The Small Green Tree Blog

We have just added a new feature that allows you to issue a discount coupon. When someone shops at your web site with the correct coupon code, you can configure Web-store-buddy to give the shopper either a fixed amount off their order, or a percentage discount.

In your web form, those fields that are not set as “required fields” may or may not be completed by the web user.

 What to do with those blank fields?

Previously Web-form-buddy would include the field in the form data list, but with the “~” character to signify the field was blank. This might look like so:

Name ~ Peter Smith
Email ~ peter@gmail..com
Address ~ ~
City ~~
Country ~ USA

In this case, the “City” & “Country” fields are blank fields.

Now we’ve added the option for Web-form-buddy to suppress blank fields if you prefer.  Using the same example, you would now receive data like this:

Name ~ Peter Smith
Email ~ peter@gmail..com
Country ~ USA

To select this option just navigate to the form’s “data options” settings.

We are pleased to announce the addition of a new file upload option for Web-form-buddy.

As usual with Web-form-buddy, you have no special coding to do or software to install. Just select the file upload option for your form using your control panel and - heh presto! - you’re done.

You can limit the size of the file upload you will accept and you can define the types of file that can be uploaded (e.g. you could limit the file types to image files of the type .jpg, .gif, or .png). You can also choose whether to offer the file upload as required or just optional.

Web-form-buddy now has a new option to display a summary of the form data to the user with a “confirm” or “cancel” button.

This is a nice thing to do - especially if your form is quite complex. It also has the benefit of offering you some protection against automated form submissions (spam).

If you find you are getting a lot of spam form submissions, you can also supplement the data confirmation screen with a “CAPTCHA” test. There are three options to choose from:

• Standard Captcha: There are some slightly distorted letters that you have to type in a box.
• The Carnegie Mellon University “ReCaptcha” Test: This works in a similar way, but the results contribute towards the task of archiving human knowledge by digitizing books (info)
• Simple Math Captcha: Instead of a slightly distorted image, the form submitter is asked to answer a simple question. E.g “What is one plus three?”

To access the new option from your control panel, first select a form, then select “form options“

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!

If you use our opt-in-buddy list builder application, the recommended setting is “double opt-in”.

Once a subscriber completes the process (i.e. confirms their intention to subscribe from the link in their email), the final “thank you” page has a link back to your web site.

Up until now that link was hard-wired to your home page. But now you can set that link to any page in your web site from your control panel.