WordPress Plugin: Contact Coldform

Louis – #1

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-Co

I hope you find a fix quick as i sure ain’t the only one waiting to try it !

Louis – #3

Okay, my feedback after 10 minutes playing with the plugin:

• index.php to prevent directory listing ? I think that should be .htaccess’ work. Maybe you’ve put this file for novice users, after all why not.
• localization is not doesn’t cover every area : the <legend> elements and the submit button text can’t be translated.
• a way to deactivate certain fields should be given in the admin configuration page (I’m thinking of a checkbox next to the “Name (required)” (for example) fields.

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 – #4

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)

Louis – #7

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 !!

Andreas – #9

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!

Stephen Cronin – #11

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 – #12

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.

Louis – #13

I disagree with weston. Why generate a content if it’s not of any use ?

If everything worked like that, imagine what search engines crawlers would see, or worse, imagine what pages would look like without CSS applied.

Gail – #15

Hi,
I really like the plugin, but my mail server requires smtp authentication, how/where (in the code) can I enter my smtp username and password so the plugin will actually send the email to the recipient?

6ft5 – #17

Hey, found your form today and implemented it on my site.
It´s excellent! Thanks for helping me postpone learning to code a while longer!
:-)

Rasheed – #19

That’s Plugin looks cool.

I am trying to use it my non English blog without success.

When i try to send a message without completing the required information the non English characters become gibberish as described in these links:

http://www.rasheed-b.com/tmp/cold.gif
http://www.rasheed-b.com/tmp/cold2.gif

I tried to find a solution but at last i gave up. May i find here helpful information.

Thanks.

Rasheed – #21

Hello Perishable,

Thanks for your quick respond.

I still investigating it more and I don’t thinks it’s a translation issue. I am familiar with translating plugins and this case looks like something different.

I tried to check this similar plugin:
http://www.deliciousdays.com/contact

And here is the result:
http://www.rasheed-b.com/tmp/diff.gif

Arabic characters looks normal.

Mustafa Saadi – #22

Hello Jeff, rasheed,

The problem is that all _$POST variables are converted to HTML entities using the htmlentities php function. I don’t think you need that anyway — emails shound be sent in plain format. Anyway, we have uploaded the fix archive to rasheed’s server. Here is the link: http://www.rasheed-b.com/tmp/contact-coldform-fixed.zip

Regards,
Mustafa Saadi.

Mustafa Saadi – #24

Jeff,

I completely agree with you. You can really use the following: htmlentities( $html, ENT_QUOTES, “UTF-8″ ); or maybe htmlentities ($s, ENT_NOQUOTES, “UTF-8″); — remember that you should use the “header(’Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8′);” when posting the data. Best to probably use strip_tags() and mysql_escape_string(), the strip_tags() function simply looks for any markup elements in a given string and removes them.

Regards,
Mustafa Saadi.

Rasheed – #26

Hello Jeff,

I found today a conflict between your plugin and absolute-comments plugin.

http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/absolute-comments-manager-instant-reply/

Try to activate this plugin in your blog and try to use absolute-comments plugin and see what’s happened.

After deactivating your plugin it worked.

Can you check this issue ?

Thanking you in advance.

Chris – #28

Is this plugin really not working with Wordpress 2.5 ??

Rasheed – #29

Chris,

Mine is 2.5 and the plugin works like a charm.

Kathy – #30

Love this plugin, very easy, works right out of the box.
THANK YOU!
Of course, I have a tiny little question, the name and email input fields are run together, i there a way to get them to line up like the rest of the form?

Kathy – #32

That did it :)
I played around with the left margin & the width a bit. It looks VERY NICE now & it works too.
Thanks again.

Cormac – #34

Great plug-in! I’m still tinkering with styling options but I;m loving it already! Thanks so much.

Stan – #35

This plugin looks great ! Wish I could use it. Sadly it doesn’t work for me. Everything seems to function properly…except it just doesn’t actually send the mail.

Stan – #38

Thanks Pershable

I’m trying to track down the problem, because I can put a simple mail function using a plain text editor in a static xhtml or html page and it works fine. So does other software that utilizes this function.

