i've worked a lot with Contour and I absolutely love it, brilliant package and highly recommended. Sometimes though it is just too much. Typically for a really simple form I make a very simple .net user control. Most of the time they just email someone using system.net The big problem with a .net control is it's not easy to maintain, it's ok for me but if another user wants to change a field or styling then they can't unless they have access to the source, which is fine most of the time but again often overkill. I've used the User Control editor package that's really handy to allow a designer to make simple changes for styling to the ASCX file in a user control.
I have a requirement from a customer to deliver a really simple form but she want's to have fine and detailed control over the styling of the form. She doesn't want any validation at all. The look and styling of the form is the most important thing to her, and the values of everything entered will be sent in an email to a nominated email address. Really simple. She also wants complete control to edit the CSS styles and add or remove fields and labels at any time. The whole budget is less than £400/€450/$650 to give some scope to the job.
I've spent the last hour looking over doc2form but I think I would prefer to avoid this after a trial installation, play and look at the source, apart from anything else even this is far too complicated for what my customer & I need.
What I am thinking of as a solution would be very simple. Just a normal html form that the customer can edit in the ascx file, a .net control with emailTo / emailFrom / emailSubject public properties and a "submit" button that can have a css class and or a text value specified. When the button is clicked it gathers up the submitted values from request.form[i] and using the input name as a label sends the values to the email address.
I'm just wondering if there could be anything wrong with this approach that I am missing or if something like this already exists. Seems like a simple solution to a problem I get a lot and I am not sure why I have this nagging doubt in my mind before i start this.
in this case the user is a designer who is very happy to edit html and this gives them a high degree of control over the appearance of the form
in my experience contour is very powerful but not good at allowing this level of control over the styling
the form the user wants can be seen here: http://www.susiehinchliffe.com/SAM/Stage2-green/page3.html and they want the contents of the form just emailed with no validation, i'm just thinking that something that could do this and be reusable would be a good use of effort
I don't see anything wrong with that you've suggested - a simple ASCX with few fields and CSS classes. Take a look at Cultiv Contact Form for a starter.
If it needs to be more "dynamic", you could take a look at generating the form from an XML doc:
I still think Contour might be a better option - but I know what you mean about the CSS styling ... still once its in place, it shouldn't be too difficult for a decent CSS dev to style-up?
Thanks Lee - that's really helpful - the cultiv form is useful too thanks for that.
plan is to have a go at this over today and tomorrow - if i do make a package out of it is it worth sharing? or is that likely to confuse the picture with contour?
one thing i'm wondering... i'd originally assumed the best way to edit the html was using the app code editor, but what about just a simple editor instead, i was thinking of having a rich text for the confirmation message so a simple editor on the doc type would remove the need to have the app code editor installed and make it easier to have more than one form too and be generally neater, or even just a textstring multiple to make it really simple
Yep, nothing wrong with uploading a ZIP of the source-code. Most of us tend to use CodePlex for source-control... probably because it seems more .NET friendly, where as the others 'appear' to be more geared towards the LAMP-stack.
... and there's nothing wrong with WordPress! ;-) (as a blogging platform that is!)
going to try and post my project today or tomorrow - within a new c3x website
what's been really nice is that the designer I've been helping wants to help too and has already written some extensions to the project :) ! i've been trying to make the concept more designer friendly - sitting on the train now reading a book called "Designers Are Wankers" that Laurie provided for me that is surprisingly helpful to that end - getting nagging emails to mark something in this thread as a solution but i'm not sure if with my karma i can i'll try
i've resolved to try and use this forum far more (not least because the one I mostly spend my time on has recently shut down) and whilst I've yet to get to the magic 70 karma I did pass an important milestone yesterday of having google chrome place it in my 8 most visited sites :D
a really simple editable form
i've worked a lot with Contour and I absolutely love it, brilliant package and highly recommended. Sometimes though it is just too much. Typically for a really simple form I make a very simple .net user control. Most of the time they just email someone using system.net The big problem with a .net control is it's not easy to maintain, it's ok for me but if another user wants to change a field or styling then they can't unless they have access to the source, which is fine most of the time but again often overkill. I've used the User Control editor package that's really handy to allow a designer to make simple changes for styling to the ASCX file in a user control.
