Forms Hack

Forms Hack 3.5

Features:

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

• Posted into a new thread in a forum of your choice
• Create a new poll in the new thread with options of your choice
• Posted as a reply in an existing thread of your choice
• PMed to you or someone else
• Emailed to an email address you specify
• Choose to redirect to the post, thread or forum, or a custom thank you message
• Choose to redirect to edit post to upload attachments
• See a preview before they submit

Or any combination or all of the above?

Well, this is the hack for you!

You can use this for:

• Moderator Applications
• Quiz Submit Form which gets PMed to a moderator
• Contact Form that goes to PM, email or thread
• Guests to apply to be members
• Report a Moderator form that goes as a PM to you
• Guests can PM you for whatever reason
• Order form to buy things
• Donation form
• News or Articles submissions that can go straight to a thread

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

The beauty of this hack is that once you install this hack, to make a new form all you need to do is copy the main hook, rename it to whatever you want, edit the variables in the hook, and you have a totally new form!!! You do not need to touch the templates again, but can always create new ones and use different templates for different forms.

Format of the form:

• One main input question
• 3 Radio buttons Choice questions
• 3 Normal text input questions
• 1 Drop down menu
• 3 Check boxes
• 1 Long answer question
• 1 VB message editor text box question

This is customizable via the hook.

Also:

• You can set the usergroups you want access to this form.
• Depending on your forum permissions, if the new thread is in a public forum, members can reply to it. This hack allows a form to submit the new thread or post wherever you want it to go.
• Force the user to answer all questions.

INSTALLATION
Easy - takes only a few minutes:

• Import the XML into products. (admin cp -> Plug-in System -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product)
• Edit the main plug-in - the instructions are all inside the hook itself, in the top half. Follow the instructions carefully!
• To get to the form, go to: /newthread.php?do=form (change "form" to the name of your form if you have few)

Done!

Use this hack to make as many forms as you like!

Enjoy!

Updates:

Version 2.0: (08/10/2005)

• Ported over for vb3.5

Version 2.1: (08/10/2005)

• bug fix with answers not showing

Version 2.5: (08/13/2005)

• Major update:
• Templates have a few lines changed here and there.
• You can now have more then 2 poll options very easily
• Polls can't be created if your not creating a new thread
• New Thread now uses VB function to add the thread
• New Poll now uses VB function to add the poll
• New Reply now uses VB function to add the reply
• PM now uses VB function to send the PM

Version 2.6: (08/21/2005)

• fixed bug with posts having to be moderated

Version 2.7: (08/23/2005)

• Minor update:
• Fixed some issues with signatures, URL parsing, and subscriptions
• Option to name the post titles
• Made template XHTML 1.0 Transitional

Version 3.0: (11/29/2005)

• Major update:
• Added drop down menu
• Made the long answer show up in a the vb message box
• Re-wrote some instructions
• Pressing back should save work
• Both templates and plug-in were edited
• Some more minor things

Version 3.1: (12/07/2005)

• Brought back the standard text box (longanswer)

Version 3.2: (12/09/2005)

• [ADDED] Option to make polls public.

Version 3.3: (12/19/2005)

• [FIXED] Guests can now post using the forms to make a thread or post. They cannot send a PM though.
• [ADDED] Paypal link so you can make a donation for this hack.

Version 3.4: (04/05/2006)

• [FIXED] Removed extra line from template.
• [ADDED] WYSIWYG editor now works besides the regular editor.
• [ADDED] Preview.
• [CHANGED] Subscriptions now take from user default setting.

Version 3.5: (05/31/2006)

• [ADDED] Check boxes.

Abe1 with rights from Dr Erwin Loh

This hack is created for your use free of charge. No payment is requested. However, if you would like to donate money for the work I put in to this hack, a donation would show your appreciation.

[Rik Brown]

I just installed this fantastic mod the other day. Thank you, Abe!

I've been working on my first form. One problem I'm encountering is that after filling in the form, all of the selections in the dropdown menus revert to their first choice in the available options (rather than the user chosen option) if I "preview" the form [no default dropdown selections are used]. In contrast, all of the data in the normal question/answer boxes is retained as expected.

Is there a way to make sure that the user-selected options in the dropdown fields are maintainted until the user either saves the thread or pushes the reset button? Is there a setting I've missed or mucked up?

Thanks. -- Rik

ps: I also tried experimenting with having default selections in the dropdown menus. In that case, when I previewed the post, the results in the dropdown menus reverted to their default selections. [This is just an FYI as I'm not planning to use default selections anymore with the dropdown menus.]

[Rik Brown]

I was sometimes running into the following error message when submitting the FORM to create a thread:

"No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"

I'd seen references to it within this mod thread but I couldn't find a solution to the problem. After some experimentation I was able to figure out what was wrong in my case. So I'll share it here in case this happens to anyone else.

