When Web-form-buddy sends out an autoresponder message (or, in the case of a payment form, a receipt), what should be the “from” and “reply-to” address on the email?
Typically, if the form data is to be sent to, say john@some-domain.com, then it makes sense to put John’s email address as the from address for the autoresponder or receipt.
But with Web-form-buddy you can choose to have the form data delivered to several recipients. So in that case, whose address should be on the autoresponder or payment receipt?
To solve this conundrum we have added a new feature to the “who to notify” option for each form. Now you can pick out one of the recipient email addresses as “primary” - and that means that it will be that address that gets picked up as the “reply” address for the autoresponder or payment receipt that gets sent out.
Most web site hosting packages allow you to create password-protected folders or directories within your web site. Perhaps you have a control panel (such as Plesk) that has this option. Then again if you’re willing to get your hands dirty you can create a password-protected folder on your web site with a .htaccess file.
Until now, if your form was located in a password-protected folder of your web site, you could not use Web-form-buddy to power the form.
Now you can!
Under “form setup options” on your control panel you will see a new option where you can tell Web-form-buddy the user name & password to access your web page. Once that’s done you’re good to go!
Web-form-buddy helps your users to complete your forms correctly. If a “required” field is missing, or if the data entered is incorrect, Web-form-buddy tells the user the problem, scrolls the page to the problem field, and also highlights the problem field to make it more visible.
Previously the color of the highlighted field was “hard wired” (aqua) - but now you can set your own background color and text color for highlighted fields from your control panel.
If someone filling out your web form fails to complete a “required field” (or breaks a Web-form-buddy validation rule you have set for a field), then Web-form-buddy re-presents the form with the problem field highlighted and with a popup help message.
However we have noticed that some of our customers have complex forms with many fields to complete - and so we thought it would be better if Web-form-buddy automatically scrolled the web page so that the problem field was pretty much centered in the user’s view.
So that new feature is in place now and we hope it will make completing complex forms a whole lot easier for the user!
We are pleased to announce that the control panel for Web-form-buddy has been given a major overhaul.
We think it looks better and is easier to navigate. We hope you agree! But it’s also now a better platform for us to add more options and functionality to the Web-form-buddy engine.
As ever, please keep your suggestions for new features and improvements rolling in!
With the check payment module (UK: “cheque” payment module), Web-Form-Buddy now asks for the check number as well as the shopper’s name & address.
We have just added built-in integration with PayPal & WorldPay for payment forms.
The option is available from your web-form-buddy control panel under “setup for payment forms”.
This adds to the existing payment methods of checks (UK: “cheques”) and in-house credit card processing.
If you are interested in using this option and you do not yet have a PayPal or WorldPay merchant account please go here:
Ryan from visualrush.com spotted that the co-branding tag on emails (ie ‘web-form-processor powered by your-domain.com‘) was not being displayed if the email was retrieved via www.buddydata.com.
That’s now fixed.
Thanks Ryan!
Back in November we added to the capability to include the email address of the person sending you the form in your email subject line text.
The main benefit of adding field data to the email subject line text is that it can help you to scan and sort your incoming form data easier. So to make this even better, following a suggestion from Steve at Saint Specialties, we have done a little more work, and now - for regular, non-secure forms - you can choose to include the data from any field in the email subject line text! (any field, but it needs to be a web-form-buddy required field).
For secure (SSL) forms it would not be safe to include the data in the email subject line as it would not be encrypted. However if you have a field in your form for an email address (and you make it a web-form-buddy required field and you switch on the email validation rule), then you are able to use that.
To set up and use this feature you go to your control panel, select configure form and then select email options.
First add the special tag marker to your email subject line text. This marker will be replaced by the data from the form field.
The tag marker is: !FIELD!
Then choose the field that you want to use to replace the tag marker from the list of required fields.
Hey presto - you’re done!
When you receive a form inquiry the email subject line will probably look something like this:
Web site enquiry from mydomain.com
You can modify this at configure form >> email options
When you scan down a lot of these stored emails it can be handy to see who each one is from. And in fact web-form-buddy allows you to have the email address of the sender included in the email subject line.
You do this by adding a special tag to the email subject line that you set up at configure form >> email options. The tag is 
Examples:
- Web site enquiry from mydomain.com ()
- Web site enquiry from at mydomain.com
If the sender’s email address is ‘fred@gmail.com’, then this would result in the following:
Example 1: Web site enquiry from mydomain.com (fred@gmail.com)
Example 2: Web site enquiry from fred@gmail.com at mydomain.com