PHPForms users Documentation

Member part

Introduction

Forms

Edit form field

Page options

Multipage forms

Field Options

Advanced field options

Radio Button, Check Box, Drop-down list

File Upload Forms

Forms with PayPal Payments

Forms with 2CO Payments

Get code option

Submissions

Mail2Admin

Registration of new members

Introduction

PHP Forms is an industry leading web form building and processing tool that allows you to create unlimited number of fully functional web forms, send auto-responders, gather and process form submission data, export submissions to CSV, search submissions send newsletters to your members and much more! With PHP Forms you can effectively build virtually any kind of web form, including multi-page forms with dynamic redirection, quizzes, surveys, order forms, etc. You will have a comprehensive and user-friendly environment to work with. At any time you can change your forms - add, delete, modify fields, add data validation, change admin email addresses, create personalized Thank You messages. You can perform regular updates of your web forms without addressing third-party tools or technologies. The latest enhanced version PHPForms Users provides you with extended list of options and multi-level system of control.

About User Manual

This version of documentation is an end-user guide that shows this web form builder in action and displays all the functions of the current script version. We tried to write the manual in as many details as possible, including samples and detailed feature descriptions. And if you feel that something is missing in the documentation, there are errors in the text, or you would like to have any feature that isn't included to the features list of PHP Forms itself, please go to http://support.conkurent.com and submit a ticket or send us an email to support@PHPForms.net We appreciate any feedback you may give as it helps us improve our software and make it one of the best solutions on the market.

General Information about PHP Forms

• PHP Forms is available as a single package which does not require any additional software to be installed.
• This software is a trusted solution used by hundreds of individuals and small-to-largesized companies all over the world. PHP Forms is recognized as a comprehensive tool for web form building and data gathering needs.
• With a user-friendly interface you can create complex forms with just a few clicks. Absolutely no or minimum training required!
• PHP Forms is a spam safe tool that has a powerful protection mechanism for your forms. This includes CAPTCHA, limit the number of submissions to one per IP address, keep track and block IP addresses.
• PHP Forms is offered as a one-time-fee service, which means that you get a lifetime license for the software with no extra or hidden fees. The most attractive part here is that we have a rather flexible licensing policy, which makes our product extremely affordable.
• The forms created with PHP Forms can be used on virtually any kind of web page.

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Forms

In this section you can see the list of all available forms.

The Total pages column shows the amount of pages of a corresponding form.

The Total fields column shows the amount of fields in a corresponding form.

The Send to column shows whether user submissions are stored in a database or sent to the specified email address .

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Edit form field

Click Edit Form Fields () in the Command column to edit the fields of the form. Click Preview icon in the Command column to preview the form and click Get the code to get the form code to insert it into a web-page.

Command column options

To start editing form pages or fields click edit form fields option in Command column.

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Page options

Page controls are displayed at the list top next to the page name (1:: by default). Show/hide option shows or hides field names in the list. Add field option adds a new field to the current page. Edit page option allows editing page properties. Delete page option allows deleting the whole page. Move down and move up options move the fields up or down along the field list (i.e. change fields sequence).

Page properties option. To edit properties click Edit page option on a page options panel.

Page title is the page header that will be displayed above the form itself.

Top text is an HTML text that will be displayed above the form (you can add similar HTML fields by adding a new field and selecting HTML field type. Then you'll need to put value to the Default Value area. See 'Edit Fields') .

Bottom text is an HTML text displayed at the bottom of the form.

Page color. Here you can select a color for each individual field (e.g. you can set various colors for various fields). When in the form options you select a color for the form and click OK, this changes all your field colors to the one specified in the form options.

Page width (pixels) is the width of the form page. The values are specified in pixels. By default, the form width is 600 pixels. If you leave the value as 0, the default value will be used.

Previous button. Here you can change the default button name to any of your choice. This button is used in multi-page forms to direct user back to a previous page. If you leave this field blank, the button will be named "Previous" by default.

Next button. This button is used to navigate user to the next page in a multipage form. If you leave this field blank, the name will be Next by default.

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Multipage Forms

To create multipage forms, create a form and click Add page button. In the right section 'Page options' select the following:

Page title specifies the page's title.

Top text is the text that will be shown above the form.

Bottom text is the text shown below the form.

Page color sets the color for the page.

Page width (pixels) indicates the page's width in pixels.

"Previous" button is the name of the button that leads to the previous page (leave blank to have "Previous" by default).

"Next" button is the name of the button that leads to the next page (leave blank to have "Next" by default).

Click Save to save the changes.

To add fields to the page, click icon or the Add field button (see Field Options for more info). Select the necessary field options and indicate the page where the field will be shown: in the field Page select the number of your page 1, 2, etc. depending on the number of pages you already added.

