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

Making "required" fields


On most forms some fields are "required"; that is, the submitted data is useless without this content.

Note

We've all seen forms where almost every field is required; this is a temptation for all of us form creators. Take care when designing your form to make only the really essential fields "required", as each extra field that has to be completed reduces the chances of a user getting as far as clicking the submit button.

Getting ready

We'll be working with the newsletter form again, making the e-mail field "required". This really is essential as we can't send a newsletter without an e-mail address. (Ideally we'd like a name too, but we can send the newsletter without it so we won't make it a required field.)

How to do it...

Open the form in Wizard Edit, click on the e-mail text input element to open the element Properties box, and tick the Required box at the top of the Validation group.

  1. 1. Click Apply at the bottom of the element Properties box to save the change, then...