Contact forms are one of the most common and oldests ways in which sites have provided their visitors with a way to contact them. They are preferrable to many because using a form obviates the need to disclose an email address. But where many solutions fall short is that the form itself only automates the sending of an email. They offer very little customization and are unable to store submitted form data for searching later.

The Contact Forms plugin for Movable Type provides a comprehensive solution for allowing site administrators to manage multiple ways for their site's visitor's to contact them and ask them questions them questions via a simple form submission. Contact form submissions are then stored in the database and tracked to ensure that every message is replied to, and to make all responses searchable.

Finally, site administrators are given a simple screen on which they can monitor incoming inquiries and respond to them in kind via email.

• Manage multiple contact forms and design the form elements you would like to appear in each.

• Drag-and-drop interface for managing the order of contact form field elements.

• Simple interface for managing, monitoring and replying to incoming inquiries.

• Ability to flag inquiries to receive special attention by others, or for later review.

• Quickly view the status of each inquiry through simple icons: unread, read and replied to.

• Embed contact forms in a template via a simple template tag, or retrieve from the plugin of the HTML yourself so that you drop it into a page, a post, or edit manually. Which ever is easier.

• View incoming inquiries and view a specific inquiry using a split pane view common to most email applications.

Plus, enjoy using the speedy and responsive plugin because of its extensive use of javascript and AJAX. That means you can be more productive because you will spend more time talking to your visitors and less time waiting for the application to load.

Users of Movable Type Pro will also have access to the following features:

• Assign a "Contact Form" custom field to pages and entries.

Designers can also make special use of this plugin by specifying in their themes the hooks and information necessary to render forms according their unique style and structure. This allows for theme developers to leverage this plugin to provide a seamless experience for their customers as well.

The Contact Form plugin comes with a standard set of form fields for rendering and displaying on the published blog for visitors to fill out. If developers would like to extend the types of form elements available, they can do so using a simple YAML based API.

To install this plugin follow the instructions found here:

http://tinyurl.com/easy-plugin-install

The following describes how to accomplish the most common tasks with the Contact Form Plugin.

To create a contact form navigate to "Contact Forms" from the main "Manage" menu of Movable Type. From there click the link "Create Contact Form." A dialog/wizard will pop-up leading you through the process of creating a form. Here is a brief explanation of each of the fields you will be asked to fill out:

• Form Title - the name of the contact form.

• From - the email address from which all correspondence regarding an inquiry will be sent, mainly the autoresponse sent to visitors, and responses sent in reply to an inquiry from with the application.

• Reply To - the email address to which users will be directed to reply to. This will be transmitted as a "Reply-To" header in the email. This can be different from the from who the email is actually from. For example, the email may be from "Support", replies should be directed to "Jim."

• Notification List - a list of email addresses that should be notified whenever a new inquiry is received via a contact form.

• Status - allowable values are "open" and "closed." This is used to easily turn on and off a contact form. When a status is set to closed, a message can be displayed on any page that embeds the form to indicate its status using the <mt:IsContactFormOpen> tag.

• Require Authentication - If authentication is required, then visitors will not be able to submit inquires without first authenticating in some way.

• Auto-Reply Text - This is the text that will be sent in an email to any user who submits an inquiry via the form. It is a way to further personalize your correspondence with visitors.

• Confirmation Text - This is the text that will be displayed to your visitor on your web site immediately following their submitting an inquiry.

• Fields - This is the list of fields your contact form will have. You can add and remove fields to your heart's content. The "Subject" and "Body" fields are required and cannot be removed, as are the name and email fields for unauthenticated users.

Adding, Removing and Arranging Contact Form Fields

One can easily customize their contact form by adding, removing and even ordering the fields on the screen using a simple drag-and-drop interface. To edit a form's fields, edit the form and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you will see a list of the form's fields. On the left hand side of each field is a small drag handle which can be used to drag and drop the field up and down the list.

Click on the red minus icon to delete a field.

To add a field, click "Add Field" and a small form will become visible prompting your for the field's name or label, the type of field it is (text, textarea, radio button, pull-down menu, etc) and any additional options the field may support. When you are done defining the field's properties, click the "Add" button and your new field will be added to the list of fields associated with the form. You can then drag and drop the field to place it in the position you desire.