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Field Options

Field options are available against each separate field in the list of fields. Edit field options allows editing field options (detailed description see below). Delete field option allows deleting the field. Move up and move down options move the field up or down along the field list.

General section

Field name is the value used to identify a form's field.

Required mark specifies if the field is required or optional. To make your field required, please select a check rule (see Field check below)

Page. If your form consists of several pages, you can select from a dropdown menu which page this field will be on.

Field type specifies the type of the field, which can be:

• Text is a common text field.
• Password is meant for password entry (the value you enter in this field will be displayed as an asterisk string)
• Checkbox is used to mark one or several items in a form. All the values you enter for this field will be displayed in the form. * For more details see Radio Button, Check Box, Drop-down list
• Radio button is the button that must have one selection chosen out of two or more choices. * For more details see Radio Button, Check Box, Drop-down list
• Select field displays all the values you indicate for this field, but allows only one value to be used at a time.
• Multiple select displays all the values you set for this field and allows multiple values to be used at a time.
• Textarea is a simple text box where the form users can input strings of characters, numbers or any other symbols.
• File upload field allows form users to upload files by means of the form. * For more details see File Upload Forms
• Hidden allows to hide the field from the user's view.
• HTML is used to create HTML values in the form.
• Date is used to display dates. When you create/edit Date fields, there is also a possibility to show/hide certain predefined records in the Items field (Day, Month, Year, Hour, Minutes).
• Img-code is a CAPTCHA (dynamic) image code
• PayPal payment integrates PayPal to your form. Using a field wizard (see Forms with PayPal Payments below) you can set up the field, add products with prices. Once the form is submitted, users will be redirected to PayPal where they will be offered to enter their credit card details or log into their PayPal account. *For more details see Forms with PayPal Payments

NOTE:* You can have only one payment field in the form. If a payment field type is already added to the form, you cannot add additional payment fields to the form to avoid any software misbehavior.

NOTE2:*When you add Single Product with Multiple Choices or Multiple Products via the PayPal Wizard option, you can now check the product that will be selected in the form by default.

• 2CheckOut payment adds processing via 2CheckOut.com (see Forms with 2CO payments ). Once the form is submitted, users will be redirected to the 2CO page where they must enter their credit card information for a secure processing. *For more details see Forms with 2CO Payments
• Calendar field type allows you to add a small calendar icon to the form. Once the icon is clicked, users will see a calendar with a possibility to select Day, Month, Year. In the options of the Calendar field there is a possibility to select the weeks first day (Sunday/Monday), Date Format and specify Caption/Control style in the Advanced field section.
• nformat adds special formatting to the fields with the "Numbers only" check rule. When you select this field type, you will see in the Field Options a section Number Format. In the admin area, you can enter data similar to this (###) ###-##-###. When users fill in this field, the value is formatted similar to this: (746) 345-68-123

Default section

Default value is used as a value that will be present in the field by default.

Field check section

Check rule specifies the rule to be used for this field. The possible values for this field are:

• Not empty means that the field must contain some value
• Numbers only allows only numbers in the field
• Letters only allows only letters in the field
• Email checks if the value in the field has an email format
• Email and not empty checks the email format and the field input data
• Chars interval specifies the length of input value for the field
• Multi email and not empty. Once this check rule is selected, the field becomes required and the values entered in this field are checked for their format (it must be e-mail). Users can enter e-mail addresses in different formats: separated with dots, commas, semi commas, spaces, etc. If you select an e-mail template (see Field mail options below) for this field, the message will be sent to all the email addresses listed in the field. The field type is perfect for Recommend Us forms.

Export settings section

Name for export. Specify the field name that will be displayed in the database after the submissions export. This value must be entered only if you are going to export form submissions to an external database (see Export Form Submissions below)

Field mail section

Email template allows you to select an e-mail template that will be sent to the form users. You can create different messages with any content in the Mail templates section (see Mail Templates below). Email template must be selected only for the fields where users are supposed to enter their email address.

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Advanced field options

Field info section

Field name is the name of the field you edit

Page title is the title of the page where the form is located

Layout section

Here you can select the type of layout for the field. Move the arrow-like buttons to change the layout

HTML section

Field color specifies the color of the field

Caption style specifies the style that will be used to display the field's caption (i.e. you can enter a CSS style here, like below:

color: red; font-style: oblique; font-weight: bold; font-family:Tahoma;

font: 25px Courier; text-decoration:underline;

Control style specifies the style that will be used for input fields, for instance:

background-color: #ee0000; font-size: 26px; font-weight: bold; font-family:Tahoma;

width: 400px; height: 40px; width: 400px; height: 40px;

Max length specifies the ultimate length of the field.

