At the beginning of this year, we successfully moved our website from CMS Joomla 1.0 to new Joomla 1.5. Along with the transfer, we added improvements, in particular in the area of the web administration. In addition, the pricelists is now easier to use. What is more, a sophisticated order form was added, and also an option to contact the customer support directly from the website.
The contact form is a simple module created by the coolhousing.net administrator in order to make the first contact between a client and the customer support easier. This action shows great results as during the recent period clients have used the functionality very often.
We often use complements to Joomla and decided to contribute a little, too. Experienced Joomla users would probably say that there are plenty of forms that are very similar so there is no need to add one more. However, our Cool Contact is somehow different. It does not offer just the option to show the contact form in the part of the web accessible to the public: its big advantage is that it is easy to link it to Google Goals, and – in case that the module is used for more pages within one website (e.g. on our website offering our services, you can always see the contact at the bottom part of the page), you know from which page the client had written the message/request.
A brief manual to explain the items
Although the contact form is rather small, you can adjust a variety of its parameters. Some of the names or explanations may seem confusing so we would like to provide short descriptions.
Small Intro Text – an introductory text at the form. You can write a couple of sentences or leave it empty
Mail from Name Label – the title of the first line in the form. This field is used for the sender’s name.
Email Label – the title of the second line in the form. This field is used for the sender’s e-mail address.
Subject Label – the title of the third line in the form. This field is used for the subject of the message.
Message Label – the title for of the fourth line in the form. This field is used for the body of the message.
Button Text – The only button in the form. Use it to submit the form. Here, you can change the text shown on the button.
Email Recipient – the -email address which the message is sent to after you have submitted it
Thank you text – the text that is displayed after you have submitted the form
Thanks Text Color – the colour of the text to say thank you (e.g. #FF0000)
Error page text – the text that is displayed if for any reason the e-mail cannot be sent out
Error Text Color – the colour of the error message (e.g. #FF0000)
No Email Error Message – e-mail address – the only obligatory field in the form. If the sender does not fill it out, it is impossible to send the e-mail.
Invalid Email Error Message – the colour of the text reporting the missing e-mail address (e.g. #FF0000)
Name Width – the length of the field in pixels (number)
Email Width – the length of the field in pixels (number)
Subject Width – the length of the field in pixels (number)
Spam Width – the length of the field in pixels (number)
Message Width – the length of the field in pixels (number)
Button Width – the length of the button in pixels (number)
Exact URL – auxiliary setting, only if your hosting does not comply with http and https
Disable HTTPS – sometimes https makes trouble in combination with other Joomla components
Anchor for url – after you have submitted the form, the page is restored. In case that the form is placed at the bottom of the page, you need to scroll down to check whether the e-mail has been submitted. This item creates an anchor that directs you back to the form.
Enable Anti-spam – spam is just everywhere. However, if you enable the module to registered users only, the antispam is redundant.
Anti-Spam Question – an antispam question (at your discretion)
Anti-Spam Answer – the correct answer to the antispam question
Enable Image – do you need to send an image with your form?
Select Image – select the image for the form
Image CSS – CSS styles that influence the image
Enable Google Goals – if you use Google Goals, you can activate it here
Google Goals script – insert the script for Google Goals
Module Class Suffix – add a suuffix to the module class
Enable Link for Coolhousing – if you use our module and you are happy with it, we would appreciate if you could display our link Thank you very much
Author: Jirka Dvořák
