![[ Image: Coldform Icon ]](http://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/wp-coldform/coldform-icon.gif "Contact Coldform"){kind=icon}
Welcome to the homepage for Contact Coldform, a secure, lightweight, flexible contact form with plenty of options and squeaky clean markup. Coldform blocks spam while making it easy for your visitors to contact you from your WordPress-powered website. The comprehensive Settings Page makes it easy to take full control with plenty of options and several built-in themes for styling the form. Coldform delivers everything you need and nothing you don’t — no frills, no gimmicks, just pure contact-form satisfaction. Now available at the WP Plugin Directory!
Overview
- Plug-n-play: use shortcode or template tag to display Coldform anywhere
- Sweet emails: Coldform sends descriptive, well-formatted messages in plain-text
- Safe and secure: Coldform blocks spam and filters malicious content
- Ultra-clean code: lightweight, standards-compliant, semantic, valid HTML markup
- Fully customizable: easy to configure and style from the Coldform Settings page
Features
- Slick, toggling-panel Settings Page makes it easy to customize and style Coldform
- Style Coldform using built-in “coldskins” or upload some custom CSS
- Provides template tag to display Coldform anywhere in your theme
- Provides shortcode to display Coldform on any post or page
- Displays customizable confirmation message to the sender
Anti-spam & Security
- Captcha: Coldform includes challenge question/answer (w/ option to disable for users)
- Bot trap: hidden input field further reduces automated spam
- Firewall: secure form processing protects against bad bots and malicious input
- User-friendly: same-page error messages to help users complete required fields
Customize Everything
- Includes option to enable users to receive carbon copies
- Coldform message includes IP, host, agent, and other user details
- Customizable form-field captions, error messages, and success message
- Includes three built-in themes “coldskins” to style, or
- Style the Coldform with your own custom CSS
- Option to add a custom prefix to the subject line
- Option to disable the captcha for registered users
Clean Codes
Coldform brings delicious code on every front:
- Squeaky-clean PHP: every line like a fine wine
- Crispy-clean markup: valid, semantic source code with proper formatting
- Shiny-clean emails: Coldform emails deliver descriptive, well-formatted content
- Better performance: conditional loading of styles only when Coldform is displayed
More Features
- Works perfectly without JavaScript.
- Option to load CSS and custom styles only when/where Coldform is displayed
- Option to reset default settings
- Options to customize many aspects of the form
- Options to customize success, error, and spam messages
- Option to enable and disable CSS styles
Installation and Usage:
Typical plugin install: upload, activate, and customize in the WP Admin.
- Unzip and upload the entire directory to your “plugins” folder and activate
- Use the shortcode to display Coldform on any post or page, or:
- Use the template tag to display the Coldform anywhere in your theme.
- Visit the Coldform Settings Page to configure your options and for more info.
Shortcode: [coldform]
Template tag:
<?php if (function_exists('contact_coldform_public')) contact_coldform_public(); ?>For more information, visit the Coldform Settings page and readme.txt file.
Coldform Screenshots
- Coldform Settings Page (panels toggled closed)
- Coldform Settings Page (panels toggled open w/ default settings)
- Screenshot of the contact form (using default WP theme)
- Screenshot of the “success” message (using default WP theme)
- Alternate “coldskin” styles for the Coldform (default settings)
- Well-formatted plan-text email messages
- Squeaky clean HTML markup
Coldform Demos & Examples
Check out the Coldform Demo. Feel free to send a test message to check out the formatting of the success message. Also check out the error functionality by omitting any required field. Also, listed below are examples of Coldform “in the wild”.
Live Examples:
If you use the Coldform on your site, share a link and I’ll add it here. Thanks! :)
Coldform Download
Download Coldform from the WP Plugin Directory:
Alternate/Previous Versions
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v20121031 - Dutch (57KB ZIP) by Erik Stam
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v1.0 (12KB ZIP)
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v0.88.1 (8KB ZIP)
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v0.88.1 - Arabic (12KB ZIP)
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v0.88.1 - French (12KB ZIP)
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v0.88.1 - Spanish (74KB ZIP)
- WP Plugin - Contact Coldform v0.88.1 - Dutch (12KB ZIP)
160 Responses
Louis – January 8, 2008
I’m astonished, wow !