Size/Rows (depending on the selected field type) option specifies the ultimate size or the ultimate number of rows for the field.

Advanced field options for File Upload fields:

Field name is the name of the field you edit

Page title is the title of the page where the form is located

Layout section

Here you can select the type of layout for the field. Move the arrow-like buttons to change the layout

HTML section

Field color defines the color for the field

Caption style is the style for the field name

Control style is the style for the field input

File extension. Specify the allowed file extensions. Separate extensions by commas (e.g. jpg, png, txt, doc etc)

Max file size defines the maximum allowed file size for the upload. Enter the values in Bytes (e.g. to allow the upload of files sized 1 MB only, you should enter 1000000 in the field).

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Radio Button, Check Box, Drop-down list

Select fields allow you to choose one item from the list of several items.

Radio button (group) allows you to choose one item from the list of several items (this button works like a switch)

Checkboxes allow you to choose from 0 to N items

Multiple select fields allow you to choose several items and represent the list of items (in rows) in one field.

To create radio buttons, check boxes, select or multiple select fields, select an appropriate field type in the drop-down menu next to Field type (see above).

A message "If you change field type some settings will be lost. Do you want to continue?" will pop up. Click OK.

Click Edit item button.

Title is the value that will be displayed in the form. In other words, this is what your visitors will see in the form.

Value is the value displayed in the form submissions. This is what you receive to your email or database. See the illustrations below:

or

To have a default check on the item, mark the item in the Checked column.

You can also set a predefined list for the fields. Select the list from the dropdown menu under Predefined and press the button "Add predefined". You can create a new predefined list and use it for your fields (see Predefined Lists below)

When you see a message Cant send attachment after the upload files form is submitted, this means that users left the upload field blank.

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File Upload Forms

To create a file upload field, click Add field or the icon. Name the field, set the Required mark, select the page where the field will be placed and select the Field Type File upload.

A message "If you change field type some settings will be lost. Do you want to continue?" will pop up. Click OK.

If you want to make the field required, select a check rule "Not empty".

The Advanced section. Here you can change the following for the field:

The field's Layout: caption next to /above the field.

Field color specifies the color for the field.

Caption style / Control style are the CSS control fields, where you can indicate CSS HTML to change the look of the field (e.g. color: red; font-style: oblique; font-weight: bold; font-family:Tahoma;)

File extension field specifies the allowed file types for the upload (e.g. png,jpeg,doc, etc.)

Max File Size sets the maximum allowed file size that can be uploaded via the form. Values are defined in bytes.

Click Save to save the changes.

You may choose whether to receive the uploaded files as a browse/download link or attach them to email. Go to the Form Options and mark a checkbox next to Send file (link/attach). Once marked, uploaded files will be sent in the email body. If the checkbox is not marked, uploaded files are stored on your server within the PHPForms directory in the folder called files.

When you see a message Cant send attachment after the upload files form is submitted, this means that users left the upload field blank.

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Forms with PayPal Payments

To create a form compatible with PayPal, click Ad field button or icon. Name the field, set the Required mark (optional), select the Field Type PayPal payment. A message "If you change field type some settings will be lost. Do you want to continue?" will pop up. Click OK.

Click Wizard (see the screenshot below).

This is the first page of your Wizard setup:

Here you can specify:

• A registered PayPal address. This is the address of your PayPal account
• Return URL. This URL will be used to transfer users to the specified web page once they click on the Return to Merchant button on the PayPal page.
• Cancel URL is the URL where to users will be transferred, once they cancel the payment on the PayPal page
• Currency. Here you can choose a preferred currency from the list of available currencies
• Check Require Payer Address if you want PayPal to collect payer information for you (for example, to collect payer name or address, if you are shipping any goods). For instance, lets presume you have a field called Name, Phone, and Address in the form. To pass the data to PayPal, youll need to select from the drop down menu next to First Name: -> Name, next to Address: -> Address, Phone: -> Phone. When users enter the fields in your form, they will automatically be passed to PayPal to the corresponding fields you selected (see screenshot)

In the new section enter your account email, preferred currency, check Require Payer Address if you want PayPal to collect payer information for you (for example, to collect payer name or address, if you will be shipping any goods). For instance, let's presume you have a field called Name, Phone, and Address in the form. To pass the data to PayPal, you'll need to select from the drop down menu next to First Name: > Name, next to Address: > Address, Phone: > Phone. When users enter the fields in your form, they will automatically be passed to PayPal to the corresponding fields you selected (see screenshot)

Click Next. Choose the payment type (one-time payment, subscription payment or donation). Click Next. Choose the product type.

Add products, enter their name, price, setup fee.

Select Subscription Details if required. Click Finish to save the field.