So, I am checking with my hosting service and thinking it’s something to do with my .htaccess and/or the fact that my Wordpress is on a sub.domain. Or perhaps it’s my Wordpress version itself (2.2..1)

I am determined to get this to work. It looks like too good and necessary of plugin for me to pass up.

I will find the solution then come back and let you know when I track down the problem, in case anyone else needs the info in the future..

gg – #40

Thanks.

Stan – #42

Update

Ok, sometimes it’s the simple things that drive you crazy. I checked and double checked everything scoured through my php.ini…read almost every post at the large support forums of my webhost. Checked my error logs and never saw a thing relating to coldform. Saw some other errors but nothing to do with coldform

Turns out I had to de-activate my ‘Automatic Upgrade’ plugin. Wierd I know, but that seemed to release the coldform from whatever limbo it was in and it began working !

I had installed and activated the automatic upgrade plugin to try it out…it didn’t work…and I forgot to deactivate it.

Then later on when I installed coldform it (auto upgrade)) interfered with coldform somehow.

Then I decided to check my error logs immediately after attempting to use coldform and an error popped up about the auto upgrade plugin…that’s when I hit pay dirt.

Wish I’d have thought of that sooner…whew

Great plugin !
Thanks,
Stan

Stan – #44

I don’t know what’s up with the auto update plugin except it didn’t work. When I forgot to de-activate it, my blog still ran fine. So fine, that’s one reason I have not been in a hurry to upgrade. I’m still at WPv 2.2.1

But I’m thinking that when I’m ready I’ll probably do the upgrade manually. I will feel better having complete control and know every thing that has taken place…got to be better than not knowing what actually went on.

As far as any changes to the coldform files it doesn’t seem like their were. I wasn’t paying very close attention to detail when I glanced through the coldform files before installing. I could have missed something.

I would bet that nothing did change in the files since coldform is working flawlessly. (now that the auto update plugin released it from a headlock)

Thanks Jeff.
Regards,
Stan

derek – #46

I am curious if your plugin can generate an automated response email thanking users for filling out the form?

Thanks.

Louis – #48

I’m not sure if this is a great idea. Does anyone actually like receiving such mails?

I know I don’t.

derek – #50

I think providing an option would be wise. I agree not everyone always enjoys getting and then deleting these kinds of emails. However, I have worked with clients before where this is a feature they have demanded. Thanks for your feedback.

Louis – #51

My vision of things is: we should not encourage such bad practices, even if it makes us miss (stupid?) clients and therefore, money.

Of course, I understand that not everyone will go by my side :D

Jon – #52

Wanted to say thanks for a great wordpress contact form plugin! I’ve been using a number of contact forms on my blog, moongrabber, and they’ve all had problems until now.

Juan PAblo – #54

Hello! I’m trying your plugin in my site ebanking.cl

Gor the moment it’s working fine, although it would be nice to have an option to disable some fields, in ym case, I would prefer to disable the spam field.

My best regards,

Ignacio – #56

Hello ! I just tried to upload, set up and post Coldforms but all I got is to print the tag … it’s very strange, I’m sure it must be some little thing I’m doing wrong …

I could set up the options wonderfully, but then, when I did a special post and entered the tag, I simply get it printed … :5

Does it need a specific loop ? I have a very standard loop, but it doesn’t seems to work.
I’ll look further to see what’s happening !

By the way : what a gorgeous design in this site ! Cheers !

Ignacio – #57

Obviously I was using some rich text format in the visual editor : I’ve pasted the tag in the html editor and all works fine now. Well this is great ! Many thanks for this wonderful plugin.

SystemRunner – #59

Hi Jeff,

Just downloaded your plugin and love the clean syntax behind it!

However, there’s a conflict with the meta tag plugin, HeadSpace2.

With both Coldform and HeadSpace2 activated:

1) After submit, the success message that gets displayed is duplicated in the [title] tag (with HTML tags and all).

2) When I check the email from the form, three copies of that email are in my inbox.

When I deactivate HeadSpace2, these problems no longer occur.

Would this be a problem with your plugin or HeadSpace2?
I’m thinking it’s HeadSpace 2, but I thought I’d mention it here as well!

