Using the Contact Form DB plugin with your CF7 forms

My experience is that the submission storage plugins are very robust and rarely fail to save a CF7 form submit.

They are not however always a good indication of CF7 sending emails. The green “Your message was sent successfully” message is a much clearer indicator that CF7 is sending the email.

The submission storage plugins appear to save a CF7 form submit even if the email is not sent due to a Javascript Conflict or unallowed From: email address.

This is partly why I think they are so often used by experienced WP users – they provide a robust record of all form submissions even when things go a little wrong.

Using the Contact Form 7 Dynamic Text Extension plugin

http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7-dynamic-text-extension/

Contact Form 7 is an excellent WordPress plugin, and the CF7 DTX Plugin makes it even more awesome by adding dynamic content capabilities. While default values in Contact Form 7 are static. CF7 DTX lets you create pre-populated fields based on other values. Some examples might include:

Auto-filling a URL
Auto-filling a Post ID, title, or slug
Pre-populating a Product Number
Referencing other content on the site
Populating with post info
Populating with user info
Populating with custom fields
Any value you can write a shortcode for

There are many more case-specific examples. I searched for a solution, and there are some decent hacks out there. Many of them are explored in this forum topic: Contact Form 7 Input Fields Values as PHP Get-Viarables. However, they all involved hacking the current Contact Form 7 code, which means next time the plugin is updated their edits will be overwritten. That’s bad.

This Dynamic Text Extension plugin provides a more elegant solution that leaves the Contact Form 7 Plugin intact.

See also http://sevenspark.com/wordpress-plugins/how-to-dynamically-set-the-recipient-to-email-address-in-contact-form-7

See also http://sevenspark.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-counter-for-contact-form-7

See also http://sevenspark.com/code/how-to-create-a-dynamic-wordpress-contact-form

Why we use Fieldset, Legend & Lists in CF7 Skins

Using Fieldsets & Labels

http://www.pixy.cz/blogg/clanky/css-fieldsetandlabels.html

Styling Forms using Unordered & Ordered Lists

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/860745/p-vs-ol-or-ul-for-form-styling
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1395514/is-it-acceptable-to-use-tables-for-forms-or-is-it-still-more-correct-to-use-div
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/109488/is-it-bad-design-to-use-table-tags-when-displaying-forms-in-html

Styling checkboxes & radio buttons

Styling Checkboxes & Radiobuttons

Styling checkboxes and radio buttons using CSS
The styling of checkboxes and radio buttons became possible with the introduction of the :checked pseudo-class in CSS3.

http://ryanfait.com/resources/custom-checkboxes-and-radio-buttons/
This JavaScript and CSS will allow you to use custom images to style checkboxes, radio buttons and drop down menu select lists.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1125226/styling-checkboxes-radio-buttons-and-dropdowns
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/306252/how-to-align-checkboxes-and-their-labels-consistently-cross-browsers
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4609769/control-text-wrapping-with-inline-list-of-checkboxes
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/tutorials/htmlcss-tutorials/quick-tip-easy-css3-checkboxes-and-radio-buttons/
http://www.456bereastreet.com/lab/form_controls/checkboxes/

Better Contact Form 7 Checkboxes & Radio Buttons

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/