Now when everything is set up, you can get the form's code* (e.g. a link in the 1st point) and put it to your web browser, fill out the form and check if the redirection to PayPal is done correctly. And now the form is ready to use.

*NOTE: When you preview the form using the Preview form icon (), the script doesn't redirect to PayPal, you only need to get the form () to make the redirection work.

If the payment has been processed correctly, you will see the IPN and the order details by clicking the Browse icon . However, if a visitor submits the form, but cancels the payment, the IPN field will be empty. Thus you'll know that no payments were processed.

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Forms with 2CO Payments

To create a form that interacts with 2CheckOut.com, click Add field button or icon. Name the field, set the Required mark (optional), select the Field Type 2Checkout payment. A message "If you change field type some settings will be lost. Do you want to continue?" will pop up. Click OK.

Click Wizard (see the screenshot below)

In the new section enter 2Checkout information (2CO vendor number, 2CO product ID*, select the preferred 2CO Language). Choose the corresponding form questions (name, e-mail, address, etc.). When you have any data in your form that can be passed to 2CheckOut, you can select from the drop down menu within the wizard what fields data will be passed to the corresponding fields in 2CO (see screenshot)

Payment integration is now completed. Click Finish to save your changes.

*NOTE: You need first to add products via the admin interface of your 2CO account.

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Get code option

To get code to insert on your web page, click on the get code icon in the Command column of the Forms section.

There are 4 ways to put the form on a web page:

1)link to the form

The link to the form can be placed anywhere on a web page and it calls the form page itself with no other content that may be available on your web site.

2) HTML code

In the text area you can see an HTML code that can be copy/pasted on your web page as is. If you need to make any modifications to the form's layout or style, this can be easily done using any HTML editor. Just copy the code under the 2nd point to the editor, modify the form's look and upload the code to your web page.

NOTE: If you make any changes to the form via the admin interface (e.g. add/remove fields), you will need to generate the code again and replace the code on the page.

3) php include()

This code can be placed on a page with a .php extension only. In the beginning on your file (on top of the <html> tag), you need to put the code, which is displayed in the get code section. It should look similar to this: <?php include("/home/PHPForms/public_html/pfmem_demo/PHPForms.php");?>. Then put the second portion of the code (e.g. <?php form("63681eef6d");?> ) to the location where the form must be displayed.

NOTE: If you make changes to the form via the admin interface, you will need to generate the code again and put it onto a web page replacing the existing code with the form's ID.

4) JavaScript include

This type of code can be put on any web page with any extension. Put the code you see under the 4th point to the place where the form must be displayed.

NOTE: When you do any changes to the form, there's no necessity to re-upload the code on your web page. The script will automatically update your form after the changes via the admin interface.

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Submissions

The section contains all form input data submitted to the database.

Sort Submissions

Available sorting options are as follows:

To sort submissions by name click Form Name.

To sort by date and time of submission, click Date/Time.

View / Delete Submissions

To view the submission, click the View submit icon .

To delete a certain submission, click Delete icon .

Search Submissions

To open the submissions manager, click Search submits link. In this section you can search the selected form submissions by a date range, submissions group and any field value. Click Select submissions to select the searched submissions. Here you can either delete all the submissions or export them to CSV / SQL / Database (see Export Form Submissions below)

Export Form Submissions

To export form input data to a CSV file, click Export button.

In the right section you can select submission groups for the export. Select the form name and select CSV export to export all its submissions to a CSV file.

Select SQL Export to export form submissions to a data file with an *.sql extension that contains the script for table creation.

Select Database Export to export data to the database specified in the form options.

*NOTE: If the field names in your form contain special characters or there are several fields with the same field name, it is recommended to use an SQL export feature, which results can be easily copied / pasted to the database query line and run the script for execution.

Click Export data! to export the selected form submissions. Click Delete Export! to delete form submissions from the database.

To navigate through the submissions, click 1, 2, 3, etc. below the submissions list. The page number is displayed only if submissions are stored on more than one page.

*Attention!!! If you make changes to the form (add/edit/delete fields) and it already has submissions, you will first need to export these submissions and save the exported file to your computer for a backup copy, then delete the submissions via the Submissions section (Search by form name -> Delete all). Otherwise, if the form fields are modified and old submissions are present in the database, export records with errors as the form structure becomes different.

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Mail2Admin

Once this menu is clicked, a pop up window shows up. Here you can create any message and send files to the PHPForms administrator. Enter your message and click Send Mail2Admin to send the email to the form admin.

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Registration of new members

Member can register himself or his profile can be added by the administrator. To register, member needs to put his login information into the registration form and then log in to access the members panel. Though new members are allowed to access their Members panel, only the administrator can assign them to forms.

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