To provide an example use for Repeatable Groups we have a form for registering a team for the local pub quiz. We have a Team Name and Contact email, then a Repeatable Group to enter each member of the team with a First Name and a Last Name.
The form handler pipeline iterates through the groups to combine First Name and Last Name and build them into a comma separated list.
Feel free to submit the form as often as you want. The form is saved to your session, but the data is not saved or logged anywhere else. All it does is validate the inputs and return a success or error message. The session data facilitates persistence of some inputs, so you only need to enter your name and email once. You can also see your most recent form submission presented using Form Reform Display.
The blocks used are the same as those used in any form with Form Reform. The difference is that a container is added to provide 3 columns with text inputs for first_name and last_name, then a Repeatable Group block is added to the third column. For the front end of the form, its a simple as that!
The Repeatable Group block automatically detects the row of the 3 column container which contains the form elements and provides Add, Delete and Sort controls to manage replication of the group.
The pipeline shown below is a front-end non-editable version of the pipeline used to handle the above form. You can expand any stages to view the details. As usual, the submitted form is only saved to your session.
The new part of our pipeline is simply adding an extra {{place_holder}} to the Message to provide a cleaner format of our team member names.
The second Condition If section towards the end of our pipeline is to add a display of any UTM tags, as described in Example - Tracking UTM tags. If you are not using Form Reform UTM, you can ignore that part of the pipeline.
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Our second submit pipeline - Submit 2 - illustrates iterating through each repetition of a group of inputs. The new part of our pipeline is between Iterate Repeatable Group and Iterate Repeatable Group End. This pair of handlers provides a way of acting on each repetition of a group in turn. All we are dosing here is aggregating names in a less elegant way than the pipeline above.
In a real world application, perhaps this could be providing handling specific to each group member such as a personalized email.
Once again the second Condition If section towards the end of our pipeline is to add a display of any UTM tags, as described in Example - Tracking UTM tags. If you are not using Form Reform UTM, you can ignore that part of the pipeline.
If you have already tried the Submit button above, refresh the page , make sure you have completed the form, and click the green Submit 2 button immediately below to the right and see the same form data used in Iterate Repeatable Group.
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Source Page / Stack | Form Name | Block Type | Input Name |
---|---|---|---|
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Text Input | team_name |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Email Input | |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Repeatable Group | team_members |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Message Display | |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Spinner | |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Honeypot | more |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Captcha | |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Submit Button | submit |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Submit Button | submit_2 |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Text Input | first_name |
Example - Repeatable Groups | form_reform | Text Input | last_name |
If you need a specialized template or a custom input element, you can design new templates or new block types for form elements as you would any block type.
Blocks are easy for third party addition or extension. Block templates and are the first thing any Concrete CMS developer learns to code. They are one of the easiest things to code. The underlying mechanisms are well established and reliable.
Form handlers are built about the same extensible plugin system as many of my other addons (Universal Content Puller, Omni Gallery, Extreme Clean ...).
The whole system is aimed at easy extension within Form Reform, by third party addons, by agencies and by site building developers.
Handlers can be easily added to do whatever you want with the form data.
Saving form data with Form Reform is simply a handler in the processing pipeline. You can save to multiple locations or just one location.
If you need to save data elsewhere, such as to a dedicated table, a table provided through another addon, to another database, send it to an API, forward it to another server, or anywhere you can imagine, you can adapt or develop a form handler to do so.
The complexity of the code depends on where you are saving or sending the data, but wrapping that into a form handler plugin for Form Reform is straight forward.
The Form Reform handler plugin system is designed for easy extension.
Reform the way forms are built. Build a form out of blocks. Take control of how form submissions are processed and how the submitted data is stored. Easy to extend. Easy to reconfigure. Tangible data. Easy to add your own integrations.
Provides blocks and dashboard utilities to List, display, summarize, generate reports and analyze form submissions from Form Reform. Additionally supports integration with Universal Content Puller.
Not just Form Reform and not just UTM! Capture and hold incoming UTM (or other) tags and make the tag values available to Form Reform and/or Conditional Redirect as {{place_holders}}. You don't need Form Reform to use this.
Form handlers for querying Microsoft Dynamics, forwarding and updating form data to Microsoft Dynamics.
A suite of advanced image capture and upload tools. Enhanced drag and drop file uploading. Make screengrabs from within Concrete CMS. Capture images directly from device webcams. Edit images before uploading.
Save submitted forms to Express objects and user attributes. Add and remove users from groups.
Form Reform Image Picker provides an image picking input block for Form Reform. The Image Picker Input is preconfigured to connect to most Omni Gallery gallery and slider display widgets, the core gallery block, and thumbnail showing templates for the core page list block. Advanced settings allow the Image Picker Input to be configured to pick images from other galleries and sliders.
Form Reform Data Picker provides data picking input blocks for Form Reform. The Table Picker Input is preconfigured to connect to Universal Content Puller table display widgets. Advanced settings allow the Table Picker Input to be configured to pick data from other HTML tables.
Extends Form Reform with form handler macros. Provides a new dashboard page at System & Settings > Form Reform > Form Reform Macros to manage macros, and form handlers to run macros.
A growing suite of resources to assist those developing blocks, handlers and more complex forms for Form Reform.
While you may have plans to implement some much more complex forms using Form Reform, we strongly recommend you start with a simple form such as our contact form example in order to review the basic principles of using Form Reform before you move onto anything bigger.
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