features
- easy to use – works straight out of the box, just add shortcode
- easy initial set up – no registration
- integrated captcha options
- optionally request booking dates, additional questions or party sizes
- integrated custom css editor
- built in contact manager system
instructions and settings
The settings section is found on the WordPress menu (Settings -> DD Contact Form) and contains four sections: General Settings, User Interface, Extra Information and Custom CSS.
quick start
Install and activate the plugin (instructions here)
Type this shortcode where you want your contact form to appear:
[dd_contact_form]
The contact form will now appear on the page / post.
settings – general settings
General Settings
Set, edit or view email settings. View or change captcha settings in security settings section. Enable user details logging in privacy settings section.
Security
Select captcha type: simple addition (default) or google reCaptcha. To use the Google reCaptcha, you will need to sign up and get private and public keys. Sign-up is extremely quick and easy – see here
Privacy
Offer to save user permission to send newsletters or other updates in the future.
Save the IP address and geolocation information for each contact form user. Please ensure there are no legal issues using this in your area before enabling.
To use the geolocation services, you will need to register with IPinfoDB to get a key. Registration is relatively straightforward – see here
Set recipient email addresses for receiving contact form enquiries.
Configure the sending of a confirmation email to the user once the system has received the form.
Specify an image to display at the top of emails sent by the contact form. The URL should be in absolute format.
settings – user interface
User Feedback
There are two options in the user feedback section.
Form sent action
Once the user has successfully sent their message, you can either send them to a new page or display a thank you message on the current page. This section allows you to specify the custom thank you message and the url to jump to.
Error Checking
The form can be checked for errors in one of two ways. Either the form is checked on the fly, whereby users are shown a green tick or red cross beside each field, or the form is checked when the user presses the ‘Send’ button. Note that the form data is effectively checked twice when the on the fly option is selected, as the form will always check the form data before sending in either case.
Appearance
This section contains various options for controlling the look and feel of the contact form.
Custom CSS Classes
Note that there are at least two ways to specify css for the form and it’s elements; you can specify custom css classes supplied by your theme / child theme or you can use the Custom CSS editor (DD Contact From Settings, 4th tab). If you would prefer to specify custom classes you can do so here.
Button Styling
If your theme already applies appropriate styling to your contact form buttons then leave this option on the default (WordPress). However, if you’d like to use the jQuery-UI library to style your buttons, then select the jQueryUI option here.
jQuery UI Theme
Select a theme for jQueryUI widgets. The setting only affects the date pickers and buttons and the buttons are only affected if jQueryUI button styling is selected in ‘Button Styling’.
settings – extra information
You can request extra information from the contact form user. Each of the extra information types can be either obligatory or optional. If you only want to ask for these details on posts that are in a certain category, you can specify the category here.
Dates & Times
You may want to request a date or arrival / departure dates – for example a restaurant or hotel room booking. You can ask for arrival and / or departure dates on the contact form using these settings. Optionally, you can also ask for arrival / departure times.
Party Size
If your contact form is being used to collect bookings, you may want to request the number of people – for example a restaurant or hotel room booking. You can ask for the number of adults and children on the contact form using these settings.
Additional Questions
If you want to add extra questions for the user to answer you can specify them here.
settings – css editor
The built is CSS editor allows you to add custom CSS to the form. Once edited, the CSS can be updated immediately using the ‘Update CSS’ button. You can also use the ‘Save Changes’ button to update the CSS, but you’ll have to wait for WordPress to reload the entire page every time you make an edit.
Commonly styled classes
.ddcf_button
This class will style the buttons on the form
.ddcf_input_base
This class will style all the text inputs on the form – name, email, subject and message. If the relevant fields are enabled in the settings, it will also style the simple add captcha, date/time picker displays and extra question fields.
.ddcf_dropdown
This class will style the party size dropdowns (if enabled in the Extra Information section).
contact manager
The built in contact manager allows you to instantly recall details of people who have previously contacted you through the contact form. To do this, the contact form logs each contact form enquiry, along with metadata to the WordPress database. The details can then be retrieved using a page only accessible to users whom are both registered on the site (Administrator or Editor) and logged on).
Using the manager page
To use the manager page, create a new page and add the following shortcode:
[dd_manager_page]
Although the page is viewable only by registered users (Administrator or Editor), it is recommended that the page be published privately to provide two layers of protection for your client details.
known issues / current bugs / planned features
Possible WP-reCAPTCHA conflict
I received the following report regarding recaptcha compatibility:
I’ve noticed that the ReCaptcha built in to your DD Contact Form conflicts with the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin. If I disable the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin then your form works again.
Status: under review
Default email address
On fresh install, the form defaults to sending form enquiries to the WP admin email address. However, in the forwarded message it contains instructions for setting the recipient of the form’s enquiries, and the plugin settings show no addresses. The plugin should set the admin email in the settings on install.
Status: fix for next update
Widget Support
It’s not currently possible to place the form inside widget. Since the form already performs well in tight spaces, adding a dd contact form widget is under development for the next update.
Status: fix for next update
captcha options
A very interesting article on captchas has inspired me to look at some creative alternatives – see here: 5 CAPTCHA alternatives to replace your least favorite security tool.
