Help! I Can’t Find The Right WordPress Contact Form Plugin

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In WordPress we have a lot of options to create contact forms. But I can’t seem to find the best solutions. I even think to create my own contact forms plugin.

My Requirements Are:

  1. Responsive.
    Not only in form output/front-end. Administration panel need to work in mobile devices. Well, at least usable, I understand that some features might need to be hidden/disabled in small screen devices for usability and UX. But not broken.
  2. Use WordPress UI:
    Seamless integration with WordPress, native-feel. I’m not a fan of app-like fancy UI. Professional. No excessive branding with cute icon/logo. If possible no cross-selling of add-ons/upgrade (or easy way to disable it).
  3. Simple and easy to use:
    User need to be able to use it without the need to learn proper form HTML markup.
  4. Little to no learning curve:
    No excessive features, I just need a contact form not a shopping cart, not a user registration form. If the code base is extendable and able to do all this via add-on that’s a plus. But it’s not necessary and not needed in the “core” plugins.
  5. Theme and Template Friendly:
    Can be added in a page template, any template file, no need to be in the “loop”. Simple shortcode to display the form should work with do_shortcode() function.

So, basically, something basic that I can use on my clients site and that’s it.

Of course anti spam features (maybe custom honey pot or integration with recaptcha/akismet) is also a requirements.

Here are several of my issue with current contact forms solutions (not in particular order):

Table of contents
  1. Contact Form 7
  2. Jetpack Contact Form Module
  3. NinjaForms
  4. WPForms Lite
  5. Formidable Forms (Lite)
  6. GravityForms
  7. Fast Secure Contact Form

Read More Help! I Can’t Find The Right WordPress Contact Form Plugin

Why Do We Ask: What’s Your Budget?

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I didn’t ask this question a lot. But recently a client linked to an article, possibly to make sure I didn’t ask for their estimate budget for the project (which is fine):

The Worst Question To Ask Your Clients: “What’s Your Budget?”

The article covers some valid points. Asking budget question might be a sign for:

  1. Lack of knowledge
  2. Signal of deception
  3. No value
  4. No due diligence, etc.

But I don’t always agree. In some case asking for budget is totally fine. Read More Why Do We Ask: What’s Your Budget?

WordPress AJAX for Beginners

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wp-ajax

In recent projects I use AJAX more, and I think it’s time to share my knowledge. This tutorial is just a simple guide to understand the basic about using AJAX in WordPress.

To follow this tutorial you will need to understand the basic of:

  1. Simple jQuery / JavaScript
  2. Simple PHP
  3. How form works
  4. Register and Enqueue Scripts in WordPress
  5. Register WordPress shortcode (example plugin)
Table of contents

Read More WordPress AJAX for Beginners

Rate My Setup

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rate-my-setup

Today I sold my Asus Zenfone 5 for $50.  I bought it 2 years ago for around $200.

For the replacement, instead of getting a better phone. I bought $80 Hisense (chinese) budget phone. And I also bought cheap $15 bluetooth game-pad. And I’m very happy with it.

It’s amazing how fast technology accelerate. My new phone is faster and snappier with less than half the price of my old phone.

How to Redirect On Theme Activation

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theme-redirect-evil

WordPress plugin have a activation method, It’s very useful, and we can use it for various things.

One of the popular method in plugin, is “Activation Redirect”, this is a method used by a lot ( I mean **A LOT**) of popular plugins to redirect user to plugin settings page, setup page, or even plugin about page (of course, within the admin panel) when user activate plugin.

This is (probably) useful for user on-boarding purpose, annoy user, keep the user inform about the feature of the plugin or help them setup the pages required by the plugin or install additional plugins/add-on.

Note: I actually really hate it when plugin/theme author did this. But in some case it could be useful.

Usually plugin use register_activation_hook() function to do this. But theme don’t have similar method/function. However, there’s a workaround for that.

Read More How to Redirect On Theme Activation

WordPress Plugin: How to NOT Store API Key/Password in Plain Text

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no-plain-text-api-key

Sometime we need to save API key, or password, for external services in our WordPress plugin. It’s problematic, since we have to use that key to make API connection, but we don’t want to save it in plain text (because it’s just plain dumb). So we need a way to encrypt this key and save it to database, and decrypt it to use. Read More WordPress Plugin: How to NOT Store API Key/Password in Plain Text