SilverStripe

5 module updates provide a real field-day

Posted by Sigurd on 10 July 2009

We've released updates to five modules today. The set of releases focuses on giving more power to non-technical people in managing website forms.

User Forms v0.2rc2

Today's release of the User Forms module is a significant update and near-rewrite of version 0.1.

Note that this is a release candidate, meaning we're asking the community to help test and debug it. Soon we hope to mark it as stable for production use on any environment.

Download: userforms-v0.2-rc2.tar.gz

New Features:

• Improved user interface for editing fields, with more descriptive labels and improved layout.
• You can now configure simple conditional logic. When someone answers a question in a form, that answer can be used to hide or show other fields on that form.
• The module supports custom field extensions. By writing extensions to the EditableFormField class you can create your own form fields. See the Google Maps Selection Field source code for an example. We're looking forward to seeing the community contribute useful types of fields.
• Both the editor and the public-facing form now use jQuery. All of the prototype JavaScript library code has gone, more than halving the lines of JavaScript through a better architecture.
• The code at the PHP level has also been substantially rewritten. The model has been optimised and this drops the number of database tables from 12 to 3. We hope you like the speed and architecture improvements!
• The web-based report of form submissions is more powerful. The report is now paginated, and you can remove individual submissions or clear them all out.
• You can set custom messages for when fields are not filled out properly, overriding the SilverStripe defaults.
• Instead of sending a submission to a single email address, you can send to multiple email addresses. For each recipient you can customise the To, From, Subject, and Body content.
• Note: As yet there is no data migration strategy from forms built in the previous version to the new one. Also, this module currently has bugs when used on multiple-language websites.

Mollom v0.2

Today's release of the Mollom module is a minor update that improves compatibility with older versions of PHP. It previously required PHP 5.2.3, and now should work back to PHP 5.1.6 or so. (At the code level, some typos were also fixed and the code has better comments.) It requires today's release of the Spam Protection module. See our video explaining Mollom if you want a refresher on this cool anti-spam service.

Download: mollom-v0.2.tar.gz

Recaptcha v0.3

Today's release of the Recaptcha module is a major update, and brings it in line with the Mollom module's functionality. Previously, this module only provided a field that could be used in your PHP-based forms. Now it has been rearchitected to require and work with the Spam Protection module. This means that the Recaptcha module automatically protects Page and Blog comment forms, the forum registration form, and shows up as a field in the User Forms module.

Download: recaptcha-v0.3.tar.gz

Spam Protection v0.2

The update to the Spam Protection module is a minor but important; it is needed to run the latest versions of the Recaptcha and Mollom modules.

Download: spamprotection-v0.2.tar.gz

Google Map Selection Field v0.1

The Google Map Selection Field module adds a field to the User Forms module, and is a great example of how you can now extend the User Form Module v0.2+  fields.

This field allows dual input: typing in a text address, or navigating the map.

Download: googlemapselectionfield-v0.1.tar.gz