I use vbSEO to create URLs out of the vb thread titles for Google. So within FORMS I was creating nice thread titles by concatenating several "answers" to create a nice URL/thread title. The problem was that the thread titles sometimes got too long for vBulletin. And when that happened, I broke the system and got the error message shown above.

The moral of the story is to watch the length of your FORM submission thread titles -- especially if they are variable in length.

Hope that helps others. -- Rik

[Karri]

thanks so much for posting this!!!! It was so frustrating trying to pin down why random users couldn't post using the form and others could. (I thought it was a conflict with some other plugin on my site) Of course I couldn't replicate the problem because I always used a really short thread title and as little info as possible just to get a test post done. It would be super helpful if this mods was "fixed" to truncate a thread title that gets too long for vbulletin to handle.

[TenPercenter]

Is there a way to default Prefill the WYSIWYG text area in the Forms Hack?

I'd like users to post a product review, but i want it to be in a specific format (colors, layout etc).

It would be MUCH better if I could prefill that template into the main text area for a form.

[grecostimpy]

Just wanted to give thanks for this great hack! I have two different forms on my site.

One I use for members to submit nominations for a "Member of the Month" type contest we have. I used AJAX controls so members can just type the first few letters of a registered user's name (to select for the contest) and it brings up the users just like it does on other parts of the site.....it works great with this hack and it works great!

[criscokid]

My forums require a user to be registered before posting. I've created a forum that allows unregistered users to enter info but when they click the submit button they get this message: No Thread specified.

Is this because of the overall forum permissions where the thread is sitting?

[Abe1]

Originally Posted by criscokid

My forums require a user to be registered before posting. I've created a forum that allows unregistered users to enter info but when they click the submit button they get this message: No Thread specified.

Is this because of the overall forum permissions where the thread is sitting?

The user has to have permission to post in that section.

[akulion]

will this work with vb 3.6.4 ?

[Abe1]

Originally Posted by akulion

will this work with vb 3.6.4 ?

It may but there is a vb3.6 version out. Look in my sig for the link.

[akulion]

thanks ill check it out asap

[shadowdancer36]

I know this an older hack and all, but I was just wondering...is it a limit to how many questions are allowed?

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//QUESTION 1 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question1 = "Full name";
$explain1 = "First/Middle Initial/Last";

//QUESTION 2 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question2 = "Organization / Employer";

//QUESTION 3 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question3 = "Complete Mailing Address";
$explain3 = "Street/Apt./Suite/City/State/Zip Code";

//QUESTION 4 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question4 = "Phone Number";
$explain4 = "Area Code/Number";

//QUESTION 5 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question5 = "Please type in your email address";


//QUESTION 6 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question6 = "Fax Number";
$explain6 = "Area Code / Number";

//QUESTION 7 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question7 = "Degree";
$explain7 = "Type in you Degree you have or working towards";

My Question # 7 will not show up at all. Its been a min since i've modified things but I've looked all thru the script and dont see anything else i need to change. However it still won't show.

[Abe1]

Originally Posted by shadowdancer36

I know this an older hack and all, but I was just wondering...is it a limit to how many questions are allowed?

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//QUESTION 1 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question1 = "Full name";
$explain1 = "First/Middle Initial/Last";

//QUESTION 2 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question2 = "Organization / Employer";

//QUESTION 3 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question3 = "Complete Mailing Address";
$explain3 = "Street/Apt./Suite/City/State/Zip Code";

//QUESTION 4 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question4 = "Phone Number";
$explain4 = "Area Code/Number";

//QUESTION 5 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question5 = "Please type in your email address";


//QUESTION 6 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question6 = "Fax Number";
$explain6 = "Area Code / Number";

//QUESTION 7 (do not use quotation marks or you will get a parse error, besides the quotes around the whole text)
$question7 = "Degree";
$explain7 = "Type in you Degree you have or working towards";

My Question # 7 will not show up at all. Its been a min since i've modified things but I've looked all thru the script and dont see anything else i need to change. However it still won't show.

You have to edit the template also.

[shadowdancer36]

Originally Posted by Abe1

You have to edit the template also.

It was a template edit? Which template? Sorry its been a min since I've done anything with this hack.

[bada_bing]

Can someone tell me if this hack uses usergroup permissions. Fox example I only what certain usergroups to use this forum?

[BaconDelight]

I appear to be having permissions problems with this hack (v3.3 of the hack on vB v.3.6.4). Twice, I've had spam posts to a forum using the form hack from users that have not been approved (their usergroup is "(COPPA) Awaiting Moderation"). This user group should not have posting permission in any forum. Any ideas?