Generally, if you're upgrading from an older release I recommend to read the HISTORY.txt file to follow-up on all the enhancements and bug fixes, they may require re-configuration of your settings (e.g. date-picker, WP comment form feature etc.)
It is important to note, that WP's auto update process is far from flawless, ie. it may overwrite any of your custom settings (CSS theme file, background images, font files etc). Please always make backups of files you need to preserve!
NEW in 8.4: much enhanced {custom var} nomenclature
NEW in 8.4: [id:ID] for input fields, e.g. Your Name[id:name]
NEW in 8.3: Completely revised Tracking/Edit UI
NEW in 8.3: Tracking: XML download
NEW in 8.3: Tracking: Editable fields
OTHER & BUGFIXES: see the version history
General Features
"Wizard Mode" to aid form creation process
Preset forms to "jump start" your own
Ajax supported form submission (incl. graceful fall-back)
Multiple forms on one or many pages / posts
WP Dashboard Support (showing last 5 entries)
"WP Comment/Message to author" Feature (!)
Full localization support (see section below)
Tell-A-Friend functionality, see Help documentation
File attachments / Upload, fully configurable per form
Multiple upload fields allowed
Backup & Restore
Role Manager support
Database based tracking of submitted data
Cloning / duplication of forms
Drag and drop form management
Fully integrated with TinyMCE and default WP editor (via button)
Submission limits (e.g. registrations)
Widget support
Supported Form Fields
Inclusion of custom fields (from a post)
Read-only & disabled support
Fancy Javascript date picker
Configurable text elements (non input fields)
Custom field NAMES & ID's
Various standard input fields:
fieldsets
single and multi-line input fields
select boxes (drop down)
multi select fields
check boxes
check box groups
radio buttons
...and a few special ones:
"CC me" check box for visitors
visitor verification
multiple form recipient (drop down list)
password fields
hidden fields
HTML support for field labels & err, success messages
Styling
Clean separation of CSS styling and form code
Fully customizable Look & Feel (optional label ID's and list item ID's!)
CSS can be completely turned off
Built in CSS theme selector and CSS editor
Set of predefined themes
Input & Validation
Supporting DISABLED form elements
Default values for single/multi-line input field
Form validation & regular expressions
Individual error messages (HTML enabled)
Submission status (success/failure) optionally via Alert Box
Fancy error display options (inline errors, field highlighting etc.)
Messaging
Fully customizable auto confirmation message & form email (TXT & HTML)
Message(s) can contain system variables and form based variables!
Multiple recipients per form (optionally selectable by visitor)
BCC to copy additional admin(s)
Anti SPAM / Security
SPAM protection Q &A
SPAM protection using CAPTCHA
Ajax driven CAPTCHA reset button
Full CAPTCHA image customization
Extensibility
Post processing of submitted data via custom functions: filter and actions (see Help! page)
Support for alternative SMTP server (in case you can't use PHP mail())
>> PHPmailer 2.0 included (for SSL/TLS support)
Generate dynamic forms in real-time
Filtering & Download of recorded data
3rd party email tracking support, e.g. readnotify & didtheyreadit
Page redirection on successful form submission
Alternative form action supported (please read config info!)
new: Wenetus, screenshot (footer).
new: Cruce Design, screenshot (slick design in movable popup box).
new: Mor Vimmer, screenshot (footer example, well designed).
new: Are You Six?, screenshot.
new: sachagreif, screenshot.
new: recent developments, screenshot.
With v6.0, the admin interface has received a slight face lift, in favor of a cleaner UI and better browser support (IE & Opera!).
The user interface supports Drag and Drop of form fields making changes to your form structure so much easier.
Inserting a form (or more) into your posts ad pages couldn't be any easier: cforms offers (if enabled) buttons for both the WYSISWYG editor as well as the standard WP code editor:
Check out the Help! section for lots of info and examples on how to change the look and feel of your forms, how to setup the various form input fields and other special fields.
Make sure to enable cforms' DB tracking feature which will give you a safety net in case an email gets lost.
As of v3, the admin interface supports backing up your form fields/and form specific settings. This may come handy when you setup a lot of similar forms or just keep them as backups for when you have to re-install WP.
cforms comes with a few CSS theme files (select via the Styling sub menu tab) that have been revised to work with the default or any other additional form you've created. If you want to further tailor the CSS to meet your individual needs, you can use the CSS editor to do so. You may also find these quickly thrown together guides (PDF ~230KB) useful.
My recommended approach: Get Firefox & Firebug as an excellent basis for CSS (web) development. If you'd like to take the customization to "an extreme" you can activate Label and Input Field ID's (via the Styling sub menu tab), which will add a unique label ID to each label element.
And finally, many WP theme developers aren't particularly cautious about making global CSS declarations that may have an impact on how cforms' forms are rendered - hate to say, but if your form doesn't look right, 99.5% it's your WP theme that interferes.
With release 3.4 and going forward you'll be able to create and deploy forms at run-time. Mind you, to use this feature it requires some basic to more advanced PHP knowledge, examples you'll find in the HELP! section of plugin admin pages.
This will essentially allow you to pull data from an external source and feed it into your ad-hoc created form fields. I've deliberately not included any sort of external data administration, as everyone will have a different file or database table syntax. Any of the fields described in the HELP! section can be created at run-time and shown online. Minor drawback: this works only in non-Ajax mode.
Post processing of user input
With v7.4, cforms comes with 3 custom functions (and examples) that allow you to filter and modify user input on the fly as well as trigger an action after user input has been accepted. Great capabilities to incorporate your own application and business logic!
In terms of WP localization support, as of version 6.0, cforms has been completely overhauled. It should now require 10x less time to translate all the strings as I've reduced redundancy to the extend possible.
If you'd like to contribute a language translation, please get in touch.
Here is the current .pot file, poedit, 10 (general) steps that should get you started.If you have suggestions or would like to point out typos etc, please contact the actual author (see list below) of the respective localization:
** NEW **
Chinese, Simplified * Author: Winnie Law (Liu Dongyan) (download)
Danish * Author: Mads Christian Jensen (download)
Dutch * Author: Anja (download)
French * Author: La maison de l'informatique (download)
German * Author: Sven Wappler (download)
Hungarian * Author: Ungvári Béla (download)
Italian * Author: Gianni (download)
Japanese * Author: Hiroaki Miyashita (download)
Russian * Author: Sofia Panchenko (download)
Spanish * Author: Samuel Aguilera (download)
Turkish * Author: Resat Diker (download)
1. Download & extract plugin using its default directory
2. Upload plugin directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
3. Activate the plugin via 'Plugins' in WordPress
Before you use this plugin or are getting ready for an update, you should...
make a database backup (this is always a good thing to do!)
keep a copy of your old cforms plugin
deactivate cforms,
upload the new version
re-enable it
Please note that I'm not a full time programmer and this plugin doesn't claim state of the art programming principles. I'm not sure I've covered every possible exception, nor have I checked compatibility with the zillions of other plugins out there.
With that said, use at your own risk.This plugin has not been extensively QA'ed under various older WordPress versions either, however anything WP 2.0.2 and up should be working just fine.
I believe that the use of the plugin and it's functionality is pretty self-explanatory (make sure to visit the Help! section in the plugin admin pages) or see the cforms support forum in case you need help.
Check the version history for WHAT'S NEW.
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