Secure & accessible contact form for Wordpress + multi-user version
The ‘Secure and accessible contact form for wordpress’ has been a huge success (over 10,000 downloads!), and due to this I have decided to repost the plugin (and also its less known multi-user sister version) to further increase the popularity of this awesome plugin for the wordpress blogging platform.
The Secure & accessible contact form is designed to make contacting you from your website easy, accessible, and secure. It will definitely deter spam emails from arriving in your mail box!
What is it?
Well, this could well be the best, most accessible, spam proof contact form available, and its now a wordpress plugin!
Based on the PHP contact forms by Mike Cherim, Mike C and I have developed a fully configurable, spam-proof, wordpress contact form plugin.
This plugin lets you add a contact form to a wordpress page or a template, and after configuration, works a treat. It is fully customisable with CSS, and even has a few themes contained to get you started.
Documentation & the readme file is included in the zip, and the help file will show in your wordpress control panel too.
Admin/form Screenshots
You can see this plugin in action on my contact page.
The multi-user version
We have a multi-user version available (for use, for example, if you have multiple departments each wanting separate messages) which costs just $70, and is great for small organisations with multiple recipients.
You can see this multi-user plugin in action here.
Plugin Features
The PHP form itself, its accessibility and usability features can be found on its official page here, but here are some plugin specific features and some highlights.
- Easy to use form Overview page, with config information, and spam count.
- Great security measures implemented, to prevent spam and high-jacking.
- Form designed with accessibility and usability in mind.
- Standards compliant code and form, with XHTML and HTML strict support.
- Simple setup, with helpful prompts and extensive documentation.
- Configuration built into the wordpress interface, no need to edit any code manually.
- Easy to style, either using your own CSS files, are in-built editor, or a pre-made theme for the most popular wordpress themes.
Plugin update history
The plugin was released on the 25th October 2006, and has been updated and maintained since. For old update logs see the old post, as newer updates are being listed here only.
- 31st July 2008 – v.2.0WP B20080731 – General Fixes and updates.
- 7th Feb 2008 – v.2.0WP B20080207 – Mike C moved the labels, reduced their length, spanned the legends, added 3D to make a working Whois query input. Plus I used a couple of WP functions to wptexturize() and autop() the page output. Most changes were for greater accessibility.
- 14th April 2007 – v.2.0WP B20070414 – Due to threats from a disgruntled user Mike has removed all link-backs in the wp-gbcf_form.php file if Showcredit “No” is selected in the config. The documentation file, wp-gbcf_help.php, was also updated. Recommendation: Swap out the wp-gbcf_form.php and wp-gbcf_help.php files. This was never meant to dupe or spam anyone. It was used purely for software promotion and innocuous tracking.
Get the plugin now!
Normal version – B20080731
Terms of Use: You are free to download and use this form but you may not redistribute it without written permission. Donations are gratefully accepted but no payment is required to use this script. If you do use this form whether on your site or a client’s site, it is requested that you keep the built in link-back in place but it is no longer required by these terms.
Downloaded a total of 17580 times from Blue Anvil.
German Version Available
German Version released Nov. 4th, 2006, translated by: “Monika Thon-Soun” Danke!
Download German Contact Form | Download Deutsche Kontaktform
Multi-user version – B20070414
The multi-user version can be bought via paypal for $70 and will be sent via email in zip format, so please remember to provide your email address either via paypal or by contacting us.
Plugin Installation
Installation is fast and easy, it basically entails unzipping the folder, uploading and activating, and adding a tag to a wordpress page! Simple. Full instructions are found in the readme file within the plugin download file.
Additional template tag: There is also an alternate templating method of installation. A little more involved but better in its flexibility if you are having problems with the page tag method of including the form.
Plugin Supported Themes
If you use some of the more popular
href=”http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/”>WordPress Themes, contact
form themes have been provided to get you up-and-running faster than ever.
The following WordPress themes have been provided for (use these links to
get info or download them):
- Default by Michael Heilemann
- The default WordPress theme based on the famous Kubrick. Included with WordPress.
