Site logo
Loghound.com
It's not you, it's the machine

@gform


@gform allows you to easily create web forms where the data is populated in a google spreadsheet. This is uber cool as a way to get sign up lists, make polls or otherwise interact via web forms.

Getting started is easy. There are four version depending on how you want to handle the 'thank you for submitting portion' and the text below can be used as a 'quick reference'

Command Action on submit
@gform((key:form_key)) uses google standard action
@gform((key:form_key, thanks:thanks message)) Displays the ‘thanks message’ as typed
@gform((key:form_key, thanksURL:URL to redirect after submitting)) Redirects to the specified URL (URL should be of type some.page.com without the preceding http://)
@gform((key:form_key, thanksPage:Page contents to show after submitting)) Displays contents of RapidWeaver page (similar to a @import)


Finding the "Key"



ZZ2F1CFD9F
The first argument 'key' comes from google when you make a form. To get one create a new spreadsheet in google docs (or open an existing one) and go to the 'share' tab

ZZ572D1A72
From there select 'to fill out a form'. Google docs will ask you to start editing the form -- from here you can create questions with, determine what type of answers are allowable, etc. When you are complete Google docs will ask you to 'choose recipients'



ZZ39589D90
On that page they will give you the option of emailing people -- don't do that, just note down the 'key' in the form URL -- It's a long series of numbers and letters (in this case pegfyTc.....)


Determining the Action



After you have the key you need to decide what action should occur when the user hits 'submit' -- there are four options outlined above ranging from the default 'google' action, simple text string, redirect to a URL or display the contents of another RapidWeaver page (think of this as similar to a @import)

For instance to simply use the default google action you would type
@gform((key:pegfyTc8f6LYH3togWa2AWQ))

If you wanted the form to be replaced with a message "Thanks for submitting" you would say (good for simple messages)
@gform((key:pegfyTc8f6LYH3togWa2AWQ,thanks:Thanks for submitting))

If you wanted the to redirect the user to http://loghound.com you would use the form shown below -- (this is good if you have an external page that you want them to go to)
@gform((key:pegfyTc8f6LYH3togWa2AWQ,thanksURL:loghound.com))

Finally, if you had a page that was title 'thank you message' you would use (This option is good if your thank you message is elaborate or includes graphics)
@gform((key:pegfyTc8f6LYH3togWa2AWQ,thanksPage:thank you message))

Other notes:



You will want to add some custom CSS to get things to look right, below is the suggested CSS that should allow you to keep your overall theme look while making the form look a bit cleaner.


.ss-q-title {
font-weight: bold;
display: block;
}

.ss-form-desc {
font: inherit;
white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;
width: 99%;
}

.ss-q-help {
color: #666;
}

.ss-form-entry {
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
}

.ss-choices {
list-style: none;
margin: 0.5em 0 0 0;
padding: 0;
}


Where does the form data go?



If you go back to your spreadsheet you will see that magically new header text has been entered, as users submit the form it gets added, one row at a time (for up to 5000 rows). Lots of interesting things can be done with this, for instance you can go in and edit entries using the spreadsheet tools. You can do analysis using spreadsheet formulas or you can display the results on a page using @gtable





© 2006 Loghound.com