WordPress Plugin: Contact Coldform : Perishable Press

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 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:

Download Contact Coldform

Alternate/Previous Versions

160 Responses

Annabelle – August 24, 2009

Hi there,

Install was fine but when I press active I get this message: The plugin does not have a valid header.

I am very new to this. Can you walk me thru what I need to check?

Thanks so much!
Jeff Starr – August 24, 2009

To anyone receiving the following error:

The plugin does not have a valid header.

Please create a file called “readme.txt” and place it in the /coldform/ directory. Then open the file and place the following text at the top:

=== Contact Coldform ===
Contributors: Jeff Starr
Tags: contact, form, clean, simple
Requires at least: 2.0
Tested up to: 2.8.4

This is apparently a new, unannounced plugin requirement. I will be including this new readme.txt requirement in the next update. For now, creating your own should work.
Abbott – September 2, 2009

ColdForm installs and activates no problem, but when I try to access the options/setup page under the settings menu it basically kicks me out of the admin with a stark page with this message:

“You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.”

Any ideas? I’ve read through every comment on here and tried every relevant suggestion.

By the way, thanks a ton Jeff for your work through this site…simply amazing.
Jeff Starr – September 2, 2009
Hi Abbott, I have read many reports of this error happening with WordPress in a variety of scenarios: plugins, upgrading, auto-upgrading, options pages, and so on. There are just as many “fixes” out there as there are issues, it seems, however which one is correct for any specific case is apparently a matter of trial and error. Having said that..

This is the first time I am hearing of the “permissions” error associated with the Coldform. About the best I can do is ask a few questions to maybe generate some clues..
- Which version of WordPress are you using?
- Are you logged in as Admin (level 10) when the error occurs?
- Do you receive the error when working with other plugins?
- Are you using the latest version of the Coldform?
Abbott – September 3, 2009
jeff,
- latest 2.8.4
- yes, full admin level 10
- no. i did receive other server errors, because i’ve applied the 4G. since then i’ve found my only option for now is to shut down the “query exploits” section. i’ve got a handful of wp installs in sub-directories on a development domain along with an installation of phpmyadmin and so the “query exploit” section basically locked me down.
- wait, i swear i just dl’d coldform the other day, but it says only 0.88…so i just got 0.88.1 and will try it. also, gave me the idea to check for possible conflict with other plugins.
thanks, and i’ll report back
Abbott – September 3, 2009

Ha! Success. I guess the new version fixed it. Also, I added the readme.txt tweak.

Thanks man. I suppose you could delete this exchange if you’re so inclined. Keep up the great work!
Jeff Starr – September 5, 2009

@Abbott: Awesome — glad to hear you got it working :)
Josh Straub – October 9, 2009

This plugin is simply fantastic, the best part is the ultra clean & fast code. Unlike other contact form plugins, it won’t burden your visitors with a gigantic JQuery download that makes every pageload sluggish while it decompresses a mondo “library”.

I did have to make 2 hacks to it. #1 was to change the mail() calls to wp_mail() to make it play nice with my WordPress installation. I believe this is the proper way to do wordpress mailing and have notified the author.

The other problem was the legend HTML tags were showing up on certain browsers (I cant recall, it may have been IE6 or IE7). Since they were set to be hidden, I just deleted them completely and it’s been working great ever since.

I also have not received 1 single spam through this form.
Jeff Starr – October 10, 2009

@Josh Straub: Awesome! Great to hear that the Coldform is working well for you. I am considering removing the <legend> elements (as well as improving the markup even further) in the next version. Cheers! :)
andrew j talcott – October 16, 2009

this plugin is fantastic, so easy to use and everything you would need.
Ignacio – October 22, 2009

Hi Jeff, just wanted to say thank you for this wonderful plugin. And, please, check it out as I implemented it here in my site. I’m still in a post-Beta phase, hope you like it : http://paragraphe.org/contact/
Keep on pushing,
Ignacio
Jeff Starr – November 2, 2009

That’s quite impressive, Ignacio! Thanks for sharing your implementation of the Coldform. I will be adding it to the post examples.
Cheers :)