Idiots guide to configuring the email...

Mar 25th, 2012 at 11:50 AM
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Chris Maunder
Registered User
7 posts

Hi all,

I've just designed my first form using the form builder and really like its simplicity. Unfortunately I have no coding knowledge what-so-ever and don't really know where to start to improve the form output that gets sent to customers and the client.

Here's the code I've currently got in the 'configure e-mail 'message:

"<!DOCTYPE html>
<html dir="ltr" lang="en">
<head><title>You got mail!</title></head>
<body style="background-color: #f9f9f9; padding-left: 110px; padding-top: 70px; padding-right: 20px; max-width: 700px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial;">
<style type="text/css">
body {background-color: #f9f9f9;padding-left: 110px;padding-top: 70px; padding-right: 20px;max-width:700px;font-family: Helvetica, Arial;}
p{font-size: 10px; color: #666666;}
h2{font-size: 12px !important;color: #666666 ! important;margin: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #00A2FF; padding-bottom:3px;}
td {font-size: 12px !important; line-height: 30px;color: #666666 !important; margin: 0px;border-bottom: 1px solid #e9e9e9;}
td:first-child {font-size: 13px !important; font-weight:bold; color: #333 !important; vertical-align:text-top; min-width:100px; padding-right:5px;}
a:link {color:#666666; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited {color:#666666; text-decoration:none;} a:hover {color:#00A2FF;}
b{font-weight: bold;}
</style>
<h2 style="font-size: 12px !important;color: #666666 ! important;margin: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #00A2FF; padding-bottom:3px;">An online application has been submitted.
<div>
[form_results]
</body>
</div>
</html>"

It produces an OK output but ideally I'd like the following features:

1) All email output in a basic table so it's easier to read across between question and answer

2) Only fields that have been completed by the customer appear in the e-mail

3) Key questions to be grouped according to the section breaks in my form. For example, all contact detail to be presented together in a clear way (i.e - first name, surname, contact details are grouped).

Is there an idiot's guide to configuring the email messages, could someone start me off in the right direction? :D

All the best

Chris

P.S - I'd be more than happy to share the form if that would help?
Feb 10th, 2013 at 05:57 PM
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Robert Alexander
Ambassador
5 posts

I guess no one seemed to be able to help with this. Sounded like a good idea. Maybe you found a solution elsewhere?
Feb 10th, 2013 at 08:12 PM
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Jo Rice
Senior Advisor
10,951 posts

Unfortunately there's no easy way to explain this, hence why probably no answers. It takes total HTML and CSS to work around the response and reply emails (did for the old one too really). You can do it yourself though, for getting whatever fields you want wherever you want them, but it's an HTML thing and you'd need to remove the default results code part and put in the fields manually yourself with line breaks and formatting of spacing etc. It can definitely be done though. If you're looking for someone to hire to do that let me know and I can give you a good price on it.

Unfortunately, as far as I know anyways, it's not possible to tell the program what fields to show by way of whether they were answered or not in the form. That would be an awesome thing if we could control that one little aspect. Someone else may know if there's some work around for that or not though, but I don't know of one myself. Far as I know the program will show each field whether it's answered or not.

Hope that helps, and wish I had better news for you on both accounts. No easy outs on it unfortunately.
Jo

http://elementsinwebdesign.com
Feb 11th, 2013 at 04:38 PM
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Prism
Ambassador
1,611 posts

Jo Anne
Far as I know the program will show each field whether it's answered or not.

You are right Jo Anne but with little study and Google, a script can be constructed to answer and send emails based on the input to the form, Does require a bit of study but not to0 difficult. Eric has demonstrated some great examples using scripts to interpret results. Php mail scripts available as well as those interrogating the MySQL or csv. Also there are examples how to display HTML with a php script.

So Chris it may be a daunting task at first but you will be surprised how easy it becomes. Also if you load Wamp you can test the scripts on your computer.
The Guy from OZ

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