Stable version of MPForm ( Multi Purpose Form)

[Argos]

1: I'm not sure why you think that. My solution exports all complete results of the form from which you export.

A multi page form does have more than one section id, I did not know you can export those together into one file.

I don't know either. As far as I know there isn't such a thing as a multipage form yet. I'm talkign about the current FormX module. I you have multiple forms created with FormX on your site, and you export it with your separate export module, all submissions form all forms are stored into one table, and are exported as such. So in your export file you cannot see which submissions are from whch form. The export function in my modified FormX module just exports the submissions form that form, not other forms that happen to be on the site. That's the difference. But if your new module has an option to assign a unique id to each form, then it's no problem.

[oeh]

Well. Think that was it.
The Norwegian language file should be don.

I'm not quite sure, but some lines where marked with ", and some with ', as the lead in and out.
The last line where marked with only a ' and not ', ?
Well, any how, I took the liberty of changing all the ", to ', and the last ' to ', .
Ehh, that was kind of jibberish but hopefully someone understood my pity excuse for an explanation.

There where also some liens that I'm a bit uncertain of, regarding the translation, but they are marked with
', // *uklar.
If possible, I'd like to leave these remarks within the file, so that it is easier to track these uncertainties
later on.


Anyhow, the MPForm are rely kicks a..... fantastic.
My hat's off, and I've got a good grip around a pair of rabbit ear's. 

Can't wait for what kind of wizardry you'll come up with next.


If you are in need of further translations for this project, just give me a PM, and I'll have a go at it.

[Vincent]

I just did the tutorial, looks very impressive and a valuable contribution to WB. Didn't install and test it yet, though. Thanks for your work and contribution.

Vincent

[Argos]

Frank, I noticed all the fields in the backend are very small. Hardy usable this way. Please update the module with full sized entry fields like we know of the form and formx modules.

[Argos]

Ah! I didn't know that. Works fine now  

[Argos]

Found a bug I think: the "Add field" button doesn't work. I have to go back by clicking on Cancel, to add another field.

It seems the Fieldset fields doesn't do anything either...

Another remark: I miss an option to add more than 1 mail addresses for receipients of submissions. In the "E-Mail Settings (Mail to site owner)" you can set adressess to let the visitor choose from. But I see no option to send the submission to more than 1 receipient. That was a feature request from the start  Will it be added?

Last thing: it would be nice to have a non-email default option for the receipient-dropdown, to show something like "Please select a receipient...". Now the first mail address is the default one, and visitors may not see the possibility to choose.

[Argos]

Can you send a screen shot when exactly it does not work?
I can't reproduce this here.

There would not be anythinn to see on such a screenshot, except the interface. Clicking on the "Add field" button after having saved a field doesn't do anything. It does not present a nwe field entry form. I just found out that Firefox works fine by the way, but IE7 does not.

It is always a good idea to first either read the help file or to run through the tutorial
I am sure afterwards you will know what your error was 

Allright LOL

Another remark: I miss an option to add more than 1 mail addresses for receipients of submissions. In the "E-Mail Settings (Mail to site owner)" you can set adressess to let the visitor choose from. But I see no option to send the submission to more than 1 receipient. That was a feature request from the start  Will it be added?

No word about that the user should be able to choose multiple addresses.
Does it make sense to let users choose to mail to more than one recipient?

No, that's not what I mean.

What I mean is what I wrote on 27-4:
Another thing that has been requested a number of times is the option for the admin to set more than 1 email address for the (receipient of the) form. Also an option for the user to choose a receipient via a menu in the front end is much wanted.

And on 4-5 I wrote:
I'm willing to pay you 50 bucks if you can do the multiple mailadresses for the next version. And another 50 if you can the do the frontend mailadress chooser in the next version.

Right now, only the frontend mailaddress chooser is implemented, but not the multiple receipients for submissions. Many of my clients have requested this over the years.

Last thing: it would be nice to have a non-email default option for the receipient-dropdown, to show something like "Please select a receipient...". Now the first mail address is the default one, and visitors may not see the possibility to choose.

And what should happen when the user does not change the default setting?

An error message could be shown: "Please select a receipient". Just like you see errors when leaving a field empty that has to be filled.

[Argos]

To make sure we both speak about the same thing:
By multiple recipients you mean "3. If the form does not contain a field of type "recipient", all recipients entered in the list will receive the email." ?
This is already implemented: Just enter multiple addresses, do NOT use the field of type Email Recipient in the form, and the email will go to all addresses you listed in the backend.