That plugin was my very dream not so long ago, and wow, now it’s real !
Your introduction with the bullets list was very appetizing, but the screenshots of the markup, OMG !
I’ve not seen a code so clean since the Mootools core maybe… it really recalls the WordPress slogan “Code is Poetry”.
But all this joy was broken by some unintended fact : the download link is broken :(
It leads to :
http://perishablepress.com/mint/pepper/orderedlist/downloads/download.php..?file=http%3A//perishablepress.com/press/wp-content/online/plugins/Contact-CoI hope you find a fix quick as i sure ain’t the only one waiting to try it !
Perishable – January 8, 2008
Louis — thanks for pointing that out! In my rush to go eat lunch, I forgot to double-check the download link..
It should be working fine now! :)
Louis – January 8, 2008
Okay, my feedback after 10 minutes playing with the plugin:
<legend>elements and the submit button text can’t be translated.It’s a wonderful out-of-the-box plugin, with great information inside, and a clean presentation on the outside (the “footer” in the configuration page is very smart). Congratulations !
Louis – January 8, 2008
Oh, my comment is all broken ! I used a HTML list (ul tag) and a legend tag between “the” and “elements”.
Also, it would be very nice to have more space in the comment textarea on your blog, because it’s hard to write in such a tiny place. More width please :)
(and a button to preview the comment ? Noo I’m asking too much :p)
Perishable – January 8, 2008
Yes, the index.php file was thrown in as a “just in case, why not” measure.. better safe than sorry. I see that you have a keen eye for localization — that is definitely something I need to work on.. especially given the diverse WordPress user base ;) Also, optional field exclusion(s) is a great idea — something I will plan on working into the next release. Overall, I am very excited about this plugin and appreciate your insightful and useful feedback. Now, on to that 404 management plugin I was telling you about.. ;)
Perishable – January 8, 2008
I tried “rescuing” your comment — let me know if it is not what you had intended..
And, I totally agree about the need for more space in the comment textarea. As for the need for a comment preview feature.. well, I am still debating about that. For me, there is a fine line between performance and usability, however, I am thinking that I will go ahead and implement a live comment preview in the next redesign. As soon as I get to it — either during the next theme redesign, or even as a theme “update” — I will be slapping the comment area back into shape!
Thanks for the feedback :)
Louis – January 9, 2008
Your rescued my comment well, he’s now as first intended.
Localization is a must have nowadays, but I think field exclusions is important too. I mean, a form with more than 3 fields often exhauste in advance the reader. He’s like “oh damn, too many fields, I’d better not write him.
Glad to heard we’ll have more space to write here soon ! About the preview idea, you seem to have chosen to go with something “live”, but my opinion on is that a classic static preview would be fine.
Or if you think live is better, I think a button would be nicer than a “letter by letter autoupdating live box”; a button that would create the preview dynamicaly on submit. It can be done really easily with Mootools (I prefer Mootools over the others libs, but they can do too).
What do you think ?
PS: damn, I want the 404 plugin !!
Perishable – January 9, 2008
Good point about field the field exclusions.. I have done that very same thing myself, where I decided not make a purchase or send information because it seemed like too much work. I will definitely be implementing some field exclusivity options in the next release.
As for more comment space, I don’t know how exactly “soon” it will be — remember that 404 plugin I was telling you about? ;)
Let’s see, live versus static for comment previews.. I will have to think about that one. I recall using the live preview option on my old Jupiter theme, and it seemed to work quite well. Although a static preview could be keen as well. – Hmmm..
Andreas – January 9, 2008
Hi,
is there a way to use the Contact Coldform by puting the directly in the page template source instead of adding it to a post?
Thanks!
Perishable – January 9, 2008
Hi Andreas,
Currently, the plugin requires either page or post in order to work properly. However, I will certainly look into enabling such functionality for the next upgrade. Thanks for the idea :)
Stephen Cronin – January 10, 2008
As I said elsewhere, this looks great! So clean – I wish my code looked like that!
Congratulations – I’ll be trying it out when I’ve got the time..
weston – January 11, 2008
Excellent job on the plugin.
May I suggest perhaps a simple improvement to address the field exclusion would be to provide css id for each of the respective fieldsets. Then the user could turn them off with just css.