Thread

Hello

I need to build a simple petition. Can you help?

Users should enter the following details:

*Name
*Location
*Email
*Opt-in to further communication yes/no

Then the system should send them an email. In that email they should have a link to click that can confirm their email, and add their name to the petition, which will be displayed on another page. We’d like to be able to email all people who’ve opted in.

That’s basically it. The reason I’m asking here is that having searched these forums, there seem to be a few options, none of which are ideal:

Using comments
Not sure how to get the email confirmation working for this. Plus I don’t want people to be able to add themselves twice.

Using member registration
The templates for the member area seem like a nightmare to restyle, and people who sign the petition don’t need all the complex member functionality.

Solspace User Module
Seems like it might be the easiest, but I’d rather not pay $90 if I don’t have to.

Does anyone have a better idea? Or an example of what they’ve done?
Help would be greatly appreciated.

Moresided,

Sounds to me like a perfect job for the Solspace Freeform Module.

You setup the information you want to collect in your control panel, it collects it, emails you and the user (if you wish), stores the response in the database and you can sign them up for the mailing list.

You can even display the results on your site if you wish.  It’s a very handy module that I have found many different uses for.

Good luck,

-greg

I second that. It’s free, too 😊

Ok thanks! Going to try it out.

Not to dissuade you from using EE. But sometimes other solution are just simpler. Have a look at online form builder solutions e.g. wufoo.com

Most of them are free up to a point and can be integrated into your page.

Thanks for the help guys. It’s up now:
http://www.stopclusterbombs.ie/

I’m glad it worked for you.

Your design on that site is killin’!  Nice work!

-greg

Thanks for the help guys. It’s up now:
http://www.stopclusterbombs.ie/

Thanks!

I thought I should note down briefly how I did the petition so that others can follow along if they need to. The main issue is that the mailing list does not store any other fields apart from IP and email address - but I did want people to have to confirm their email in order to appear on the list. So I had to combine the mailing list with Freeform to store and retrieve other data, like name, country etc for each entry - which I wanted to show on the list.

1. Download Solspace’s Freeform module and install.
2. Create a mailing list - I called mine ‘petition’
3. Create a template for your petition form, and use something like this for the freeform start tag:

{exp:freeform:form form_name="petition" return="petition/thanks" required="first_name|last_name|email" prevent_duplicate_on="email" mailinglist="petition" mailinglist_opt_in="yes"}

The idea is that users who enter their details automatically receive an email asking them to confirm - this is sent by the mailing list module. When they click the link in the email they get added to the mailing list. Their details like name, country etc are saved into the freeform module.

4. To display a list only of people who have confirmed their email address, use an SQL query to match Freeform entries to people who have confirmed their email and as such been added to the mailing list:

{exp:query sql="SELECT exp_freeform_entries.first_name as 'first_name',exp_freeform_entries.last_name as 'last_name',exp_freeform_entries.country as 'country',exp_freeform_entries.entry_date as 'entry_date',exp_freeform_entries.entry_id as 'entry_id' FROM exp_freeform_entries, exp_mailing_list WHERE exp_freeform_entries.email = exp_mailing_list.email ORDER BY exp_freeform_entries.entry_id DESC"}

As you can see, only entries which match email to email will be shown.

5. As an extra touch, use a PHP counter to show the number of each person who has signed the petition:

<?php $total_results = {total_results}+1;
$count = {count};?>

And then on each row:
<?php echo ($total_results - $count); ?>

I think that’s it. Well it seems to work anyway 😊

moresided,

That’s a great explanation. You should consider adding it to the wiki!!!

OK I’ve added it now.
http://expressionengine.com/wiki/A_simple_petition/
May ye all create petitions aplenty.

Brilliant, that’s really helpful. Thanks for posting that, moresided.  😊