The Form Builder Blog

Attaching Multiple Email Recipients to a Form

With the new version of FormSmarts, Pro users can now subscribe to form results using one or more of the following mechanisms:

• Email subscription. Subscribe one or more email recipients.
• Stored form results. Aggregate form submissions on FormSmarts, and
  download them later as Microsoft Excel documents.

A notable change is of course the ability to send forms to several email addresses. The allowance of one email recipient per form for users of the free service stays unchanged.

The new subscription mechanism should best fit the needs of most users. We welcome your feedback about this development.

Posted on January 20th, 2009 in form builder.
2 Comments »
Tags: form results, form submission, form to email, pro

Create Multi-Language Forms

We’ve now released the first international version of FormSmarts. Form users now see instructions, error messages, and confirmation messages in their preferred language. FormSmarts is already available in 23 languages, and several more translations are under way.

The languages supported are: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. If your language is not listed and you are willing and able to translate FormSmarts into your language, sign up here.

Other changes worth mentioning:

• Create forms in any language. Because of the character encoding that was used, web forms could before only be designed using a West-European language. FormSmarts now supports all languages.
• Now using ISO date format. The date format accepted was changed to the ISO format YYYY-MM-DD. Note that because most users enter dates with a date-picker, the impact of this change is very small in practice. The format used on the confirmation page and in email notifications has not been changed.
• New form URL format. The default form URL format was changed to accommodate forms which title is not in English. The previous URL format that was based on form title is still supported for backward compatibility.

We welcome your feedback about this new version of FormSmarts. Please report any problems you may find.

Posted on November 30th, 2008 in form builder.
2 Comments »
Tags: international, web forms

FormSmarts Soon in More Languages

We’ve started to translate FormSmarts’ form handler into other languages. When the international version is released, form users will see instructions, error messages, and confirmation messages in their preferred language.

International form owners will welcome this move, but not only them.

• FormSmarts users with international websites will be able to create forms in English, while making them available to an international audience without any extra efforts;
• a U.S. user with a preferred language set to Spanish in his browser will see messages in that language.

Note that the internationalization in progress only applies to the form processor at this time. At the rate we introduce new features to the form builder, we wouldn’t be able to keep translations in sync.

We’ve already emailed international users to ask anyone able and willing to translate FormSmarts into their own language to sign up. If you would like to contribute but didn’t get the email, please register here.

Update: We would like to thank all the users who have already volunteered to translate FormSmarts into their language. Our most wanted languages are currently:

• Chinese (Simplified) / 中文 (简体)
• Japanese / 日本語
• Russian / русский
• Italian / italiano
• Polish / polski
• Korean / 한국어

Posted on September 16th, 2008 in form handler.
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Tags: international, upcoming

Get More Fields for Your Forms

As a user of the standard (free) web form service, you can increase the number of fields you can use on your forms by inviting your friends to FormSmarts. We’ll award you one extra field for each legitimate person you refer to FormSmarts.

If you need even more fields, you should upgrade your account.

Earning referral points is easy:

1. Start earning referral points right now by inviting your friends and colleagues to FormSmarts from the Settings tab of your account (Referrals option);
2. Introduce your visitors to FormSmarts from your website or Facebook page using the referral link shown in your account.

Any questions about referral points? Post a comment below.

Posted on September 6th, 2008 in Smarts Points.
4 Comments »
Tags: Smarts Points

Calling Embedded Form Users!

Form Widget Size Calculation Upgraded

To accommodate users who need to create forms with a large number of fields, we’ve recently introduced a much more sophisticated way to calculate form widget size. If forms on your site currently display a scrollbar, we strongly advise you to upgrade the form embedding code.

Refresh the Code on Your Website When You Add a Field

Once you have inserted the HTML code for the form widget on your site, we cannot resize it at our end. That means that whenever you add more input fields, you must refresh the code on your website. If you don’t do it, a scrollbar may show up, and some users may not be able to see the bottom of the form.

Space at the Bottom of Web Forms Is Normal

The spare space at the bottom of web forms is there for a reason: leaving enough space for error messages that may occur during form submission. Here again, if you remove that space, a scrollbar may show up, and some users may not see the bottom of the form.

Optimizing form widget size is not a simple issue because it depends on the rendering characteristics of the diverse web browsers, as well as on the different aspects of each form. If you believe the size of a form you’ve created is not optimal, let us know.

Posted on August 15th, 2008 in form builder.
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Tags: widget

Introducing Form Layouts

We’re pleased to now support two form layouts.

Question (a.k.a. field name) and input field aligned horizontally (default):

Question and input field aligned vertically:

Which Layout Should You Use?

Most people find web forms designed with the first layout clearer and easier to read. That’s why we use it by default whenever you create a form.

The best layout to use depends on the length of the questions asked on the form.

• When a form is made of short questions like name or email address, prefer the first layout. This is what you should use, for example, for contact forms.
• When the form contains longer questions like Why do you want to work for us?, you should rather use the second layout. It turns out that you should use the second layout for most complex forms like web surveys and job application forms.

How to Change the Layout of a Form

You can change the layout of a form in the form details page. Note that if you’re using a form widget embedded into your site, you must update the HTML code on your site whenever you switch layout.

This is simply because the layout affects the size of the form. Forms accessed by their FormSmarts.com URL don’t have this restriction.

Any Feedback About Form Layouts?

We welcome your feedback about this feature.

Posted on August 14th, 2008 in HTML form.
7 Comments »
Tags: form design, usability, widget

Stored Form Results

Whenever someone uses one of your forms, we email you the form submission straight away. That is, at this time, the only way we support for you to access form results.

That’s great if you need to collect time-sensitive information that needs to be processed individually. For example, for contact forms or order forms.

For most individuals and small businesses, their email account is where data is safest. Free email services like Gmail or Yahoo give you reliable data storage, that’s an advantage that is often overlooked.

But sometimes what you want is really to collect form data, store it somewhere, and use it later. That’s what you need for medium and large scale surveys, registration forms, and the likes.

Stored form results is the next big thing coming up on FormSmarts.

What Will Change with Stored Form Results?

When this feature becomes available, you’ll have the option to store form submissions on FormSmarts. You’ll then be able to download them, export them to Microsoft Excel, get them emailed to you weekly, or get them via a private RSS feed.

Stored Form Results will only be available to FormSmarts Pro customers. Users of the free service can however get a free upgrade to FormSmarts Pro if they earn enough SmartsPoints, FormSmarts’ reward scheme.

Anything to Say?

We’re open to suggestions about other ways to let users retrieve stored form data.

Posted on August 5th, 2008 in form handler.
2 Comments »
Tags: form to excel, stored form results, upcoming

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