FORM TO FORUM/ THREAD/ PM/ EMAIL - CUSTOMIZABLE FORMS for Mod Apps, Orders, News

FORM TO FORUM/ THREAD/ PM/ EMAIL - Totally CUSTOMIZABLE FORMS
Version 1.3 - Dr. Erwin Loh
-------------------------------------------------------

vB3 version is here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=66082


Ever wanted an online form that a user can fill out, which when submitted gets:

1. Posted into a new thread in a forum of your choice
2. Posted as a REPLY to a current thread
3. PMed to you or someone else
4. Emailed to an email address you specify

Or any combination or all of the above?

Well, this is the hack for you!

You can use this for:

1) Moderator Application
2) Quiz Submit Form which gets PMed to a moderator
3) Contact Form that goes to PM, email or thread
4) Guests to apply to be members
5) Report a Moderator form that goes as a PM to you
6) Guests can PM you for whatever reason
7) Order form to buy things
8) Donation form
9) News or Articles submissions that can go straight to a thread


Or anything you like - this hack is totally customizable via the PHP file.

Basically, this hack involves modifying 1 PHP file form1.php (you add questions, options etc. in the PHP file itself), uploading it, and then adding 3 templates.

The beauty of this hack is that once you have added the 3 templates, to make a new form, all you need to do is copy the form1.php and rename it to form2.php, edit the variables in the PHP file, and you have a totally new form!!! You do not need to touch the templates again. However, if you do wish to modify the templates, you can copy and rename the templates. All the names of files and templates can be set in the PHP files.

Format of the form:

1. One main input question
2. 2 Radio buttons Choice questions
3. 3 Normal text input questions
4. 1 Long answer question

This is customizable via the PHP file.


INSTALLATION
------------

Easy - takes a few minutes:

1. Add the 3 templates - they are included as 3 TEXT files - form1.txt, formpost1.txt and formthanks1.txt = just use the names of the TEXT files as the name of the template, and cut and paste the contents.

2. Edit form1.php - the instructions are all inside the PHP file itself, in the top half. Follow the instructions carefully!

3. Upload form1.php

Done!

Just link to form1.php eg. http://www.yourforum.com/forums/form1.php

LAST POST TITLE ON FORUMHOME HACK SUPPORT
-----------------------------------------

If you have the "Last Post Title on Forum Home" hack by PPN, this hack supports it. Just find the line that says:

$lastposttitlehack = "0";

And change it to:

$lastposttitlehack = "1";

Done!

Updates:
------------

Version 1.1 - fixed a username with quotation bug.
Version 1.2 - fixed the email bug - oops... bad spelling...
Version 1.3 - added ability for form to REPLY to a current thread

To upgrade, just download the new form1.php - ensure it says "Version 1.3" at the top.

Enjoy!



Dr. Erwin Loh

[proxyMX]

what id like to see is how to implement a listbox instead of radios

[Talisman]

Yes, me too!

Erwin, one of these day you're going to feel really ambitious. When that happens, please tell us what coded bits we need to collect from different places so we can set up drop down boxes to display a selection of items that already exist elsewhere.

I'd like to have a drop down box for these things already...

1 - A forum list for people to select the existing forum they want on the moderator application form.

2 - Which country they represent when they register for a tournament (that drop down selection already exists in the country flag hack - but I can't figure out what to use/or how).

3 - Which registered member a person wants to nominate for an award (or something).

4 - Which time zone a player lives in to schedule competition times or a live chat session.

There's more...... but you get the idea.

Oh, one more thing -- how do I make this so the submitted form is emailed or PM'd to multiple addresses/members?

[Talisman]

Hi again,

I don't know if this will help or further confuse anyone trying to customize your own form, but I've got an example of a custom moderator app I made using this hack. You can look at a screenshot of the displays and look at how I customized Erwin's php file and templates.

This is really a combination of two hacks. I expanded on the content found in Lesane's Moderator Application + Rating Hack, but I didn't want the ACP rating system he used and didn't need special database tables. So, basically, I used Erwin's "form" hack to create the same thing. Then we post the form (as a new thread) to a private staff-only forum for review. This lets us post comments in the same thread and then set up a poll to rate the moderator candidate (1 through 5) the way Lesane did in the ACP.

The main thing here is you can see how it looks on the screen, then check the php file and the templates to see how I got it to look that way.

The attached zip contains the php file and templates I'm using, and I'll post a couple of screenshots, to follow.

Please Note - I left the graphics we use in the screenshots to show how you can do this, too, but please don't use them -- I don't own those and they are not public domain graphics. You can make your own if you have that talent, or just get a "person/cartoon with a mirror" and a "person/cartoon with a magnifying glass" image from some clipart library to make something like this for your forum.

[Talisman]

VCup Moderator Application Form (top portion)

[Talisman]

VCup Moderator Application Form (bottom portion)

[Talisman]

VCup Moderator Application Form (Thanks/Confirmation)

[Talisman]

VCup Moderator Application Form (Forum Post)

[retsell]

Today at 07:01 AM Erwin said this in Post #158
It's an undefined function error - the gettemplate function could not be found. Makes no sense.

Also, there is no point reposting the whole PHP file out like that for unlicensed users to copy and use. They can't see [php] tag code, but you reposted the whole file in normal text. What was the point of that?

Anyway, like I said, reinstall the hack following the instructions exactly.

I appoligize for posting it, I assumed that it would hide all the code. The reason I posted it was because in other forums (like gentoo) people always ask for it to verify that there were no mistakes.

Anyhow, I've tried removing the templates and the form file and redoing all of them, but still no luck.

What I did find is that if you are not logged in you get this message:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: show_nopermission() in /home2/cms/public_html/forums/form1.php on line 23

but if I am logged in as administrator:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: gettemplate() in /home2/cms/public_html/forums/form1.php on line 214

This help any?

I can post screen shots of anything that might help someone find the problem.

[Erwin]

Great job Talisman!

I will not be developing any of my vB2 hacks since vB3 is out, and I'm running vB3 on my private forums already.

@ restsell - I still don't get why you are getting the function errors. It makes no sense to me - the only explanation is that the form file is not able to call your forum global.php or functions.php and not getting the functions.

[retsell]

Today at 02:12 AM Erwin said this in Post #169
Great job Talisman!

I will not be developing any of my vB2 hacks since vB3 is out, and I'm running vB3 on my private forums already.

@ restsell - I still don't get why you are getting the function errors. It makes no sense to me - the only explanation is that the form file is not able to call your forum global.php or functions.php and not getting the functions.

Any reson why? permissions?

Is anyone using this with beta 4? could that be the problem?