BreezingForms

Viewing records

Every time someone submits a form on your website, the system records everything the visitor types as a record in the database (this happens in addition to the email sent to you).
To access the records, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the administration page of your website
2. In the top left menu go to “Components”, then “BreezingForms” and then “Manage Records”
3. To view a record simply click on it.
4. You may also export the record to an XML or CSV file. These types of files can be used with Microsoft Excel. To do this:
   1. Tick the checkbox on the record or records that you wish to export.
   2. In the top right menu, click on “Export XML”.
   3. Follow the prompts and then you save the file to your computer.
   4. Open the file using Microsoft Excel.

If a record is viewed or exported, the record will be marked, and may appear to disappear from the list. This is because the list only shows new records by default. To view all records, including ones already viewed, exported and archived, follow these steps:

1. Click on "Both" under each of the three boxes "View Status", "Export Status" and "Archive status"
2. Click on "Save filter + reload"

It is also appropriate to filter by form (if you have multiple forms) before exporting, so all records have the same number of columns. This can be done by typing the form name in the "Form name" field and clicking "Save filter + reload".

Form overview

BreezingForms is very extensible and can even handle PHP-code directly connected to the form, this manual does not, however, cover such advanced usage.
To view the forms list:

1. Log into the administration page of your website
2. In the top left menu go to “Components”, then “BreezingForms” and then “Manage Forms”
3. This list shows you the different forms that exist within your website. Each form is organized into a package. You can use this to filter your forms so that you do not have to search through a giant list. To do this:
   1. Click on the “Package” drop down menu.
   2. Select the desired package and the list will be updated to show the contents of that package.
4. There are a number of columns on the “Manage Forms” page. These are:
   1. Title: the title of the form that you give it
   2. Name: the name of the form. This cannot have any spaces and should be kept very simple. For example, if you have a form whose title is “Contact Us Form” you could make the name: “contact_us”. These names must also be unique.
   3. Pages: the number of pages that the form as within it.
   4. Width: the width in pixels of the form. This is used for the layout and how the form fits into the page on the website
   5. Height: this the height of the form. Thus the height of your page.
   6. Script ID: this is the id for scripting purposes
   7. Reorder: used to reorder the list.
   8. Description: used to display the description of a form

Creating a new form

Follow these steps to get started in creating a form, starting from the "Manage Forms" screen, please note that some fields are not included here (if that is the case, do not change or enter any value in them):

1. Click on the "New" button in the top right corner
2. Enter the title of your new form
3. Enter the package whether it be new or existing
4. Enter a width and height, this should be an approximation, and can be updated at any time.
5. Select "All values" beside "Log To Database", this is to ensure correct CSV exports
6. You may enter a separate email address for this specific form by selecting "To Custom Address" beside "Email Notification" and enter the email address. If "To Default Address" is selected, the email address in the configuration is used, this is the preferred setting since it makes it much easier to change the address if you have multiple forms (but sometimes it cannot be used, if you require different forms to go to different email addresses).
7. Enter description (only for backend notes, and is not displayed on the form)
8. Click on Save

Adding questions to your form

When in the form editor, a list of all inputs is displayed to the left. Each input has a checkbox to the left, ticking will mark the input to be included in one of the following tasks (buttons to the top right):

• "Copy", duplicate the input instead of creating a new one, this can save you time and effort if two inputs are very similar. It is imperative to have unique input names in the form (duplicate input names may cause loss of data), do not forget to change the name of the input.
• "Move", this is only useful if you wish to move one input from one form to another.
• "Publish", make previously hidden inputs visible again (only selected inputs are changed).

• "Unpublish", hide the selected inputs (this does not delete anything).

The checkboxes are also used to move the input position, by ticking one or more and using the 4 green arrows to the right. When finished moving the inputs, click on "Save" which is just below the 4 green arrows.
To create a new input:

1. Click on "New" on the top right
2. Select type, one of the different types (not all types are covered here):
   1. "Static Text/HTML", this is used to display text only
      1. Use this for labels
   2. "Regular Button", use this type to create a submit button (see below)
   3. "Checkbox", regular tick box
   4. "Radio Button", circular option button.
   5. "Text", text input (one line)
   6. "Textarea", text input with multiple lines
   7. "Select List", drop down
3. Click on "Continue"
4. The structure of the next screen depends on the selection made in step 2, all field type have this in common though (fields not covered here can be left in default mode):
   1. Title, title as displayed in the backend after registrations have been made and in export files.
   2. Name, this must be unique and is used to reference the input. For example contact_us, or subscribe_email, or cool_new_form.
   3. Width and height, this is only valid for some types, e.g. text-areas and text inputs.
5. Validate the user input (still in the edit input screen):
   1. Click on the "Scripts" tab and click on "Library" under "Validation Script"
   2. This will reveal a textbox and a drop down with a number of options available.
   3. The "Message" text box contains the message displayed to the user when the validation fails.
   4. The "Script" dropdown contains all the different types of validation available, the most common are:
      1. FF::ff_checked, used to ensure a checkbox is ticked.
      2. FF::ff_validemail, used with text-fields to ensure the entered value is a valid email address.
      3. FF::ff_valuenotempty, used with text-fields to ensure a value is entered.
   5. Select the type of validation that you wish to be applied to your new input. For example if it were a text input and you wanted to make sure that the user entered something in the input, you would select “FF::ff_valuenotempty”.
6. Click on "Save" to save the new input in the list.
7. You will likely want to change the position of the input, to do so tick the checkbox to the left of the input and use the four green arrows to the right.
   1. Click on "save" to the right to commit the changes.
8. The ordering of the inputs is very important, since it decides in what order the user can tab through the form.
   1. The most efficient way to order inputs is to do it at the very end, through clicking on "Reorder" (column header in the input list). This uses the input position to determine the ordering, it can however be changed manually by clicking on the small green arrows in the input list.

Adding a form to a page

Do this after you have finished creating your form.

1. Log into the administration page of your websites (yoursite/administrator)
2. Go to “Extensions” and then “Module Manager” in the top left menu.
3. You must then create a form-module. To do this:
   1. Click on "New"
   2. Click on "BreezingForms"
   3. Enter a descriptive title (this is only displayed in the backend)
   4. Enter the form name in "Position" (this is both a drop down and text field, it allows you to type into it).
   5. Enter the form name in "Form Name"
   6. Click "Save"
4. Then you must create or edit an article to show the form. If you do not know how to create or edit an article, go here
5. On the article, type "{ loadposition [form-name] }" without the quotation marks, e.g. "{ loadposition contact_us }"
6. Then create a menu link if you created a new article. If you edited an existing article that is already linked, you do not need to worry about this step.