Joomla Forms :: Update On Development Progress
Dear Fans 
Well its been a while since we released a version of Joomla! Forms and now a lot of you are asking for it!
I want to apologise for the delay in this version, which is not only a bug fix version, but also has a MAJOR new feature which can be found in a, so-called, “competing product” but was not really a core feature of phil-a-form or Joomla Forms before. We need a bit of time to implement this as it meant major structure changes in our code, plus we also wanted all forms to be backwardly compatible.
I am pleased to say we are “almost” there!, but not quite.
Recently I have been forced to move house and have had other personal issues to resolve this side of my monitor, and therefore code has taken second place to support and emails.
The number one requested feature so far has to be the inclusion of forms in Content Items and Module Positions. This feature has not yet been coded, but I am hopeful that it will make it in the next release mentioned above.
We have also made huge improvements in validation rules, new field types and custom submit actions – so keep all eyes peeled on this blog for more announcements to follow…
Joomla Forms – Preview – Export Options
Continuing our look at the features of Joomla Forms, we are pleased to show that Form Submissions in Joomla Forms can now be extracted from the database in several ways.
Currently we have options for exporting the data to XML format and CSV format – two of the most useable and compatible formats for exchanging data between different applications and suported by all good applications!
We even have the options to backup your form’s configuration, form field configs and actions configurations to XML file so that you can restore or move forms between your sites easily without having to recreate them!
This, coupled with the built in submissions manager (see tomorrows post) we think will make managing your submissions a breeze
Joomla Forms – Preview – Standards Compliant
Continuing our look at the features of Joomla Forms, we are pleased to announce that Joomla Forms is 100% xHTML Compliant and passes the W3C Markup Validation.
This is important for sites that are concerned with this type of validation, and also shows our commitment to producing quality output from our components. We are working hard on getting the CSS compliant (We use a couple of CSS3 attributes at the moment which only render in Firefox and not MS IE7 – we will resolve that before release I am sure)
Joomla Forms – Preview – Field Validation Rules
We are getting ever closer to releasing our flagship new product – Joomla Forms, the Form generator and processor for Joomla 1.0.x AND Joomla 1.5.x
One of the best features of Joomla Forms is the new validation rules, currently these are 22 validators (More added daily at the moment!) ranging from the basic ones (Required) to more complex ones (Must match Regex).
All the validation rules are processed in PHP and not Javascript, meaning that it is impossible to submit the form without passing the validations set by the form creator. Javascript based validations can be easily bypassed by spammers thats why we have chosen to write ours in the PHP model.
Most of the validation rules are simple to configure, requiring nothing more than clicking the Yes radio box to enable them – really simple – mightly powerful!
Click here to see a preview of some of the validation options in Joomla Forms today.
Coming Soon – Joomla Forms – The Next Generation Forms Extension for Joomla 1.5 !
Joomla 1.5 and Forms and Phil-a-Form
Wow so many people keep emailing me asking about Form Generation in Joomla 1.5!
We have already stated several times that Phil-a-form is not compatible AT ALL with Joomla 1.5, not even with the legacy plugin enabled.
This is because of the complex way that PAF is coded, and the fact that even though Joomla claims backward compatibility, there is really little – why on earth rename the mambots folder! just one of many reasons why Phil-a-form will not work in Joomla 1.5.
But Good News Is Coming!
For over a year now (well ok, we started over a year ago but development has been pretty much done recently), we have been developing a new bread of form generation extension for Joomla – code named (funny) Joomla Forms. We have built on all our experience in this area (we were the developers of the first ever Mambo Form Component – and have been copied a lot since) and using this experience, along with all the neat new features available on the web today – we have created a brand new form generation and processing extension for Joomla (Yes it will be compatible with Joomla 1.5.x and Joomla 1.0.x !! )
DO NOT KEEP ASKING us to tell you when it will be released we will drop hints from time to time in this blog.
If you are using Joomla 1.0.x You can purchase Phil-a-form today – and get a free copy of “Joomla Forms” when it is released!