Daily Archives: November 14, 2012

11.14.12
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WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta available

This afternoon I made a beta version of WordPress Google Form v0.46 available for download from this site. I have not posted this version to the WordPress plugin repository yet as I’d like to get some additional testing done on it before doing so.

There are a could of significant new features and a few bug fixes in this version.

  1. Columns!  You can now have your form rendered in columns.  To have a two column form, add the attribute columns=’2′ to your short code.
  2. When enabled, the simple math CAPTCHA will now appear above the Submit button instead of below it.
  3. Some minor CSS updates to support the new column feature.

Download the beta release and please let me know if you run into any issues.  You can see an example of multi-column support on my Multi-Column Test Bed Form.

Google Forms Beta (31889 downloads )
11.14.12
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Adding columns to a WordPress Google Form?

I’ve received a few queries as to how a Google Form could be styled such that the form would appear to have columns.  I’ve looked at the HTML and CSS that Google provides and if it can be done in CSS, it is beyond my current CSS skill set!

That said, I think it is an interesting question and I had looked at solutions using jQuery a few months ago.  I saw one jQuery plugin in particular that looked promising but didn’t have much time to really dig into it at the time.

I received another request for columns today so I took a look at the problem again to see how hard it would be.  Here is one of my example forms split into two columns to give an idea of what this might look like:

I am using the jQuery Columnizer plugin to automatically split the form into columns in conjunction with some other jQuery to manipulate the form and add some additional DIVs which will make additional styling easier.

I am generally pleased with how it came out.  I am going to play with it a little more before releasing an update but wanted to provide a preview in case anyone had an suggestions or questions.