hello, I would be grateful to run this by the forum ... my client has a referral form - which is currently a paper form - 2 sides of A4. We were going to simply have it as a downloadable form on the site. BUT, the idea of it being an online form has now popped up!

So I've been looking at databound forms documentation and postings on the forum about multi-part forms - particularly this one http://www.couchcms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7134&hilit=form+multi&start=20

Am a bit confused about how to achieve the objective in the best (and easiest) way ...

It would work well for my client to have the form submissions persisted to the Couch database and viewable as cloned pages via the admin panel. And since the form is quite a long one it would be ideal if it were multi-part.

Am I right in thinking that making a form multi-part doesn't in any way 'save' the data during the completion process? It just breaks up the form into chunks with each chunk being validated before the next can be entered?

Should I be using a multi-part form and then db_persist?

With databound forms is the person submitting able to edit the submitted form?

I expect my client would want to print the forms off from the Admin Panel - is there a particular method for printing off a cloned page?

Thanks in advance for feedback!

[KK]

Hi potato,

Am I right in thinking that making a form multi-part doesn't in any way 'save' the data during the completion process?

That is correct. As you figured out yourself - a multi-part form serves only to break up a form into chunks with each chunk being validated before the next can be entered.

I'd just add to it that the last step provides all submitted values (across all steps) at a single place. Place a <cms:dump /> at the last step to see what is available.

It totally is up to you as to what you do with those values. You could email them, for example, or persist them as cloned pages by feeding the values to cms:db_persist_form or cms:db_persist tag.

Should I be using a multi-part form and then db_persist?

As explained above, use db_persist in the last step of the multi-step form.

With databound forms is the person submitting able to edit the submitted form?

The visitor will be able to move back and forth through the various steps of the form and edit the values. However, once the last step is reached and 'submit' is clicked the form is no longer editable from the front-end.

I expect my client would want to print the forms off from the Admin Panel - is there a particular method for printing off a cloned page?

There could be several ways of doing this.

I think one could be to display the submitted values in the page-view of the form template (place an check to allow only admins have access to this view). So, the admin can click on the 'magnifying glass' icon or press 'View' from admin-panel to reach the page view and see a formatted version of the submitted values. Place a 'Print' button there to invoke JS (with print specific CSS) to get a print out.

Hope it helps.

many thanks ... will give it a go

Hi,

For printing pages I use MPDF http://www.mpdf1.com/mpdf/index.php. It's quite easy to install and use.

thanks @Tomarnst - I'll look into that.

Another question on data security - pre-empting the question from my client. Some of the data being given on the form is personal data - name, address, email etc

I have previously set up simple forms using the cms:form tag. Is the data sent by email encrypted? Do I have to use PHPMailer for that?

Obviously data on the database is a hosting issue - I think I'll need to investigate SSL certificates?

[KK]

PHPMailer (or any other library, for that matter) won't be of any help when it comes to the security of data being transmitted from the browser to the server.

Using SSL is the only solution.