In October 2009, we released a very popular feature: Paypal Integration. Using it, vendors are now able to sell goods using the forms built with 123ContactForm.
Recently, somebody told us about a major problem of selling things using Paypal: it does not allow to automatically send an email to the customer. This is very unpleasant, especially for those who sell digital content (ebooks, software), as they have to manually send the download links, instead of having it automatically solved.
So, we decided to search for a solution, and we found it. Starting today, our customers that use Paypal order forms are able to enter the details (subject & body) of an email that will be automatically sent to the buyers. Basically it’s a Paypal payment notification email bases on Paypal’s IPN platform. Just go to the Payment Integration settings of your form, enter email’s subject & body, and enable this new feature.
We are happy to announce that the 123 Contact Form for WordPress plugin that we just released was accepted and added to the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Here it is, please rate our plugin. We are looking forward to your feedback.
In the November newsletter, we asked our users to fill our feedback form. It seems it was a very good idea, since we found how we can improve the user experience on our site. The most important complain we received was that it is very hard to move form fields, while working on the form with our contact form generator. So, we decided to find a solution and make the process of adding and moving fields on the form easier. The solution is to use a nice drag-and-drop interface, which we proudly present in the video below. Enjoy!
After we wrote the contact form for Facebook tutorial, we received a couple of requests to create a similar tutorial, but for MySpace. So, here it is, all you need is a 123ContactForm account (it’s free, sign up if you haven’t already). Please follow these steps:
Login your 123ContactForm account, and create a contact form
Go to Get Html Code page and copy the form code to the clipboard
Login your MySpace account
From the Profile menu, select Edit Profile
In the left part of the page that appears, click on About Me
In the textbox that appears, paste the form code that you have in clipboard (press CTRL+V)
Click the Save Changes button
The contact form will now appear on your profile page.
Enjoy!
Some 123ContacForm users asked us how to put a contact form on the Facebook page. It seemed a simple task, but when it came to do it, we saw that it is not that simple, as Facebook allows you to modify the page only using some Facebook applications. Of course, we managed to do it, and answer our customer support emails, but we thought it would be useful to also write here how to do it.
We will assume that you have a Facebook account, and a 123ContacForm account (it’s free, sign up if you haven’t already). Follow these steps:
Login your 123ContactForm account, and create a contact form
Go to Get Html Code page and copy the form code to the clipboard
We thought it would be useful to create a short tutorial on HTML forms, because understanding how forms work will make you use them more efficient.
HTML forms are the best way to collect data from the visitors. With them, you can create a contact fom, a survey, a “send to a friend” form, a newsletter subscribing form and much more. The forms require input from the visitors, like: Name, Email, Address, Message, Age, Ocupation… and so on, you get the point. The most common form elements are text fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, drop down lists and submit buttons. Before you define the form elements, you must define the form, using the <form> tag.
<form method=”post” action=”mailto:yourname@yoursite.com”>
………………………….
form elements
………………………….
</form>
In the code above, you can see the email address that is set to receive the form sumbissions. In the mid-1990s, when spam started to be a problem, the web developers had to find a way to hide the email address. So, nowadays, 99.9% of the forms use a script that actually sends the form submission:
<form method=”post” action=”myscript.php”>
………………………….
form elements
………………………….
</form>
Let’s go back to the form elements, and explain them one by one. We will separate the form elements & text using the <br/> tag, which will put them one on a line.
Text fields are used when you want the user to type letters, numbers etc (for example, type their name, address, email).
Your name: <br/>
<input type=”text” name=”yourname” />
In the browser, this will become:
Your name:
Radio buttons are used when you want the user to select a choice from a fixed list of choices (for example, his sex: male of female)
Checkboxes are used when you want the user to select one or more choices (or even none!) from a fixed list of choices.
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser1″ value=”Internet Explorer”/> Using Internet Explorer<br/>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser2″ value=”Firefox”/> Using Firefox<br/>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser3″ value=”Google Chrome”/> Using Google Chrome<br/>
In the browser, this will become:
Using Internet Explorer
Using Firefox
Using Google Chrome
Drop down lists are quite similar to radio buttons, as you can select only one choice from a list of choices, but they are prefered in case of a high amount of options. If you want the user to select one of the 50 US states, using radio buttons would occupy a lot of space in the web page, while the dropdown ocuppies just one line.
How many children do you have? <br/>
<select name=”children”>
<option>None</option>
<option>One</option>
<option>Two</option>
<option>Three or more</option>
</select>
In the browser, this will become:
How many children do you have?
Submit buttons are used, of course, to submit the form When the user is satisfied with what he filled the form, he clicks the submit button and the form is submitted.
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit” />
In the browser, this will become:
Ok, now let’s put all these form elements together.
<form method=”post” action=”myscript.php”>
Your name: <br/>
<input type=”text” name=”yourname” /><br/>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser1? value=”Internet Explorer”/> Using Internet Explorer<br/>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser2? value=”Firefox”/> Using Firefox<br/>
<input type=”checkbox” name=”browser3? value=”Google Chrome”/> Using Google Chrome<br/>
How many children do you have? <br/>
<select name=”children”>
<option>None</option>
<option>One</option>
<option>Two</option>
<option>Three or more</option>
</select><br/>
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit” />
</form>
The entire form code is saved here. The form looks like this:
That’s it, we created a simple form. The script that sends the email can be created with various programming languages, like PHP, ASP. You can learn HTML and those languages, but you have a simpler solution: use 123ContactForm, our free form generator. Using it, you can create a wide variety of web forms, in a couple of minutes.
Hello! We decided to create a blog for our awesome online form generator! Here we will discuss various issues about our services, but also about forms in general, html development and much more. We will try to help our visitors who want to learn more about HTML, about the interaction between site owners and visitors.
We are looking forward to your feedback, and we hope you will enjoy visiting our blog
When the user is satisfied with what he filled the form, he clicks the submit button and the form is submitted.
