Book Image

ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook

By : Bob Janes
Book Image

ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! site Cookbook

By: Bob Janes

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
ChronoForms 3.1 for Joomla! Site Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface

Putting several inputs in one line


The HTML produced by the ChronoForms Form Wizard puts each field into a single column. This works well for short forms but may not always be useful for longer or more complex forms. We'll see later how you can add your own HTML. Here, we'll look at one small way that ChronoForms can help.

Getting ready

We'll work with a form that has three short text fields intended to input a date (day, month, and year). Created with the Wizard it looks like this:

How to do it...

  1. 1. Open the form again with Wizard Edit then drag a MultiHolder into the workspace.

    Note

    The MultiHolder needs to go after the elements that are to be placed into it.

  2. 2. In the Properties for the MultiHolder is an Elements box. You enter the numbers of the elements that you want to include in the MultiHolder here. Unfortunately, ChronoForms doesn't give you any easy way of finding out what these numbers are. They are the order in which elements were added, starting with 1, so a little trial and error...