Thanks for reading,
-Ray

Fernando – #61

Hi, I´ve installed the form and I am having a problem (I am really sorry if this may sound a basic question, I am not a developer and though I manage myself to “understand” some basic coding.

I recieve the following error when I try to test the form I published on:

http://www.escapesverticales.com.ar/index.php/informacion

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 550 Sender is not allowed. in D:\Domains\escapesverticales.com.ar\wwwroot\wp-content\plugins\contact-coldform\contact_coldform.php on line 205

Can somebody help me please? Thanks!

Fernando – #63

I think the problem is that SMTP mails should be autenticated, is there an option to configure the mail account information?

Or it uses a component in which case wich component does it uses?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Fernando – #65

Ok but is there any workaround on the meantime? Like for example using an open SMTP Server and specify which could be?

Do you know any open SMTP server nowadays to use?

Thanks for your support!

Brooke – #66

LOVE this plugin, but I’m a bit confused. How do we get the form input areas to be prefilled? It looks like thats what the general options in the admin are for, the very top parts, where you can change things like “your-email@domain.com” but they dont appear on the form anywhere. ideally, i would like them prefilled with what is set in the plugin’s admin page, and then disappear on focus.

SystemTraderFX – #68

Hi Jeff,

Going back to comments 59 and 60, Headspace2 has added compatibility for Contact Coldform.

You can view our styled version of your plugin on our contact us page.

PS: You can put us under your “Live Examples” list if you want!
-Ray

Mouad – #70

Hey and thanx for the great plugin.

I am wondering, is it possible to have different contact forms using the same plugin?

I want two forms, but with different text fields , because each of them is for a different purpose. I know I can set the fields’ names in the setting, but that will apply to any page with the form tag in it. I dont want that, I want two forms but each with different text fields and input options. Is that possible and how?
( if not , it would be great to upgrade the plugin where the text fields are independent, set up for each form independently, there is a default text fields’ names, unless the user changes them to what he sees fit.

I wish my point is clear, and thank U if U can help.

Mouad – #72

Okay, thanx very much , but it would be really nice if you just made the text fields independent as I explained above.. that way the plugin will be suitable to any purpose I need, and I dont have to install two contact me plugin ..

bu thanx anyway for the help :)

Alejandro – #73

Hi! Thanks for creating the plugin ContactColdFom is very good!

I just wanted to know if it is possible to “expand” the space for the “antispam question, for if it is too long after sending the data (in the plugin options) is cut, then do not understand (is cut).

In short, what we need is to “expand” the capacity of the form of options, which puts the antispam question and asked to write a longer time.

Thanks, sorry for my bad English.

K – #75

Hi,

ever thought about putting the single fields into -tags, so you could float them easier?

thanks!

K – #76

Hi again,

sorry for writing multiple comments in such a short time.

after looking over your code, i want to say: it´s pretty clear and good (as far as i understand it ;)

one thing that will prevent me from ever updating your plugin again: i have to hack so many things in the code (every english text, automatic mail content, form-size and, as alejandro asked: maxlength, etc.). everything works more than just fine and is pretty easy to use. as i expected. if you allow me to make a suggestion for future updates: moving more and more stuff from code to admin-options and a seperated style-sheet (maybe admin option to switch between style-sheets #1-#3).

thanks anyway for this plugin. :)

Herr Kaiser – #77

Is there a way to add your form with a php-function to a template?

thanks a lot!

K – #79

hm. I tried simply calling it via it´s function-name. didn´t work. maybe i have to insert it into some hook. i don´t know. but due to the fact, that i couldn´t hide it and found dagon-form with a php-function in it´s doku, i switched. nothing personal. just the time :)

thanks for your plugin anyway. i´ll use it somewhere else. it´s still good :D

Mohammad – #80

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the great plugin,

I have a little problem though;

It’s installed perfectly, but when I fill in all the required fields and hit send, the confirmation page doesn’t show, I instead receive the following message:(firefox):
“The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.”
(ie):
“Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”

No email message is received.

I use the Arabic version.

I’ll keep trying to get it solved, and update you if anything.

Thanks again for the contact form, I used to use formmail, but not any more :)

Mohammad – #81

Update: it’s now showing internal server error (500)

Mohammad – #82

It’s got solved,

The first message was a result of wrong configured charset (page format).
The second is a server problem.

