Every website should have some way for it's viewers to contact the website owner. The Email Form Mailer is a perfect form creator for just such a contact form. The Email Form Mailer can also be used for surveys, or questionnaires, or any other need to gather information from your clients.
For this example, we'll create a contact form. Our sample outline we created does not have a contact form included, but the following instructions will help you lay one out.
If you are using this content type, then it's content management screen will appear quite different than any of the screens you've seen so far. The first time you go to to this screen you will see this:
The information you enter here should be viewed as the administrative information related to your form. The email addresses you input will not be displayed on your site. They are just necessary to know where the form should be emailed to.
As you can see, we've filled this form out already with example text to give you an idea what should go into each field on your site. Replace any instance of email addresses with appropriate email addresses associated with your site.
A Headline and Header Text are optional, depending on what you would like to say above your form on your website. Maybe you just want the Contact Us main header at the top above the form by itself. If that's the case, just skip the Headline and Header text fields.
When your site viewer submits the form on your website you will get an email with all the information they provided laid out in it. The site viewer will automatically be directed to a thank you screen at that time. The Response Message field shown above is what you would like that thank you screen to say.
Below the Response Message are two extra optional email fields. the first is where you would designate an email address for someone at your company to get cc'd (carbon copied) with the same emailed form information. The second field is for a BCC (blind carbon copy) recipient of that same email. An example would be that maybe the President of your company wants to see all the incoming comments, but doesn't want his email address displaying as a recipient if you then reply by email to your client who filled out the form.
Now we have completed all of the administrative functions of the form. It is time to lay out the form itself. Click on Manage Form Elements at the top of the screen as displyed in the first image above.
Since there are no form elements entered yet, you'll see this screen above. Click add to add the first form element.
Since we're creating a contact form, the standard first element is a person's name. Typically you would want to require that they complete this field so you know who submitted the form. Check the Required box to do that. The form will not be able to be submitted by the viewer unless they at least have this field filled out. You can require any of the fields on the form. It's not recommended that you require all of them though. Many site viewers are only willing to give up their name and email address initially. If you require too many fields they may just go away instead of submitting their inquiry.
The only field that the site requires is gathered is the email address. Without the email address, the form will not be able to send an emailed confirmation of it's submission to the form submitter. Your company may require a phone number, an account number, etc.
As you enter the different fields you will need to select an Element Type from the drop-down menu. This is a required entry. Here are brief explanations of what each option means:
- Input: An Input field is the standard text box like the Title box shown above.
- Text Area: A text area is a larger inut field used for comment boxes, etc. An example of a Text Area would be the Response Message box shown above.
- Radio: No this does not refer to anything audio. Radio buttons are the little round buttons you see on sites for selecting items. Only one item can be selected in a list using radio buttons.
- Select: Select creates a drop-down list such as the one used for the Element Types we are referring to.
- Check List: A Check List is exactly as it sounds. It creates a similar layout as the radio buttons, but instead of round buttons it displays check boxes. Multiple items can be selected from a list using check boxes.
Above is an example of a contact form we created on our sample site. In reference to the sample site, we decided to gather a list using radio buttons of what products from our sample site the site viewer might be interested in.
Below is a view of what we see when we click on Manage Nodes in the Interests line shown above, then click to Add a radio button field to the list.
In the example above the Title is what will be seen next to the radio button in the list on your form. The Value is what will display in the email you get from the form submission as the Interest that they selected. Only one item in the list should be checked as the Default value. Maybe you've input a node called "None" that will be the default interest if they don't select any other interests.
Above is our completed list of Interests our sample site viewers could select from.
As always, make sure you save your edits before you leave the screen. View your site to see the form you've created. If you've entered your own email address as the recipient, fill out your form to test it. Try submitting it without filling in the required fields. Finally submit the form and watch what happens. You should receive the form submission email right away. If you used your own email address when you filled out the form, you should also get a confirmation email from your site. You will also see the thank you screen that appears once the form is submitted. If anything you see doesn't look quite right to you, then go back and edit the form until you are satisfied.
Just one more content type to go. This is one you should already be familiar with from when you set up your site structure, the Menu Spacer. Click on Menu spacer in the left sidebar navigation, or click on Next on the top right to advance to the last page of instructions.
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