User friendly ’field missing’ warnings for comment form

Lodewijk

Posted: 08 May 2006 11:36 AM

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Joined 10-18-2004

I’m trying to make the following work:

If a guest user leaves a comment, he/she has to fill in all required fields. Required fields are (in this case) Name, Email, URL, Location and Comment. If that user neglects to fill in any of those fields, the comment form should re-appear, but this time with notifications next to the input fields—something like ‘It is required that you fill in this field’.

In the way EE works now, if you ‘forget’ to fill in required fields, the user gets a plain error message, including a JavaScript link to go back. Works in a basic way, but there’s room for improvement, here.

I could play with some DOM scripting to check the fields and add the notifications, but the point is, I want this to work for users without JavaScript as well (hey, it’s a matter of principal).

I probably have to write a plugin for this to work to check the required fields with PHP. Any pointers?

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Lodewijk

Posted: 09 May 2006 01:41 AM

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*kchk* please acknowlegde, over *kchk*

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Robin Sowell

Posted: 09 May 2006 07:43 AM

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JS is the way I’d have gone, because otherwise you’re right- it requires a hack/plugin/extension. The main file you’ll need to look at is system/modules/mod.comment.php- and you can probably manage this with an extension. Though I won’t swear to it.

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Lodewijk

Posted: 11 May 2006 07:31 AM

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Right. So I built this quick plugin, and it seems to work. Comment Form Plus is a replacement for the {exp:comment:form} tag (but without the preview option for now…) and can be used like this:

{exp:commentform_plus weblog="my_weblog" required="name|email|comment|spamguard"}
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Add a comment</legend>

      <p><label for="name">Name *{if no_name} <span class="alert">Please fill in your name</span>{/if}</label>
      <input type="text" name="name" id="email" value="{name}" /></p>

      <p><label for="email">Email *{if no_email} <span class="alert">Please enter a valid email address</span>{/if}</label>
      <input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="{email}" /></p>

      <p><label for="url">URL</label>
      <input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="{url}" /></p>

      <p><label for="comment">Comment *{if no_comment} <span class="alert">What? No comment?</span>{/if}</label>
      <textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="25" rows="5">{comment}</textarea></p>

      <p><input type="checkbox" name="notify_me" id="notify_me" value="yes" {notify_me} />
      <label for="notify_me">Notify me</label></p>

      <p><input type="checkbox" name="spamguard" id="spamguard" value="yes" />
      <label for="spamguard">This is not spam *{if no_spamguard} <span class="alert">Tick this box, please</span>{/if}</label></p>

      <p><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /></p>

  </fieldset>
{/exp:commentform_plus} 

If someone forgets to fill in one of the required fields, the form is shown again, with the {if no_thingie} conditionals properly parsed. When everything is filled in correctly, the form is submitted and the comment will be added. I’ve attached the plugin if anyone else is interested.

File Attachments

pi.commentform_plus.php.txt (File Size: 5KB - Downloads: 133)

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Robin Sowell

Posted: 11 May 2006 07:35 AM

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Sweet- and thanks for sharing it. I’m actually going to move this over to the plugin forum. It will be a lot easy for folks to find as they search that forum in the future.

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mdesign

Posted: 12 February 2007 11:27 AM

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Joined 03-26-2006

Thanks, Low, I just put this plugin to use today. Works great. Thanks for sharing.

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