There is a bug when using the Custom Confirmation page in v0.46 with the “Ajax” option. The “Redirect” option works correctly, the bug only affects the “Ajax” option. I am looking into the problem and hope to have a resolution shortly.
Tag Archives: Google Forms
WordPress Google Form v0.46 is finally out!
After 19 beta releases, the first one being back on November 14, 2012, this afternoon I released v0.46 of WordPress Google Form. This update represents a significant change in how the plugin works. The plugin now defines a Custom Post Type for defining forms which is much easier to use than the old shortcode. The shortcode was getting very complicated with all of the options.
The Custom Post Type functionality is supported by a new shortcode, wpgform, which is much easier to work with as it only has one argument, the Post Id of the form. The original gform shortcode will continue to work however it will not received new features (e.g. columns) and at sometime in the future, I will likely deprecate it.
During the development process of v0.46, Google made a significant change to Google Forms. The change required re-work of a number of features, support for multi-page forms being the most important and hardest to figure out. Things changed on Google’s side several times as they rolled out the update to Google Forms. The most recent change restored the ability to control the language of certain parts of the form immediately after I had spent several days working out a jQuery solution to allow text replacement on certain form elements.
There has been quite a bit of testing of this update over the past few months and I want to thank the people who tested the early releases and reported problems. In particular I want to thank several people who trusted me with access to their server in order to chase down and debug some very odd problems. In the end , I think I was able to resolve all of them.
The only known issue at this point is with respect to IE7 support. I cannot get the validation support to work with IE7 which means the CAPTCHA doesn’t work properly either. If someone can figure it out I am happy to incorporate a fix but I have exhausted by ability to chase down an odd problem with an ancient browser.
The number of new features and fixes is pretty long, I recommend reading the v0.46 release notes here.
You can find the update in the WordPress plugin repository or as an update on your WordPress Dashboard. If you have any problems, I have retooled my Help and Support form to mimic the fields on the Custom Post Type screen. Don’t hesitate to use it if you run into something which isn’t working.
WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-18 now available
I am getting close to a formal release. This beta update adds support for using the public facing Custom Post Type posts directly. This means when you define a Google Form using the Custom Post Type interface and publish it, the permalink can be used to view the form. It can also be used as a menu item or link.
It is no longer necessary to add a short code to a separate page or post although it will still work. I am strongly encouraging users to move away from the original gform shortcode with a bazillion options to using the Custom Post Type. Going forward, new features will only be added to the Custom Post Type (e.g. columns only work with the Custom Post Type).
WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-17 is now available
I have just uploaded WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-17 which addresses one bug and adds new capability to the CAPTCHA functionality.
- CAPCTHA can now have 2 or 3 terms
- CAPTCHA now supports operators for addition (+), subtraction (-), and multiplication (*)
I finally found a solution to passing the query arguments correctly so the page navigation for the Form Submission Log now works properly.
At this point I think I am close to done with this release. Scope creep can be a killer and it has been a long time since I’ve formally released an update. With the number of questions I am getting about new Google Forms and all of the fixes being in this beta, it is time to get it out!
The next question to resolve is do I bump the version number to 1.0 with all of the changes I’ve made or continue as it is and release v0.46 – thoughts?
Google Forms Beta (8844 downloads )New Google Forms now support the language parameter!
For several weeks I have been trying to figure out a solution how to handle language issues with new Google Forms. In the old version, a URL parameter could be specified (see this page). However, this didn’t work with the new version of Google Forms.
Until today. Thanks to a posting on the WordPress Support Forum, I was alerted to the fact that the URL parameter is indeed working again. This is great news as dealing with odd language issues is one of the more common support requests I receive.
In the new version of Google Forms, simply append ?hl=en (or ?hl=fr for French, etc.) to the end of the URL of the live form. Wish they would have done this several weeks ago, would have saved me quite a bit of time!
WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-16 is available
I have just uploaded WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-16 which addresses one bug and adds the ability to oveeride the default Google text in several more areas:
- Radio Button hint
- Check Boxes hint
- “Other” option when allowed as a Radio Button option
The bug fixed had to do with saving the Options tab losing the Override setting on the Advanced Options tab. It only happened if the Options tab was saved after the Advanced Options but now that it is fixed, save order is no longer an issue.
I also added some more default CSS to account for some of the CSS changes Google has made lately.
Google Forms Beta (8844 downloads )WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-15 now available
This afternoon I uploaded WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-15 which addresses a CAPTCHA problem. CAPTCHA requires Validation and unless Validation was specifically enabled for the form, the Validation code wasn’t loaded and hence CAPTCHA wasn’t running.
I also added some new default CSS to account for some of the CSS changes Google has made lately. Google has actually made quite a few CSS changes so I need to make sure it is all covered.
This morning Google also made some changes to Check Boxes and Radio Buttons adding more text which is subject to the language problem. The quick fix is to hide the new text using Custom CSS:
div.ss-printable-hint { display: none; }
Download the latest beta and please provide feedback on any issues you run into.
Google Forms Beta (8844 downloads )WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-14 available
This afternoon I uploaded WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-14 which addresses a problem with certain parts of Google Forms (usually the buttons, required text, and disclaimer text) being displayed in a foreign language. I wrote up some details on why this happens in a previous post.
If you are having this issue, please download the beta and provide me some feedback. I think I am going to move a few items from the Options tab to the Advanced Options tab before I release it.
Google Forms Beta (8844 downloads )Why are my buttons in Chinese?
Periodically I get a question from someone using WordPress Google Form asking why their buttons (and some other text) is in Chinese (or some other language but Chinese is the most common)?
If you haven’t run into this problem, consider yourself lucky! The problem manifests itself similar to the images below.
As near as I can tell, this problem happens when the Web server that is running WordPress Google Form is geographically located in a part of the world where Google thinks it should serve up a particular language.
So how do you fix it? In the previous version of Google Forms, the solution was simple: Add &hl=en to your form URL and Google would deliver the content in the specificed language (in the case English) – refer to to this post for more details. Unfortunately the new version of Google Forms doesn’t support this language parameter so I have been at a loss to help people who find themselves in this situation.
For several days I have been trying to find a solution. Adding cookies to the wp_remote_get() request, .htaccess entries, PHP locale settings, etc. Nothing made a difference.
While at the gym this morning it dawned on me that there isn’t any reason why I couldn’t “fix” the problem by processing the HTML that Google generates with jQuery. So that is what I have done.
I have renamed the Debug tab to Advanced Options and added the ability to define the text that will appear on the Submit, Back, and Continue buttons as well as the text which indicates fields are Required.
WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-13 available
This afternoon I uploaded WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-13. Yes, this is the 13th beta release of WordPress Google Form v0.46. Why so many? Mostly because made a significant change to Google Forms at about the same time I was introducing a major change to WordPress Google Forms.
This release adds a new feature – the ability to log form submissions. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The next update will include some settings to control the log (on, off, entries per page, etc.) but in this beta release, it is on and shows 10 entries per page. There is a known bug in the pagination of the log file. The URL to move between pages is wrong and I haven’t been able to determine how to add the CPT and page information which the URL requires to be valid.
Most importantly, this beta release addresses a major bug with multi-page Google Forms AND Google Forms with checkboxes that are created with the new version of Google Forms. This functionality needs testing so please put it through its paces.
Google Forms Beta (8844 downloads )