Not near a Mac right now, but if I remember the import only works with plain text.
As for a country list, a DuckDuckGo search for text list of countries found this.
Don’t know how accurate it is.
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I so appreciate you! Thank you Doug. Will give it a try.
Hi Doug and Paul - Paul Ricci, I first would like to thank you again: all your advice has been wonderful and helped me to build a really good form.
Since for some reason the Formloom people are not replying to any of my questions, may I please put two more questions to you?
My questions are:
1) In the form item called ‘Select Menu’, is it possible to add a non-selectable value? In other words, the person filling out the form can see the value but cannot choose that value. In the screenshot example, I would like to have ‘Choose a Number’ as a value that is non selectable.
2) In Formloom 4, is it possible to put images in the form?
Thank you gentlemen!
Jimmy
Jim,
As for your Item #1 - I have done that before – I make the first item something link -“Select your ship method” or whatever, and then give it a value of 0 (zero). Then under validation, make it required and give it a minimum value of 1 - that way if they leave it on the first item (zero), it will give an error.
#2 - I’m not sure about images on the first - I haven’t done that. I’d imagine not.
Paul
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Thank you!
Jim,
I should have also mentioned that the way I do what you are looking for only works if all the values in your select menu are numbers.
You could probably do it differently is you give the first item in the list a value of “A” or any letter. Then as long as the rest of the items in the list are 2 more more letters long, just adjust the validation to be a minimum length of 2 characters. And change the message to “Please select an item from this list” or something like that.
Paul
So, how do you adjust the validation to a minimum of 2 characters? Thx.
On the validation part there’s a field call minimum length.
As for images, there’s a field type called Form Break, it’s a styled text area that allows you to put anything you want including images inside the form.
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Well, there we go. I’ve used FL 4 for quite awhile and didn’t know that about the Form Break.
I figured it was just that - a form break. Didn’t realize you could add to it.
You learn something new every day.
Paul
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If removing the Formloom plugin page from Navigation, you should also discourage robots from indexing and following links - it’s not a page you want showing in search results if you are using the stack:
Thank you Doug!
Good advice. Thanks. So how does one discourage robots from indexing and following links? By unblocking the ‘Enable Robot Meta Tags’ button?
Hi Doug,
How exactly do you put in the images in the Form Break field type? I tried to copy/paste an image in but that does not yield anything and I do not see an ‘insert’ or ‘place image’ field.
Thanks!
Jim
His screenshot shows the correct settings to use.
The ‘Enable Robot Meta Tags’ checkbox tells RW to include the robots meta-tag in the html file. Without it, robots will default to indexing the pages and following links on it. You need the robots meta tag enabled, with the other two checkboxes off, so that the meta tag is written to the html file with the correct code to ‘not index’ the page and to ‘not follow’ links on the page.
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Great! Thanks.
It’s styled text, so drag and drop, you can also use HTML image tags if you want but the easiest way is to drag and drop.
Of course resize and optimize the image first.
Got it. Thanks. AGAIN!
Hi Doug,
Sorry for bothering you with this, again, but it is weeks later now, and I still have not got a working Formloom form online. You can find it here (code 302618): http://www.zozobanana.com/Warranty-Registration/
To be exact, the form sort of works but when, in the live version, clicking on ‘submit’ you always get an error code and the message that ‘o message’ was sent…
The issue is that the connection between my Formloom form and my AceSequel/MySQL is not working. My provider, Chillidog Hosting says it is likely a bug in Formloom and rightfully insist that Yabdab should look into this and advise me.
To be complete, and I do realize that this probably has nothing to do with the Ace Sequel/MySQL issue: I do get a confirmation email that the form was submitted…
Anyway, after initially showing little willingness, or having no time, to provide support, during this last week Mike, from Yabdab, has been trying to help me out. He first suggested that it is an issue at my provider Chillidog Hosting. Chilli, however, checked this and denies it.
Next Mike said it’s because my Formloom field names are not exactly the same as my AceSequel/MySQL field names. However, the issue persisted after correcting this.
Then Mike said that my field names should not contain any spaces or strange characters. I also corrected this and still the issue remained.
Now, in his seemingly final email about the subject, Mike wrote that the problem stems from my form using ‘rules’…
This seems strange to me so I emailed Mike with the following questions…
1) Are you saying that any Formloom form with ‘rules’ cannot be properly submitted to MySQL?
2) Then what is the Ace Sequel/MySQL function of “Allow Null” for?
3) I know that many forms that are more than a few questions use rules. If such forms cannot be saved to MySQL, how do people that put such forms online save the submitted forms to a database?
It’s been some time now and he seems to not be willing to go into my questions. So that is why I am turning to you Doug: would you be able to answer these questions?
To make sure the you have all the info, here are two more screenshots: one of my Formloom page and one of my AceSequel/MySQL table.
Thank you so very much indeed, for even taking the time to read this long email!
Jimmy
Hi Jimmy,
Not sure how much help I can be, I don’t have a ton of experience using MySQL with FormLoom and I’m certainly no DBA.
First, my guess that when you say “Ace Sequel” you are talking about the Mac GUI client Sequel Ace for MySQL and MariaDB? I’m asking because it shouldn’t have any effect on the actual Databases on the server. My understanding is it’s just a utility for defining. and running queries. The backend DB is still MySQL.
I don’t remember seeing that listed in the documentation but if Mike (@yabdab) says so then I’d guess that’s the way it is. I never have tried to use MySQL and Formloom with rules. I have seen the error “SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined” before even when it wasn’t a mismatch. MySQL/PHP errors aren’t always straight forward.
You have built quite a complex form with a lot of data. I think I’d test it out with a simple form first, then add fields and even rules one at a time and see what breaks it. That would be my approach, it’s pretty straight forward debugging; isolate the bug.
That I can’t say for sure, I don’t use Sequal Ace. I can tell you in MySQL terminology that a “NULL” refers to the value of the field, not the field being defined/referenced or not. The NULL value means “no data.”.
Hopefully some else can jump in and tell you how they do that with FormLoom.
I know a lot of people that have a need for something this complex have used MachForm (Self-hosted $59 free installation) for complex forms like Survey and Data Collection. It’s not a RapidWeaver product but a lot of RW pro’s have used it on RW sites (@dave).
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Thanks so much Doug.
Yes, I am talking about Sequel Ace as a GUI for MySQL. I will follow your advice and dress down the form and try to isolate the issue.
Again, thank you!
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