Status: under review
support
If you have any questions, suggestions or bugs to report, please use the DD Contact Form plugin discussion group here or use the WordPress forum here. Please don’t post support questions below, as I’m not in the habit of checking post comments that often…
about dd contact form
Whilst working on WordPress websites for friends, I found I was unable to find a free contact form plugin that had all the features I needed. The ones that came with themes I’d bought were not so good either, so I started making my own. After 18 months evolution, the plugin was ready. I decided to release it open source, as I feel I’ve benefited greatly from the community over the years. I hope you find it useful.
I’ve colsed comments on this post now, as too many people posted support requests here – please use the DD Contact Form plugin discussion group here or use the WordPress forum here.
Hi,
Your plugin is such as i search 🙂
I have 3 questions:
1. Is possible to deactivate “subject” field?
2. How can I translate labels?
3. Is posiible to add addtional “pull down” field?
Regards,
Przemek Kurnik
Hi,
Sorry for lateness of reply, lots of projects going on at the moment.
1) Deactivate subject field – not possible at present.
2) Translate labels – the code is ready for translation, but the translation files have not been produced yet.
3) It’s not possible to add extra pull downs at present.
I may consider these features for a future release, but time if very limited at the moment…
Hello,
How do I purchase the Pro version of your program?
With much appreciation,
Matthew Lennartz
Hi Mathew,
There is no pro version (yet!)
for my own research, can I ask what features would you’d expect in a pro version?
Thanks,
Great little form creator, almost what I was looking for – but at first glance there doesn’t appear to be “radio buttons” or “checkboxes”.
I’m doing a charity site and not satisfied with present free but limited form builder for a large booking form.
Are you intending to add radios & checkboxes in the future?
cheers, Vic
Hi,
No, there are no radio buttons or checkboxes as yet. I may add radios and checkboxes in the future, it depends on how things go with the plugin.
Hi
I’m trying to use the plugin but for some reason I can’t make any entries, typing is disabled on the page? Very strange.
Thanks
Steve
I’ve not seen that on my versions, I can only guess it’s caused by something other than the plugin. I’d suggest disabling all your other plugins and see if it works. If so, re-enable the plugins one by one until you find the offending plugin.
I’ve noticed that the ReCaptcha built in to your DD Contact Form conflicts with the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin. If I disable the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin then your form works again. I expect that, like me, if others are trying to use ReCaptcha for your form then they’re likely to want to use it for posts too. Otherwise seems great.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve added the issue to the ‘known issues’ section above and will look at it as soon as I start working on the next update.
– Davedub
I love your plugin and have filled in some general info.
I’ve used lots of plugins but can’t seem to figure out how to “add” it.
also I want to add the contact form to a widget. to do this i require “dd contact form shortcode”
am i able to do this?
Hi Shirlee,
You just use the [dd_contact_form] shortcode on your page post, as it says in the ‘Quick Start’ section above 😉
The shortcode won’t work in a widget though, even if you request that WordPress read it (i.e. use add_filter( ‘widget_text’, ‘do_shortcode’) in the plugin).
I will have a look at making a widget for the form, that’s a nice idea.
Kind Regards,
Davedub
I like your form creator but whenever I submit a message it gives a little red “undefined message” above the form and does not return the user to the redirect page, or clear the form. I have tried both options you supply ie message on the page or redirect to another page and get the same error every time. Have also doublechecked I have entered the correct url with option 2 both with and without using the full path.
I am using another form in the meantime but would like to use yours is this issue can be resolved.
hi Lindsay,
Thanks for reporting this.
Could you tell me which captcha method you were using?
Kind Regards,
Davedub
Im getting the exact same problem, what is the fix for this
I installed DD Contact Form on a new still developing website with a great expectation but got an error on the page.
The captcha or number simple addition is giving error, as follows:
What is ? plus ? ?
How can it be addressed?
Thanks and regards.
Hi Sanjay,
If the rest of the page loads up fine, then it’s almost certainly a problem with an ajax call the plugin tries to make on page load – do you have any security plugins that may be affecting ajax calls?
If the rest of the page is not loading up fine, it’s more likely a general jQuery problem / conflict, in which case I’d start disabling plugins to try and find any conflicts.
– Davedub
naturally like your web site but you have to test the spelling on quite a few of your posts.
A number of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to tell the reality nevertheless I will
surely come again again.
eek – thanks for the heads up – tardy of me to have trusted the WordPress spellchecker in the Visual Editor – all now hopefully fixed…
– Davedub
Hi Dave,
loving your contact form, great work.
I’m using it for a hotel but I’m having the problem that the selected dates in the form are not showing up in the E-mail. Have u heard of this problem before?
Thanks for your help
Chris
Wow that was odd. I just wrote an extremely long comment but after I clicked
submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all
that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say excellent blog!
Hi and thanks for a great looking Contact Form.
I have installed the plugin and set-up as directed but even though the send process completes as expected, I am not receiving the actual emails. Is there anyway you can help or guide me towards resolving this issue.
Also, are there any possible conflicts with a WordPress Multisite sub-directory website?
Thanks in advance.
WS
Hi,
Have you entered your email in the settings (WordPress main menu -> settings -> DDContactForm -> General Settings -> Email)
Also, please could you post your original question and any replies in either the DD Contact Form plugin discussion group here or the WordPress forum here.
Kind Regards,
Davedub