- Classic by Dave Shea
- The original WordPress theme that graced versions 1.2.x and prior. Also included
- Beast-Blog by Mike Cherim
- Beast-Blog Info |
Beast-Blog Demo |
href=”http://green-beast.com/logger_dl.php”>Download Beast-Blog. - Almost Spring by Becca Wei
- Almost Spring
Info |
href=”http://themes.beccary.com/index.php?wptheme=Almost+Spring”>Almost
Spring Demo |
href=”http://beccary.weblogs.us/almost-spring.zip”>Download Almost
Spring. - Blix by Sebastian
Schmieg - Blix
Info | Blix Demo |
href=”http://www.kingcosmonaut.de/blix/download/Blix-0.9.1.zip”>Download
Blix. - Connections by Patricia
Muller - Connections Info |
Connections Demo |
href=”http://www.vanillamist.com/blog/files/connections.zip”>Download
Connections. - Green Marinee by Ian Main
- Green Marinee Info |
href=”http://e-lusion.com/greenmarinee/”>Green Marinee Demo |
href=”http://e-lusion.com/greenmarinee/greenmarinee-1.0.1.zip”>Download
Green Marinee. - Ocadia by Becca Wei
- Ocadia Info |
Ocadia Demo |
href=”http://beccary.weblogs.us/ocadia.zip”>Download Ocadia. - Pool by Borja
Fernandez - Pool Info |
Pool Demo |
href=”http://www.lamateporunyogur.net/misc/pool-v107.zip”>Download
Pool. - SeaBeast by Mike Cherim
- SeaBeast Info |
href=”http://green-beast.com/seabeast/”>SeaBeast Demo |
href=”http://green-beast.com/seabeast/download/”>Download SeaBeast.Note: This theme has an included contact form but it
can be disabled in its
href=”http://green-beast.com/seabeast/?page_id=44″>configuration and
deleted and this one used instead for great security and flexibility. Also
note this theme’s special
href=”http://green-beast.com/seabeast/?page_id=16″>terms and conditions
for use.
Update:
Beginning with build number 20070204 a large number of random themes have been added for you to play around with.
Credits
This plugin was created by Me (Mike Jolley) and Mike Cherim, and was based on Mike C’s initial PHP contact forms.
Mike Cherim also has a page dedicated to this plugin, find it here.
Support our sweat, blood and tears
I know, that sounds gross, but we really did put ALOT of effort in to this plugin to make it the best. If you like this plugin, or it has benefited you, please make a donation via paypal! Any amounts are welcome, we will split it between us (Cherim & Jolley). Your support is much appreciated.
*This link will take you to green-beast.com where you can use Mike’s paypal button to send a donation
Disclaimer
You are free to use this application but may not redistribute it without written permission. Use of this application will be at your own risk. No guarantees or warranties are made, direct or implied. The creators cannot and will not be liable or held accountable for damages, direct or consequential. By using this application it implies agreement to these conditions.
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Mike Cherim says:
Great working with you on this Mike! I think we did a good thing that people really need to have nowadays
Mike
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Mike J says:
Agreed, congrats on a great project
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Mike J says:
Agreed, congrats on a great project
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Brad K says:
I really like what I see here! The only outstanding requirement I have would be the inclusion of a file upload field. I currently use a modified version of phMailer which requires the phpExec plugin and captcha for spam. Your solution is (would be) much more elegant!
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Mike J says:
Thats a great idea, and definitely one for a future version
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 4:45 pm
Breger says:
Great form and thanks for all the hard work. One question – can I add any other fields (like an address field)? Thanks again.
Comment made on October 25, 2006 at 11:29 pm
David Zemens says:
You guys did a terrific job. I have been a Mike Cherim fan for quite a while now, and it seems I have to add Mike J to that list, too!
Thanks again for the fine work!
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 12:10 am
Ricardo says:
Hi!
This seemed to be the answer to my prayers but sadly I’m not getting it working although I’ve tried it from scratch a couple of times.
Instead of a neat contact form I’m getting this: “-gb_contact_form->”
Any idea what might be wrong?
Thanks! =)
Ricardo
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 5:35 am
Mike J says:
@Breger – No, this release does not inlcude custom fields, but thats an idea for a future version thanks.
@David Zemens – Thanks, yay i have a fan club! lol
@Ricardo – Did you copy and paste that code from this page? This page uses html entities, e.g > shows a > symbol, which won’t run as code in a browser. So my advice is go to your page and enter the code manually by typing it, that should solve your problem.