I have a requirement from a customer to deliver a really simple form but she want's to have fine and detailed control over the styling of the form. She doesn't want any validation at all. The look and styling of the form is the most important thing to her, and the values of everything entered will be sent in an email to a nominated email address. Really simple. She also wants complete control to edit the CSS styles and add or remove fields and labels at any time. The whole budget is less than £400/€450/$650 to give some scope to the job.
I've spent the last hour looking over doc2form but I think I would prefer to avoid this after a trial installation, play and look at the source, apart from anything else even this is far too complicated for what my customer & I need.
What I am thinking of as a solution would be very simple. Just a normal html form that the customer can edit in the ascx file, a .net control with emailTo / emailFrom / emailSubject public properties and a "submit" button that can have a css class and or a text value specified. When the button is clicked it gathers up the submitted values from request.form[i] and using the input name as a label sends the values to the email address.
I'm just wondering if there could be anything wrong with this approach that I am missing or if something like this already exists. Seems like a simple solution to a problem I get a lot and I am not sure why I have this nagging doubt in my mind before i start this.
So what, you want to have them edit HTML to create a dynamic form?
You're better just using Contour, particularly on that budget.
in this case the user is a designer who is very happy to edit html and this gives them a high degree of control over the appearance of the form
in my experience contour is very powerful but not good at allowing this level of control over the styling
the form the user wants can be seen here: http://www.susiehinchliffe.com/SAM/Stage2-green/page3.html and they want the contents of the form just emailed with no validation, i'm just thinking that something that could do this and be reusable would be a good use of effort
Hi John,
I don't see anything wrong with that you've suggested - a simple ASCX with few fields and CSS classes. Take a look at Cultiv Contact Form for a starter.
If it needs to be more "dynamic", you could take a look at generating the form from an XML doc:
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050112.htm
http://aspalliance.com/487_Sample_Application_XML_Form_Generator_Part_1_Generating_an_XML_Form
I still think Contour might be a better option - but I know what you mean about the CSS styling ... still once its in place, it shouldn't be too difficult for a decent CSS dev to style-up?
Cheers, Lee.
Thanks Lee - that's really helpful - the cultiv form is useful too thanks for that.
plan is to have a go at this over today and tomorrow - if i do make a package out of it is it worth sharing? or is that likely to confuse the picture with contour?
Hi John,
I'd say yes, its definitely worth making a package ... there's extra effort involved, but added much more value to the community!
I doubt it would compete directly with Contour, similar with Doc2Form doesn't hurt its sales! (Contour has a deeper feature-set!)
Let me know if you need any help with testing, etc.
Cheers, Lee.
one thing i'm wondering... i'd originally assumed the best way to edit the html was using the app code editor, but what about just a simple editor instead, i was thinking of having a rich text for the confirmation message so a simple editor on the doc type would remove the need to have the app code editor installed and make it easier to have more than one form too and be generally neater, or even just a textstring multiple to make it really simple
i'd like to make the source of this open and available for anyone to edit - what is the best or easiest way to do that?
CodePlex, Google Code, BitBucket, GitHub... the world is your oyster!
thanks Lee :)
presumably there would be nothing wrong with me just adding a zip file to download the full source from my "project page"
this is the kick up the botty i need to actually finish my new c3x site
about 70% through converting it from static html & wordpress (blame Lau's host!) to Umbraco - so will try and finish this next week and host it then
the good news for me is that it's on the client's site and working - i'm a little bit proud of my creation!
it really is very simple :D
Yep, nothing wrong with uploading a ZIP of the source-code. Most of us tend to use CodePlex for source-control... probably because it seems more .NET friendly, where as the others 'appear' to be more geared towards the LAMP-stack.
... and there's nothing wrong with WordPress! ;-) (as a blogging platform that is!)
going to try and post my project today or tomorrow - within a new c3x website
what's been really nice is that the designer I've been helping wants to help too and has already written some extensions to the project :) ! i've been trying to make the concept more designer friendly - sitting on the train now reading a book called "Designers Are Wankers" that Laurie provided for me that is surprisingly helpful to that end - getting nagging emails to mark something in this thread as a solution but i'm not sure if with my karma i can i'll try
i've resolved to try and use this forum far more (not least because the one I mostly spend my time on has recently shut down) and whilst I've yet to get to the magic 70 karma I did pass an important milestone yesterday of having google chrome place it in my 8 most visited sites :D
Love it!
Looking forward to seeing the package!
Cheers, Lee.
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