Thank you very much.

CherryPie – #84

Thanks for this plug in, it is very neat and tidy. Here is the link so you can see it in use on my blog:

http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/contact/

CherryPie – #86

Thanks for the compliment :-)

LuAnn Arena – #87

Hey there-

Just installed Coldform and a custom skin. Looks great but all my email tests have failed so far. I receive the thanks for submitting message, but that’s it.

Any ideas? I’m a bit new to customizing my blog but I can find my way around ok.

Many thanks

MommyGeek – #90

Hey there,

Tried to upload and install — install was successful, but when I try to activate it says that there is no valid header! I’m on the latest version of wordpress — 2.8.3 I believe. Any ideas?

shawn – #92

Just found this plugin and installed it on a virgin wordpress-mu 2.8.4a

I uploaded plugin to plugins folder, and activated it.

The problem I am having is in the admin, when I click the coldforum link it returns me to the admin homepage with a link http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin/?c=1

ideas?

Marathon Alliance – #93

Hey Jeff,

It appears the old HeadSpace2 bug is back again.
Using newest version of Contact Coldform and Headspace2 on WP 2.8.4.

Check it out on our Coldform contact us page.

The Coldform output gets echo’d again in the [title] tag.

-Ray

Marathon Alliance – #95

Hey Jeff,

The form displays fine; but when you do a successful submission, the success message gets duplicated in the [title] tag.

So the problem still exists…

-Ray

Annabelle – #97

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!

Abbott – #99

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.

Abbott – #101

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 – #102

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!

Josh Straub – #104

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.

andrew j talcott – #106

this plugin is fantastic, so easy to use and everything you would need.

Ignacio – #107

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

Dick Kirkland – #109

Hi Mr. Starr,

The plugin seems to install great and I think I just have a WP server specific change to make. I noticed in #104 above, the user cited changing the mail() calls to wp_mail(). I’m wondering if I need to do this to the plugin files, as I normally receive email from the WP instance when a new user is added, etc.

Any insight on what code to edit to check out this hypothesis would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Dick

Dick Kirkland – #110

Maybe the better question to ask is why do I receive email from basic WP processes, (ex. adding users), but not coldform?

I thought they were handled by the same mail() functions in php.ini

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dick

Dick Kirkland – #111

I feel really dumb, but I didn’t have the first few fields filled out in the plugin’s UI. This caused my spam blocker to keep me from seeing the emails. I went to great lengths even using the WP SMTP Mail plugin’s configurations. Sorry to bombard this venue with so many posts.

If it helps anyone else, I’m using 2.8.6 and left the mail() functions as they are in the plugin’s code.

GREAT PLUGIN Mr. Starr, with the ability to style it up.

Thanks so much.

Keep up the great work.

Maybe the next version can have a choice for multiple recipients in the UI?
I saw a thread on how someone else was altering certain files to achieve this, but who wants to do that outside of coldform. :)?

Dick

andrew j talcott – #113

is there a way to turn the security question off?

Dick Kirkland – #114

Hey Jeff,

No prob. I agree about the information sharing.
Who knows, maybe someone will have the same mistake as me.
Thanks for your efforts on this great plugin and attention to users’ concerns.
Have a great day.

Sincerely,
Dick

Simon – #115

Hey Jeff! How are things?

I’m relaunching my site and am looking for a good contact form solution. Is there a way I can add the coldform to the .php file? <!--coldform--> is ignored whenever I put it in the file.

Thanks for your help, once again!

Mezanul – #116

Thanks Jeff for this great plugin! Before I found your plugin, I was using some other contact form plugins and I was never happy with them. Then I found your plugin and I replaced the old contact form plugin with yours.

Also, it is the most light of the previous ones! :)

Regards,
Mezanul

Marco – #118

Hi have to tried calling the coldform function directly but not work? Help me?

eddie – #120

using 2.9.1 i get a “The plugin does not have a valid header” when i try to ACTIVATE the plugin (the install it says was sucessful, though it doesnt show up as a deactivated plugin after activation fails)

eddie – #121

BTW i tried adding

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

to the top of the readme.txt file but that didnt work