Introducing simpleContact, an easy way to add a contact email form and mailing list database to your website
After many evenings in front of the computer, I can release version 1.0 of my contact form system. Though I make websites all the time in my job at The Foundry, this is the first time I’ve ever made an application for public release. I’m excited about this project, and looking forward to tackling the (rather long) list of additions I already have in mind. Here are the key features in brief:
Designed
It’s made to be easy to install, without any programming. You’ll find the forms are straightforward to incorporate into your website.
All the layout is CSS based, so you can tweak the design or re-brand it entirely.
Developed
Built in PHP and MySQL and deployed on your web site (no dependence on external services), this functionality and more is ready to use:
- Contact and mailing list subscribe forms with server side validation
- Web-based admin system with login to keep your messages private
- Convenient messages inbox
- List of email addresses on your mailing list
- Choose contact form fields just by ticking checkboxes
- Compose a personalised response email
- Set which email addresses messages are sent to
Documented
It’s frustrating when tools aren’t documented well enough to use. I’ve written a setup guide in plain English, which contains what you need to know to get motoring…
Please head on over to my newly added downloads page. You’ll find more information, screengrabs and you can download simpleContact right now.
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May 21st, 2007 at 10:00 am
Nice one Alex. I’m sure this will be very very popular. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this!
May 21st, 2007 at 10:24 am
Time will tell
First morning and it has lost its download cherry, as it were. This should be interesting.
It may be the first of many projects.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Just trying to give it a whirl on a clients website, only their hosting is whack as they didn’t use a host we recommended so setting up the database is a pain in the arse. I’m going to have a play about on herrow.com soon. Well done getting it sorted.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
That’s a pain… does their host not have a decent control panel?
You should have no trouble on Herrow.com. Just point the config file at the database you’ve got WordPress running in. When you browse to it the database tables will be created.
The MySQL user account will need to have SELECT, CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE privileges, but these are probably already in place. In fact, on my host (34SP.com) MySQL users get the full works by default and you can’t revoke privileges. Not ideal, but it means simpleContact should run without a hitch.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Sorted, they had a control panel but it was badly set up. It all seems to work fine though, easy to set up. A couple of suggestions, could you make the options button a little more obvious once you are logged in? I didn’t notice it at first and kind of missed it under the inbox/mailing list links. Maybe the options button could appear by the logout button as well? The only other suggestion I can think of (maybe for the next version?) would be to add a way to have a drop down list you can add to the form that is editable. One of my clients wants their products listed in a dropdown on a form so that when they receive a response from the form they can instantly tell which product a customer is enquiring about. This way they don’t have to waste time responding to clients asking which product it was they were asking about, then having to get back to them later, whilst they find the appropriate information.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Sorry one day I’ll learn to break things up into paragraphs
May 21st, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Pleased to hear it, thanks for your feedback!
My initial thought was to make the options (which people are likely to change rarely or maybe only once) subordinate to the inbox and mailing list views (likely to be viewed often).
Maybe there’s a better way of doing that - I’ll look into it. In the meantime, you can tweak the CSS to your liking.
I’m thinking of putting a tutorial in the setup guide that walks you through a quick rebrand of the admin (change logo, colours etc).
I like your idea of an editable menu for specifying your particular interest. I want to keep the system general-purpose but that could work…
May 21st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Gave it a try and looks great. Nice work.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Thanks Jason, much appreciated.
Keep an eye on this site - there’s plenty more where version 1.0 came from