When you are finished, save the form and your fields will be updated, added or removed accordingly.

You may need to republish pages and templates that utilize the form in order for your changes to be reflected properly.

There are two primary ways in which a form can be placed on a web site:

• Adding the Form's HTML directly to a page or entry

• Inserting the form via a template tag used within a template on your web site.

Adding a Form via HTML Directly

Some people may want to add a contact form directly to a page manually without having to worry about editing a template. To do do so, visit the "Manage Contact Forms" screen found via the "Manage" menu. A link can be found associated with each form listed there entitled "Show HTML." Click the link corresponding to the form you want to embed.

A dialog will then appear showing the contact form's HTML. Copy this HTML to your clipboard. Then edit the entry, page or template you want to add the contact form to and paste your clipboard's content into place.

Save and republish the page/entry/template and you are done.

One down-side of this approach is that any changes made to the form subsequent to pasting into the page will not be reflected. You will be required to repaste the form's content into each of the respective pages whenever the form is modified.

To avoid this inconvenience, consider inserting the form via a template tag discussed below.

Adding a Form via a Template Tag

The following template tag can be used to render a contact form on your website:

<$mt:ContactForm id="$id"$>

When a template is rendered, the tag above will be replaced with the complete HTML associated with contact form with the given ID. The HTML and structure of the form itself is derived from the Global or Local System Template conveniently entitled "Contact Form."

The best way and recommended way for that matter to customize your contact forms' HTML is via the System Template entitled "Contact Form." If you are using a theme that supports the contact form plugin explicitly then you will find a blog-level system template with this name to edit. Otherwise, you can find a global system template with this name.

The default contact form template illustrates the best way to structure the template. That is to say that the template consists of three primary components in this sequence:

• a header - which includes the form tag and hidden form elements that makes the form work.
• a loop that iterates over and displays each field according to its type
• a footer - which includes the form's buttons

The header and footer should hardly be messed with. What it is most essential in customizing the form's look and feel is the loop that is responsible for rendering a pull down menu, or a text box, or textarea, etc.

For more information, consult the template tag reference found later in this document.

To monitor incoming inquiries, or contact form submission, navigate to the "Manage Inquiries" screen via the "Manage" menu in Movable Type's main navigation.

From there you can see all recent inquiries and their status (read, unread, etc). You can click on an inquiry to read it, and from there reply to directly to the inquiry, flag it, or delete it.

To reply to an inquiry, click on the inquiry's subject to read the inquiry in the bottom pane. In that pane you will find a "reply" button. Clicking it will open a small dialog into which you can type your response. When you are done, click the "Send" button and the person who submitted the inquiry will be sent your response via email.

To flag or unflag an inquiry, click on the inquiry's subject to view the inquiry in the bottom pane. In that pane you will find a "flag" or "unflag" button depending on the inquiry's current status. Clicking that button will then toggle the inquiry's flagged state.

Users may wish to export a list of all of the inquiries submitted via a contact form. This can be useful for people harvesting a list of email addresses of people who have opted in for a newsletter for example. To export a list of replies

A complete reference to the contact form plugin's template tags can be found at the following URL:

TBD

Designers can register their own contact form template for rendering forms according to their template set's own unique structure and style. To do so a design will need to do two things:

1. Register their template in their theme's config.yaml as a system template

2. Construct their template using the template tags supported by the Contact Form plugin

To register your contact form you will need to make the following addition to your template set/theme plugin's config.yaml:

name: My Theme
description: This is a theme to install for Movable Type
version: 1.1
template_sets:
  my_theme:
    base_path: templates
    label: 'My Theme (Blue)'
    templates:
      system:
        contact_form:
          label: Contact Form

The operative component being:

templates:
  system:
    contact_form:
      label: Contact Form

You will then need to create a file called contact_form.mtml and place it among your theme's other templates. Inside this file you would place the contents used to render the form as you see fit.

This template will then be used whenever the <mt:ContactFormHTML> template tag is invoked. If your theme does not install this template, then the plugin will fall back and use the global system template called "Contact Form."

This method allows you to provide a custom design for your contact form as you choose to do so. If not, you can always rely on the default HTML produced by the plugin and style your form with CSS accordinginly.