No, what I mean is simple: just an option to add receipients to the default one(s). I think using a comma or pipeline separated list is easiest. I think a mockup will illustrate what I mean best...
You can add more adresses to the receipient list. Only the first one of each line will be visible on the frontend picker, while the others on each line function as BCC's. When the frontend picker is not used, the first address of the first line will be the default receipient. Easy and flexible to set up. I hope it's also easy to code for you...

[Argos]

WB-sites are typically made for small to midsized organizations, that don't have mail servers or knowledge about mail configs on hosting platforms etc. Among my clients over the years one of the requests has been how to send form submissions to more than 1 recipient. It's a very common practice to have form submissions go to several mailboxes, especially with small businesses with 1 or several employees, and with non-profit organizations that work with volunteers. I't would be much easier to set those adresses in the form(s) than going the technical way with mail servers and distributiosn lists.

But actually I just found out that multiple recipients have always worked with the original form module, and with the formx module, by using a comma delimited entry (without spaces). For example: info@domain.com,support@domain.com,joe@domain.com works flawlessly. #@&#!%#, if only I had known that earlier...

Apparently you have removed that option, but is it really so hard to put it back in? Maybe you can not see why people would want to use that, but I think it's a very normal feature for a form function. I hope you will reconsider it...

[Argos]

Frank, have you made any decision about the CC function yet? I have some clients who really need this and I promised them a while ago that it would be available soon.

[Argos]

Hi Frank, I tried again on two different servers and two different default WB2.7 installations. Both form and formx modules work fine with the multiple addresses on 1 line. Really. I can give you admin access to my test site if you like, to test yourself. I don't understand you are not able to replicate this on your installations. Could it be differences in PHP configuration?

[Argos]

Jurgen, the function to mail to multiple recipients is there. Just enter them in the backend (one at each line) and do NOT use the field Email Recipient.

Yes, I know this is how you have set it up. But with this setup you have to choose to use either ALL addresses if you want to use CC's, or a adress picker if you want to let the visitor select 1 address. But you cannot use both the address picker with CC's. That's what I would like to see in the module. That would make it much more flexible.

For example I have a client that is a patient organization. Right now I have a large number of forms to send mails to all kinds of recipients. All those forms could be combined into one if I had the option to set it up like this (I had to use # instead of @ here, to prevent automatical email links):

Medical advisors(doctor1#hospital.com),doctor2@hospital.com,doctor3@hospital.com,info@organization.com
Administration(info#organization.com),janedoe@organization.com
Website admin(webmaster#organization.com),info@argosmedia.nll
Financial dept(financial#organization.com)
General support(info#organization.com)

With an address picker in the frontend, with options:

Medical advisors
Administration
Website admin
Financial dept
General support

So in fact you use little local mail distribution lists. No need for technical stuff on the hosting server, that none of my clients would understand. And no need for local forwarding to other addresses that is a nuisance.

It's a simple setup:
1. each line is either a single recipient or multiple recipients, separated by a comma
2. all addresses on the same line receive the form submission, but only the first entry (either an address or an alias) is visible in the frontend picker
3. when multiple lines are used in the backend, the frontend picker must be used. A frontend picker with one choice is useless, as well as multiple lines without frontend picker

[Argos]

Oh, that's great to hear Frank!! Very nice 

[BlackTiger]

Hi Frank,

thank you very much for this nice module. I'm only using it for a single page form but I like the new type of fields and the grouping function.

By using the module I was confronted with two problems:

I wanted to put some areas of text and used the fieldtype heading for this but there is a limitation of 255 chars. I helped me out by putting the text directly in the template field but this is more a kind of a hack. It would be nice to have a bigger text field for such case. BTW: You can fill the field with 257 chars but only the first 255 find the way to the database.

Second topic are the emails I receive. I get a \n at the beginning of each new line. I solved this problem by replacing the following line 195 of view.php:

Code:

$htmlmessage = preg_replace('/[\r\n]/', '<br />\n', $message);

with

Code:

$htmlmessage = preg_replace('/[\r\n]/', "<br />\n", $message);

I don't know if this was a specific problem in my environment.

regards
Michael

[Argos]

For large texts just use another title field directly after

[BlackTiger]

Hi Frank,

Your method is exactly what I recommended for this case in the tutorial

ups - I went threw the tutorial twice but obviosly I did not read exact enough - sorry. BTW it would be nice to have a "normal" documentation for people who went threw the tutorial, because filling out the tutorial forms each time you want to read the docs is a little bit too much for lazy people like me.

