Feb
24th

Finally! Most Popular WordPress Plugin Update

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There are over 200 emails in my inbox relating to the WordPress Contact Form Plugin. Alone, it’s also one of the largest traffic sources of my blog (now you know why I write plugins!).

The post with the most traffic on my site is the WordPress Plugin with Spam Protection post.

Most recently, Corinne of Exile Designs emailed me to let me know that she had converted the plugin to make it tableless - one of the biggest requests on this plugin. I had already started modifying the plugin so you could edit the CSS however you’d like it - so it was time to put it into production!

I read up on quite a few plugins and Corinne provided some tips and tricks as well - and so I present version 3 of the WordPress Contact Form Plugin. This version has quite a few more features:

  • 100% CSS driven (loaded with a default style)
  • Can now be inserted into a template, sidebar, or custom page template.
  • Added a Legend and Fieldset that can also be customized for content and style

Screenshot

WordPress Contact Form Version 3

Corinne has done a beautiful job customizing the style of the contact form on her blog - be sure to check it out and see what’s possible! Please let me know what unique themes you were able to provide! Remember, with CSS you can also hide elements as well (such as the fieldset or legend).

I believe this version handles all of the top requests (the next most popular is to be able to add or remove fields… I’d recommend Formspring for that type of robust interaction).

One issue I have found with the tableless layout is that my blog seems to insert linebreaks where I didn’t expect them. I’d highly recommend adding a Contact Page template and then using that template for a Contact Page.

Additionally, I field a lot of requests that no email is being sent with the form. I’m afraid those issues are out of my hands - the page uses the WordPress mail function.

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9 Comments »

Comment by Raúl C. (ramcosca)
2008-02-24 00:27:11
Awesome, will add this to my podcast’s blog as soon as it’s all set up!
 
Comment by Douglas Karr
2008-02-24 12:10:22
Found a dumb issue where I didn’t set the mailing header properly, so there’s now a 3.0.1.
 
Comment by Guillermo
2008-02-25 16:11:21
Great job Douglas! I’ll be updating as soon as time allows!
 
Comment by Douglas Karr
2008-02-25 21:42:26
Just released 3.1.0 with the first translation from Sebastian Kraft!
 
Comment by Georg S. Adamsen
2008-02-27 08:06:45
This seems a great plugin!

I have installed release 3.1.0 on my Revelation Resources website (Revelation Resources).

Everything seems to function as expected, apart from the very message entered by the users. The message is not included in the e-mail. Everything else is.

As far as I can see, all the code seems okay. I have not changed anything apart from the css values (at the Options page).

Any suggestions?

 
Comment by Cubicle Dropout
2008-02-27 18:57:28
Sweet! Can’t wait to try it out.
 
Comment by Douglas Karr
2008-02-27 23:31:45
A few folks have reported a strpos delimiter error so I added some additional code that I hope will take care of it. I also made some modifications to the CSS and output that makes it line up nicer.
 
Comment by Lucas Balzer
2008-03-18 19:19:33
Absolutely love this plugin, and I’ve used the tabled version on many of my wordpress install. However, with the CSS version, you mention the issue:

One issue I have found … recommend adding a Contact Page template and then using that template for a Contact Page.

What in that template would differ from the standard the_content() function usage that is standard on page.php?

Thanks again for the plugin.

 
Comment by Douglas Karr
2008-03-25 11:18:43
Corrected an issue today (thanks to Francisco) with the message wrapping. Version 3.1.5 is ready for download.
 
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