Filled In Plugin
Filled In is a generic form processing plugin that will validate and store data submitted through forms. You can use it for any kind of data input, from simple contact forms on a blog to full-blown questionnaires on a business site.
The basic features of Filled In are:
- Customizable data filters and data processors
- Central data storage, with exports to CSV and XML
- Email reporting, with attachments and inline images
- AJAX support (forms always work in browsers without JavaScript)
- Built-in CAPTCHA support
- Built-in poMMo mailing list support
- Built-in file upload support
Read the history for a complete list of features.
Filled In is available in the following languages:
- English
- Italiano, thanks to Simone Righini
- French, thanks to Zesty
Installation
Installation is like any WordPress plugin:
- Download filled-in.zip
- Unzip
- Upload the
filled-indirectory to/wp-content/pluginson your server - Activate the plugin
Note that if you are upgrading from 1.5 you will need to reconfigure your forms. As much information as possible is retained, but the configuration details of individual filters and processors are not. You are advised to backup your data before upgrading, just in case something bad happens.
You can find full details of installing a plugin on the plugin installation page.
Using Filled In - The Basics
Filled In takes an existing XHTML form and routes all data submission through it's own routines, providing you with a consistent interface for managing form validation, data processing, and data storage. In order to route data you give the form an ID that matches a receiving Filled In form name (as created in the Filled In interface).
Create a Filled In form recipient, giving it a unique name.
Create a form (or modify an existing form) and give the form element an ID attribute that matches the Filled In form recipient name.
Look forward to a fully validated form!
Note that all messages and styles are fully configurable.
If you are unfamiliar with HTML and don't understand how this all fits together then don't worry, there are plenty of pictures and even a few movies that will hopefully explain everything. You can use any application you want to create the forms themselves (for example, Dreamweaver), and the only required action is that the form ID must match a Filled In form.
If you were paying attention to the above images you might have noticed that no action or method attribute was needed on the form. As long as the ID can be matched, Filled In will insert the required form attributes, making sure the form is fully functional.
Taking It Further with Extensions
Filled In provides a lot more than just being able to change form attributes. When a form is submitted, Filled In passes the data through several customisable layers. These layers perform all kinds of tasks from validating the data, to sending out email reports.
Each layer can have any number of extensions. Filled In comes with a selection of default extensions, and you can download or develop third-party extensions to perform any additional task yourself.
The default extensions are:
- Pre Processors
- Exclude/include fields - remove specified fields
- Must be logged in/out - the user must/must not be logged into WordPress
- Filters
- CAPTCHA - add a CAPTCHA image to a field and ensure the field contents match the image
- Checkbox/Radio - ensures a field is a checkbox or radio button
- File upload - limit upload size and file type
- Is Email - ensure a field contains an email address
- Is Equal/Not Equal To - A logical equality comparison
- Is Greater/Lesser - A logical comparison
- Is Numeric - Ensure the field is a number
- Is Required - Ensure a value is given
- String Length - Ensure a certain number of characters are given
- Word Count - Ensure a certain number of words are given
- Post Processors
- Send as email - send the data in an email with full templating, attachments, and inline images (courtesy of the super Swiftmailer)
- Send to poMMo mailing list
- Save to CSV - suitable for use with Excel
- Save to XML
- Save upload - move uploads into a directory of your choice
- Login to WordPress - take submitted data and use it to login to WordPress
- Register in WordPress - take submitted data and use it to register a new WordPress user
- Result Processors
- Display a message - simple give feedback to the user
- Redirect to a post or URL
- Redisplay input form - pre-filled with original data or empty
If a failure is detected on any layer then the progress of data is stopped, and a message displayed back to the user. Regardless of what happens, all data is stored, allowing you to not only review correct data, but to check what problems people have with a particular form.
The rest of these instructions will be based upon the concept of creating a contact form. Naturally you can adapt the details to any kind of form you want.
Further documentation
You can learn more about using Filled In by reading the documentation or the SDK. Details on certain extensions can be found on the extensions page.
Support
Please direct all support questions to the Filled In support forum. Any support questions left on this page may not be answered.
Bugs & New Features
| Date | Current outstanding bugs | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 09 Mar 2008 | Creating CAPTCHA filter not working | |
| 06 Sep 2008 | Downloading attachments | |
| 14 Nov 2008 | Filled-in and MS Windows Server Installation |
A full list of all bugs can be found in the Filled In issue tracker.
| Date | Current requested features |
|---|---|
| 10 Nov 2008 | WPMU support |
A full list of all requested features can be found in the Filled In feature tracker.
Comments (page 7 of 13)
Sep 14, 2007 5:31 pm
Great pluging but I am having a few issues. After I submit my form I get the following...
[[filled_in Membership]]
Membership is my form name. The data is added to my XML files just fine and the email is sent to the admin okay. But nothing is shown for the thank you but the [[filled_in Membership]]
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Sep 6, 2007 8:39 am
Really good plugin...very useful!! tnx!
Aug 29, 2007 1:02 am
Planner, you enter a standard HTML form into a page and set the form ID to be the same as a form in Filled In. You then configure your form in Filled In to do whatever you want, such as emailing the contact details to yourself
Aug 20, 2007 1:39 am
How do you actually add a filled in contact form to a page?
Aug 13, 2007 5:07 am
Hi John,
I'd like to be able to have a relatively detailed sign-up form (for audit purposes, it's a drag, but essential unfortunately), the login form only needs what it already has (email and password).
So far I've hacked something together by hacking a more detailed form into my wp-login.php and processing it with a modified plugin. This adds the extra fields to the wp_user and wp_usermeta table and specifies a field as required. However, this has a few drawbacks in its current state since it is only server-based validation, doesn't remember field values(!) upon refresh if you have missed a field/it is invalid and it's a nasty ugly hack instead of a neat extension
If your plugin had a function that allowed you to extend the standard reg form that would be awesome and extremely slick with all the combined client/server validation
Aug 13, 2007 2:04 am
Luke, are you wanting to register new users, or login existing ones? You can't currently add other details to the user when registering, although it makes sense to do so. I'll include this in a future version.
Aug 6, 2007 9:39 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply
I can see how you can pass the basics (username, email) to the registration processor, but what about custom values to be entered into the wp_usermeta table? It's possible that I missed it, but I don't think it was there?
Aug 6, 2007 2:02 am
Hi Luke,
You can create your own login page and use Filled In there along with a WordPress Login processor. For example, create '/login/', add a simple form with username and password fields, and then setup a Filled In form to take these details and pass them onto the Login processor.
Aug 5, 2007 9:54 am
Hi John,
Thanks for an amazing plugin - it's great. I have one place that I would *really* like to use it however, it doesn't work! I would like to be able to use it on the registration for (wp-login.php) as it would be great to able to have things visually validated as people go along (you know, like the username and email fields checking for duplicates as people type, and the email format being validated).
I don't mind adding some code to the wp-login.php file if I have to in order to get this sooner, but it would be absolutely killer if you could enable this in the next version!
Thanks very much and keep up the hard work.
Jul 27, 2007 4:39 pm
Thanks, I bet that's the case. I'll let you know if I ever further problems.
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