der lockere Schreibstil gefällt mir sehr.Dazu kommt, dass es m.E. das einzige Buch zu dieser Anwendung ist.Sehr zu empfehlen
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Luiz Manoel S Figueiredo Jan 12, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2
Since CronoForms V4 has been around for almost two years, I downloaded CFV4 and started using.This book is well written and the author is certainly very knowledgeable, but I was disappointed to find that due to major changes in Chronoforms, a book written for version 3.1 is almost useless for version 4.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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