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 7:30 am
Mike Cherim says:
@Ricardo: That’s pretty strange and copying and pasting shouldn’t be a problem as you’re not copying the character entities but the output instead. On the Documentation page there is an example written with character entities and I copied and pasted that without an issue. I know it won’t work if there are spaces between the text and hyphens so this is a bit strange Do let us know what happens.
Mike
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Ricardo says:
I found the problem. The content was imported from Textpattern and because we use Textile so heavily, we installed TextileWrapper ( http://www.huddledmasses.org/category/development/wordpress/textile/ ) which is causing this situation.
Any idea on how to solve this issue?
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Mike J says:
Hmm I have no experiance with that plugin, so unless Mike has any other ideas, Im going to suggest you use the top secret template function
To do this you may need experiance with making wordpress templates, but you should be ok.
Create a page template for your current theme called contact.php. Remember to put:
<?php/*
Template Name: contact
*/
?>
at the top of the template file.
Inside the file add the following tag where you want the form to appear, preferably in the content area, but outside of the wordpress post loop:
This will show the contact form on that particular page.
Now on your wordpress contact page, in the sidebar, select ‘contact’ as the page’s template file. The pages content can be left blank if you wish.
This should work, as it is also the method i am using on blue anvil. If you can’t make it work give me a shout and I may be able to help further.
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Mike J says:
Just to say v2.01 out, fixing small bug causing errors with a form location with no www.
Comment made on October 26, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Ricardo says:
Thanks Mike! =) It worked like a charm!
Is there any way of localizing the form without editing wp-gbcf_form.php?
Comment made on October 27, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Mike J says:
Np
Localizing is currently not available without editing the file, however, I am looking into usign POT files for the next release so It can be translated easier.
Comment made on October 27, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Scot Hacker says:
My site links to the contact page with a form button, rather than a text link. Apparently, gbcf is looking for any submit in the $_POST, because even though my contact button is named “submit3″, I get an immediate error from gbcf when accessing the form this way. If I access it by entering the page URL directly, it works fine. I think all you need to do to fix this is change the var you’re looking for in the $_POST array.
I’ll switch to a text link until this is fixed. Otherwise, fantastic contact form – thanks!
Comment made on October 29, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Luis says:
I already have a contact form already, but I think I just might change it.
Comment made on October 30, 2006 at 5:45 am
Mike J says:
@scot – I can see what you mean about the problem you face, we dident consider that an issue, but I will be on the next version fix list.
However if your feeling brave, you can try making a fix yourself. Open wp-gbcf_form.php in a text editor and goto line
1065containingif ($_POST) {.You can change this to the name of the submit button, which you change in config (send_value). So if for instance your button was called send, you would change the line to:
That should solve your problem, if it doesent then shoot me a mail and ill help further.
@Luis – That sounds good, hope you like ours better
Comment made on October 30, 2006 at 8:07 am
Scot Hacker says:
Mike – That *almost* works – it no longer errors when accessing the page from a form button. But now when I go to submit a message, I get returned to an empty contact form, not to a failure or success page. Is there somewhere else I need to make this change?
Comment made on October 30, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Mike J says:
A ha, i know why, I forgot, the script makes the button text lowercase, so you can either change it to lowercase on the $_post bit, OR the BEST WAY is to use this:
Just tested to confirm it works, sorry I dident spot that earlier, I was a bit rushed
Comment made on October 30, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Scot Hacker says:
Bingo – That does the trick. Thanks Mike!
Comment made on October 30, 2006 at 7:48 pm
arjanv says:
Hi,
Verrry nice plugin.
Can you tell me which comment plugin you used for this nice comments?
I really like the “odd” “even” thingy.
Thanks
Comment made on October 31, 2006 at 10:09 am
Mike J says:
@arjanv, thanks, but im not sure what your on about, odd even thingy?
Comment made on October 31, 2006 at 11:08 am
Scot Hacker says:
I think he’s referring to the blue/green alternating comment colors – which has nothing to do with the contact plugin, but is a WP styling question (present in lots of downloadable WP themes).
Comment made on November 1, 2006 at 8:56 am
SOLOHelp says:
Looks really nice.
I thought I followed the instrucions but after activating the plugin when I click configuration I am sent to
wordpress/wp-admin/wp-gbcf/wp-gbcf_form.php?page=Configuration
which results in a 404 error. actually all the links under contact form in the admin menu give me 404s.
any ideas?
Comment made on November 4, 2006 at 9:59 pm