What is holding up the next wpGForm update?

I’ve had a couple questions about the next version of WordPress Google Form.  I have had a beta version of the next release of WordPress Google Form available for a number of weeks.  So what is holding up the release?  This is a pretty busy time of year for me at work (my real job) and combined with the holidays, I just haven’t had a lot of time to work on it.

This next update really changes how I recommend using the plugin and I want to make sure my Help and Support form can support it and right now it doesn’t.  So until I can find a few minutes to update the Help and Support form, I am going to hold off on the release.

WordPress Google Form v0.46 beta 8 available

I’ve updated the beta version of WordPress Google Form v0.46 one more time to beta-8 and made it available for download from this site. This beta update fixes a redirect problem when using the original “gform” short code. It was not present when using the new “wpgform” short code. I would encourage migrating to the new short code and defining forms with the Google Forms Custom Post Type UI.

Download the beta release and please let me know if you run into any issues.

Google Forms Beta (7975 downloads )

WordPress Google Form v0.46-beta-4 now available

I’ve update the beta version of WordPress Google Form v0.46 to beta-4 and made it available for download from this site. This beta update addresses a bug when the plugin is activated.

Download the beta release and please let me know if you run into any issues.

Google Forms Beta (7975 downloads )

wpGForm Custom Post Type Preview

As I noted a couple days ago, I have started a “renovation” of sorts to my WordPress Google Forms plugin.  I have defined a Custom Post Type which makes it much easier to set up a form.  It is no longer necessary to worry about the syntax of a long complicated short code!  Here are a couple images of what the Dashboard UI looks like.

Adding a form to a post or page is as simple as adding the [wpgform id=’N’] short code where N maps to the form’s post id.  The short code syntax for each Google Form appears in the list of forms.

The Google Form Edit Screen has fields which map directly to all of the short code attributes that were defined in the original short code.

There is no change of operation on the front end – the form should continue to operate as it has previously.  If you’re interested in testing this new version, I hope to have a beta available fairly soon which also has some other new features.

Moving to a Custom Post Type may allow for some more robust field validation using the jQuery Validation plugin!  Stay tuned for  more details on that as I don’t think it will be in the first release of Custom Post Types.

WordPress Google Form v0.45 now available

This afternoon I released v0.45 of my WordPress Google Form plugin.  After validating the changes I made in the beta with a user who was dealing with a polluted jQuery script, it looks like moving the jQuery script into the WordPress footer action is the right answer.

You can find the update in the WordPress Plugin Repository or as an update on your WordPress Dashboard.

WordPress Google Form v0.44 now available

This morning I released v0.44 of WordPress Google Form.  This is a minor update which addresses a problem reported in the WordPress Plugin Support Forum.  This update fixes the problem where the settings which are on by default, cannot be turned off.  You can find the update in the WordPress Plugin Repository or as an update on your WordPress Dashboard.

CAPTCHA is working!

I work much better in the early morning than I do at night.  Always have.  Last night I was working on CAPTCHA support for WordPress Google Form and for the life of me, couldn’t figure what was causing a jQuery syntax error.  Granted, working on my laptop in my truck in the dark while at my daughter’s soccer practice isn’t the ideal work location but that was my situation when I had some cycles to look at it.

This morning I looked at it again, made one minor change and the syntax error was obvious.  Syntax error fixed and my CAPTCHA solution appears to be working.  I am going to clean up some debug code and then post a beta release for testing.  Hopefully I will have this formally released in the next day or two.

Time to add Captcha support for wpGForm?

I’ve had my Help and Support form for my WordPress Google Form plugin online since April and it has greatly improved my ability to help people use my plugin. I get all of the information at one time where as before it took several passes via email to get all of the data I typically need to resolve an issue.

Up until about two weeks ago, I never got any spam via the form but lately I’ve been receiving 2-3 form submissions per day that contain nothing but gibberish.  So it got me thinking about how to implement a Captcha solution.  A Captcha solution has been requested several times and I’ve never looked at it seriously because (a) Google doesn’t support it and (b) it wasn’t something I thought was terribly important.  I am rethinking my position how important it is!  😉

The fact that Google doesn’t support a Captcha solution is the biggest hurdle.  The challenge is to add the necessary code to the HTML generated by Google, recognize and process the Captcha, and it is passes, remove the Captcha input prior to submitting the form values to Google for processing.  This becomes a more complicated issue on a multi-page form:  Does every page have a Captcha or only the last page with the Submit button?

I don’t have a solution yet but this is something I am noodling on as I have some spare cycles.  The solution will almost certainly be jQuery based, I can’t think of a better way to do it and I am already using jQuery to process radio button inputs so they can be converted from PHP style inputs on the WordPress side to Python style inputs on the Google side.

Update on Events

I’ve been working on Events quite a bit over the last couple of days.  At this point I have all of the Event Management working again including the ability to import a Hy-tek Events File (.hyv).  I have not gotten to the point where I can connect the events to a swim meet but I don’t think that will take too long.  I will likely release an update with the progress I have to date.  Even with Events unfinished, it actually does more than the old Events Model does.  I have also fixed a few other odds and ends that I’d like to make sure get released sooner rather than later.

Preview of Event Groups

This morning I finished up the first phase of Event Groups.  The Event Groups tab will appear on the Management Menu.  The next step is to up date the Event functionality to recognize the new Event Groups.  When I roll this out this update it will require a database update which means deactivating the plugin and re-activating it.