Form & Input Fields Now Editable

The form builder now allows the modification of input fields and web form details. Click on the Form Field icon to edit a form or field.

Getting Help on FormSmarts

At FormSmarts, we are pleased to let you use our web form platform absolutely free. However, whenever we have to help you in person, we ask you to spend a few minutes writing a review on one the following websites, before we take some of our time to help you.

About Writing Reviews

We ask you to write reviews that are useful to readers, not spam. If you’re using FormSmarts, there must be reasons: talking about features you like about FormSmarts is probably a good start.

Contact Us When Done

Once you’re done, contact us.

Form Processor Upgrade: More Interactivity for Web Form Users and More

We’ll be upgrading at the end of the week some key components of FormSmarts. The changes will affect both form users and form owners.

More Interactivity for Web Form Users

  • form users can modify any invalid data they may have submitted in the same page, rather than having to press the back button
  • form users can modify submitted data even when form data is not cached by the browser, or if JavaScript is disabled
  • we’ve added features to improve the experience of visually-impaired users equipped with screenreaders

Changes in Email Notification of Form Results

  • new email subject format [Form #123] My Form Name #456
  • the first part [Form #123] is fixed so that you can use it to create a filter within your mail client
  • emails now include a unique transaction ID, e.g. #456 that can be used, for example, as an order number for order forms (form users are shown the transaction ID on the confirmation page)
  • whenever your form contains an email field, you can now reply to sender hitting the reply button in your email client
  • because of the previous point, we no longer show your pass-phrase in every email

Any Feature Suggestions for FormSmarts?

We’ve added a feature suggestion form. You can vote for features requested by others and suggest new ones. Now is the time to have your say.

In average, we release a new version of FormSmarts form builder or form processing engine weekly.

New Web Form Creator Demo Video Available

We’ve added a new demonstration video to help new FormSmarts users get started. The video is on YouTube, and a higher quality version is available for download form the Internet Archive.

FormSmarts Form Creator Now Supports All HTML Form Field Types

We are pleased to announce that FormSmarts now supports the full range of HTML form input fields. Users can now update their web forms and create new ones using Drop Down Lists, Radio Buttons, and Checkboxes.

We are in the process of updating relevant documentation on the site.

Update: see how to choose the correct form input field.

Tips for Web Form Users with Non-English Language Websites

Many users in non-English speaking countries now use FormSmarts, so we thought we would post a few recommendations for them.

When building your forms with the form creator, use the text data type for any fields that may contain non-English characters, such as the accented characters found in many European languages (All data types now support all languages/character sets).
Note that non-European languages like Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Russian are not supported at this time.

As you know, FormSmarts form handler is not a simple form to email processor script like FormMail. Each and every web form submission is analyzed in real time, and the user may be asked to complete a challenge if we suspect a form spam attempt. Although anyone capable of reading elementary English should be able to understand what is expected from him/her in that context, this is something you may have to take into account when designing your web forms. You could for example warn users in the form filling instructions.

If you need help, we provide limited support in French, German, and Chinese (as well as English, of course.) You can write us in any of those languages, but we will only reply in English.

Displaying Your Own Logo on Your Forms

FormSmarts users can now display their own logo in the top left corner of their forms.

Note that because each logo must be reviewed manually, we ask you to spend a few minutes to help us publicize FormSmarts before we take some of our time to validate your logo. Alternatively, you may get your logo validated for a small fee of US$ 5 per logo submitted. You may help us by:

  • writing reviews about us on relevant sites and blogs (e.g. Scripts.com, HotScripts)
  • posting a video on YouTube showing how to use FormSmarts (gets you free validation of all of your logos)

Once done, ask us to validate your logo.

Will FormSmarts Remain Free?

A few people asked if FormSmarts will remain free. Although we may some day offer FormSmarts as commercial service with SLA and additional features, the basic service will remain free.

Note that we will need to charge a one-off fee for some services. For example, we will soon allow users to upload a custom website logo to appear on their web forms. Each image will require human validation, so we’ll need to charge a small fee for this. We will however lift the fee for users who have referred friends/site visitors to FormSmarts, wrote reviews about us on relevant sites, posted a video about using FormSmarts on Youtube, etc.

Show a Form Owner Name on Your Forms

Increase user confidence by letting us verify you own the websites you are using with FormSmarts. FormSmarts will then display a verified form owner name in the top-right corner of all your forms.

To verify your sites, sign in to FormSmarts, and choose the Verified Websites option in the Settings tab. The form owner name can currently only be a verified web hostname. We will soon also support verified personal or company names. More details here.

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About the Form Builder Blog

The Online Form Builder Blog is published by FormSmarts, a web form service providing all you need to create a form and publish it online in minutes. FormSmarts makes it easy to build a form and embed it on your site. You can then get form submissions by email or store them on FormSmarts and download an Excel report. Learn more about the many other benefits of FormSmarts.