Author Archives: Katie

Increasing Awareness when Writing Articles

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Every article you write should increase the awareness of CF7 Skins. When looking for ideas or topics on what to write, look no further than a Google search. 

5+ million CF7 Users, 1000’s have problems using CF7 each day, we are there with answers to help them solve their particular problems

For example, search ‘Contact Form 7 getting started’ or ‘Contact Form 7 how to start’. Take the top few suggestions that are shown and fabricate your own Google search result.

How do you want or imagine your article appearing in that top list?

Tip: Use a SERP preview generator to help ensure you stay within pixel and character limits. 

Once you know how you want the search to appear, write the article in that category or create the category you need.

For additional help or ideas already waiting, see what is happening with CF7 Skins Support and check out the CF7 Skins Google Sheets – Blog Content Planning

The ‘Slack Distraction’

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Over the past few months, I have been working with a small (10 total with 4 developers) remote team. I noticed some comments creeping up on Slack that were along the lines of:

I'm exiting and logging out of Slack now so I can get some work done.

Then, the other day, the CEO (he is also a developer) was at his breaking point. He said:

Seriously, slack is a pathetic medium to get work done. Its equal to being on WhatsApp all day.

Slack is, arguably, the most popular tool used from small to large-sized companies for cross-team communication. What has been going wrong with our Slack team?

Slack Problems:

  1. Constantly being buzzed on my desktop and mobile device.
  2. Always seeing a notification that pulls my attention, distracting me.
  3. High priority questions getting lost in the noise.
  4. Lower priority discussions taking up time with responding.
  5. Long discussions with massive threads are hard to navigate.

As a team, we haven't yet come to a decisive answer on how to handle the above problems. However, I believe that each team is different in their communication style and we will need to adjust as CF7 Skins grows.

Communication is changing

The difficulty of remote, cross-team communication extends beyond process and available tools. It taps in directly to our cognitive evolution as a species.

Although most interactions are still offline, conversation and reading have essentially become more complex by going online or digital. We are suddenly immersed in new types of cognition during conversations where time and space seem to fold, or at least slightly bend. These new types of relational cognition add much to our lives.

Clifton Evans  |  Posted on March 20, 2018 
http://boxesandarrows.com/changing-minds/

The feelings of distraction and lack of focus are possibly a direct result of our brain adapting to new forms of communication.

Is Slack the answer for CF7 Skins communication?

As a fully remote team, how we will we know what is being worked on, if you are out for the day (or week), and how will you help other teammates who might be stuck on a problem that you have the solution for. How will we convey customer issues and discuss potential solutions? Where will we document and record this information? How will we share our knowledge with each other across teams so that we can build better, design better, and become more well-rounded in our field? 

I encourage everyone to think about the above questions as you are working and speaking with other teammates.  I don't have the answer or solution to a future problem, however, we can begin to imagine what could work for us. We all benefit from shared information and open communication so let's keep it that way… while not getting distracted.

Better Contact Form 7 Checkboxes & Radio Buttons

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Article explains use of important options available for Checkboxes & Radio Buttons in Contact Form 7.

Include example of completed CF7 tag with option.

See http://contactform7.com/checkboxes-radio-buttons-and-menus/

Checkbox & Radio Button Tag Syntax

See http://contactform7.com/tag-syntax/#form_tag

Setting Default Options

default:(num) default:2
default:1_2_3 Pre-checked options. The integer following default: is the position in the order of items. 1 is the first one. If you want to make two or more items selected, joint integers with underbar (_), as default:1_2_3.

Make checkboxes exclusive

exclusive Make checkboxes exclusive. I mean, when you check a checkbox in a group, others are unchecked, so it accepts zero checked or one checked. This is a JavaScript gimmick, so requires JavaScript. Radio button doesn’t support this option.

Add other field to checkboxes & radio buttons

free_text Append a free input text field to last item.

Layout Options for Checkboxes and Radio Buttons

label_first By default, a checkbox or a radio button are put first, and a label last. By adding label_first option, you can reverse them.

See also http://contactform7.com/custom-layout-for-checkboxes-and-radio-buttons/