siteadvice / c5_custom_contact_form

Basic example of a custom form block for the Concrete5 CMS -- a good starting point for creating your own custom forms, and IMHO a better approach than the built-in "external_form" block.

Custom Contact Form

A very basic contact form block that you can use as a starting point for creating your own custom form blocks with Concrete5. In my experience, this is a better solution than using the built-in "external_form" block as it does not suffer from many of the limitations of that approach (for example, see http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/external-form-with-own-controller/ -- or just search the forums for "external_form" to find other potential issues).

Installation / Customization

1. Move the custom_contact_form directory from this repo's blocks directory to your site's top-level blocks directory (note: this is just a block, not a package -- so don't put it in your packages directory).
2. Rename the custom_contact_form directory as desired (should be the lowercase_and_underscore version of your block's name -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a directory name of "my_great_form").
3. Edit the controller.php file:
   • Change the class name to be a TitleCaseWithNoSpaces version of the block name (otherwise known as CamelCase), followed by BlockController -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a class name of MyGreatFormBlockController.
   • Change the block name and description. It is recommended that the name correspond with the directory and class names, but this is not a technical requirement (just avoids confusion).
   • Change the table name to bt followed by the CamelCase version of the block name -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a table name of btMyGreatForm.
4. Edit db.xml file so the table name matches what you set in controller.php.
5. Customize the form as needed. The view.php file contains the form html. The action_submit_form() method in controller.php responds to form submissions.