@Argos: this was my first idea but I my sentences were too large so that I got them parted, that does'nt look very nice. The solution with the template field works good for me and I agree with Frank: Changing the database column just for this subject makes no sense.

regards
Michael

[BlackTiger]

Hi Frank,

Have you ever tried the HELP button in the backend?

you got me 

I never tried this way of getting information - shame on me!

The help behind the button is great and even in german too - thanks for this superb work.

regards
Michael

[Argos]

how are the chances that I can include the language file NL.php you promised into the next version of MPForm tomorrow?

Sorry Frank, couldn't make it Saturday, but here it is...

Regards,
Jurgen

[Argos]

I'm working on it. I also noticed some strange translations in the regular WB Dutch language file as well (the form uses some of those translations). I will update that file too.

[Argos]

Here is the new language file.

I noticed a bug in the file at AMASP. It doesn't accept multiple email addresses per line yet. In the info.php file it says:

now multiple email addresses in one line in the backend are allowed as follows:
Recipient X <address1,address2,address3>

But it doesn't work yet. If you enter more than 1 address, and save the settings, the field will be emptied. I also am a bit confused about this info. My idea was not to enter multiple addresses to 1 recipient, but multiple addresses for multiple recipients.
Not: Recipient X <address1,address2,address3>
But: Recipient X <address1>,address2,address3

So addresses 2 and 3 belong to recipients Y and Z, not to X.

There is also a little layout error in the backend_modify_sett ings.htt file. In the table for the email settings for the admin, the TD widths are not set. Adding the width="30%" and "70%" parameters will correct this.

[Argos]

You need to enter email addresses exactly as I wrote in the help and info files.
This way it works, and only this way.
This way it is less confusing than your proposal, because now:

• What you enter before "<" will be visible in the frontend
• The comma separated list of email addresses between "<" and ">" is the list of addresses which will receive the email.
  It must not contain spaces.
  

I don't see what your notation would buy the end user, except it is more complicated?

Hi Frank,

I'm sorry but I actually think your setup is more complicated. I had to try several times before I got it right even after I read your post, which shows that it's not intuitive. I found out you HAVE to use brackets when using more than 1 address, even when you don't use a name in front of it. This is not user friendly. Why not just put addresses after each other without the brackets? The brackets are only needed if you want to show a name in the frontend name picker.

And my idea was to give only the first address a name, hence only the first address needs brackets in that case. So that's why I thought it would work like:
A name here<address1>,address2,address3
OR:
address1,address2,address3

The first address or address/name is the main recipient, the other addresses are the BCC's. That makes also more sense for the admin who is creating the form. The extra addresses can be at totally different and non-related domains, sites, or organizations. When you put them all together into brackets, that makes no sense. Using brackets around all addresses together, preceded by a name, would only make sense if they would be aliases.

[Argos]

you had to try several times because you did not use the examples from the help - they show what is allowed.

To be honest I didn't know there was a help. But now I found the Help-button, although it doesn't work. I looks for a Dutch file, which is not there (I will translate it when I find the time). But even the English file doesn't work when I try to call it directly in my browser, but that may have to do with my .htaccess settings.

Why not just put addresses after each other without the brackets? The brackets are only needed if you want to show a name in the frontend name picker.

If you do not want the user let choose the recipient, you can just put one email address on each line.

Eh... I'm not sure how that is a reply on my remark... Anyway, I tried several address, one per line, and it fails. The script puts them all behind each other like info@maydomain.comsupport@domain.comsales@somewheere.net. And of course that doesn't work, and you get a failed delivery massage from the mail server.

Byt the way, In view.php there is a line that is shown when you forget to choose a recipient (if a frontend address picker is used):

Code:

echo "<br />deafault: $recip<br />\n";

First of all there is a typo. It's "default". But actually I don't understand why this line is shown anyway. Because the error message that follows is clear enough, and this line just adds confusion in my opinion. I think it can be removed.

[spida]

Hi Frank,

thank you for this nice module!

Just one issue I have: German Umlaute are displayed correctly on the website, but not in the E-Mail. What can I do about it?

Cheers,
spida

[Bramus]

Did any one test this module in WB 2.8? Really like to know if it works, i dont have the right resources to test it myself right now thats why i'm asking.

Thanks

[erpe]

Hi Bramus

I did it with RC 1 yesterday.
It works, but a little tricky with css.

rgds

erpe