The best way to customize your Contact Form template for a blog using a template set without a contact form template already defined, do the following:

1. Go to Preferences > Plugin
2. Expand the "Contact Forms" plugin on the plugin listing page
3. Click the "Settings" tab
4. Click "Install Contact Form System Template"
5. Navigate to Design > Templates
6. Scroll down to the Contact Form template listed under "System Templates."

Done.

<mt:IfContactFormOpen>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<mt:StaticWebPath>plugins/ContactForms/js/blog.js"></script>
<div id="contactform">
  <div id="comment-greeting"></div>
  <form method="post" action="<mt:CGIPath><mt:AdminScript>" id="contact-form" name="contact_form">
    <input type="hidden" name="__mode" value="cf.submit_reply" />
    <input type="hidden" name="blog_id" value="<mt:BlogID>" />
    <input type="hidden" name="form_id" value="<mt:ContactFormID>" />
    <fieldset id="from">
      <div id="field-from-name">  
        <label for="name">Name</label>  
        <input id="name" name="name" size="30" value="" />  
      </div> 
      <div id="field-from-email">  
        <label for="email">Email</label>  
        <input id="email" name="email" size="30" value="" />  
      </div> 
    </fieldset>
    <fieldset id="fields">
<mt:ContactFormFields>
<mt:if tag="ContactFormFieldType" eq="text">
    <div id="field-<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
      <label for="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">"><mt:ContactFormFieldLabel></label>
      <input id="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" name="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" size="30" value="" />
    </div>
<mt:else tag="ContactFormFieldType" eq="textarea">
    <div id="field-<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
      <label for="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">"><mt:ContactFormFieldLabel></label>
      <textarea id="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" name="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" rows="15" cols="50"></textarea>
    </div>
<mt:else tag="ContactFormFieldType" eq="checkbox">
    <div id="field-<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
      <input type="checkbox" id="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" name="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" value="1" />
      <label for="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">"><mt:ContactFormFieldLabel></label>
    </div>
<mt:else tag="ContactFormFieldType" eq="select">
    <div id="field-<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
      <label for="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">"><mt:ContactFormFieldLabel></label>
      <select id="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">" name="<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
<mt:ContactFormFieldValueLoop>
        <option><mt:ContactFormFieldValue></option>
</mt:ContactFormFieldValueLoop>
      </select>
    </div>
<mt:else tag="ContactFormFieldType" eq="radio">
    <div id="field-<mt:ContactFormFieldLabel dirify="1">">
      <label><mt:ContactFormFieldLabel></label>
<mt:ContactFormFieldValueLoop>
      <label><input type="radio" name="<mt:ContactFormFieldValue dirify="1">" value="<mt:ContactFormFieldValue dirify="1">" /> <mt:ContactFormFieldValue></label>
</mt:ContactFormFieldValueLoop>
</mt:if>
    </fieldset>
</mt:ContactFormFields>
    <div id="comments-open-captcha"></div>
    <div id="contactform-footer">
      <input type="submit" accesskey="s" name="post" id="contactform-submit" value="Submit" />
    </div>
  </form>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
cfContactFormOnLoad();
</script>
<mt:else>
Out apologies, but this contact form is no longer active or available.
</mt:IfContactFormOpen>

• Contact Forms

  • drag and drop reordering broken

• Manage Inquiries

  • Display Options: changing date format not supported yet

• Submissions

  • Enforce authentication requirements - not implemented yet

• Features

  • Export replies via CSV - not implemented yet

• Track the reply to inquiries as well - will not implement in v1.0
• Make it easier to select subscribers to contact forms - will not implement in 1.0
• Replies Feed
• Introduce blog_id and form_title attributes for mt:ContactFormHTML

Endevver does its best to support all of its open source software. For help please visit our dedicated support site:

http://endevver.tenderapp.com/

We design and develop web sites, products and services with a focus on simplicity, sound design, ease of use and community. We specialize in Movable Type and offer numerous services and packages to help customers make the most of this powerful publishing platform.

http://www.endevver.com/

This plugin was created from the kind support of iThemes (http://www.ithemes.com/), who supports and appreciates open source. We <3 iThemes!

Copyright 2010, Endevver, LLC. All rights reserved.

This plugin is licensed under the GPL v2.