WordPress Google Form v0.50 now available

WordPress v0.50 is now available.  This update fixes a jQuery syntax error which occurred when validation was but user email and CAPTCHA were off.  Along with the bug fix I also added CSS to hide the “Never submit passwords through Google Forms.” message that Google has added to forms.

You can find the update on your WordPress Dashboard or in the WordPress plugin repository.

WordPress Google Form v.0.47 released

This morning I pushed out v0.47 of WordPress Google Form.  This update fixes a problem in which various combinations of options would result in jQuery syntax errors which in turn resulted in Javascript errors.  In some cases, the plugin would not properly complete, particularly when using checkboxes and/or custom confirmation pages.

You will see the update on your WordPress Dashboard or you can find it in the WordPress plugin repository.

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).

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Google Forms Beta (7982 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 (7982 downloads )

Constantly Amazed by jQuery

I am constantly amazed by what one can do with jQuery.  If it were not for jQuery, I don’t think I would have continued working on WordPress Google Forms.  I’ve used jQuery to adapt check box parameters so they will pass from PHP (used by WordPress) to Python (used by Google for form process).  I’ve used jQuery to implement CAPTCHA.  I’ve used jQuery to implement multiple columns.  And now I am using jQuery to work-around the language issues which have recently become a problem.

Recently Google changed the structure of Google Forms.  The new version no longer supports the hl=XX (where XX is a language parameter such as en or fr) parameter.  For most instances this isn’t a problem.

However, there are some cases where Google thinks the server hosting WordPress (and hence WordPress Google Forms) is located in a certain part of the globe and therefore should receive Google Forms with some of the boiler plate text in the native language suitable for the location.  Awesome.  Google thinks I need German buttons and text.  I don’t speak German nor do any of my users however the server is physically located in Germany. Now what?

Over the past couple of days I been implementing jQuery that finds the default text which Google is serving in  a native language and allowing WordPress Google Forms to override it.  I am doing this with jQuery.  Fortunately Google adds numerous CSS classes to their forms so most of the replacements can be accomplished in a single line of jQuery.  However, there is one situation where it isn’t so simple.

If you employ a multiple choice question, Google provides an option to add an “Other” choice where the user can type in another answer.  Again, very nice of them.  However the “Other” text is one of those that Google serves up in a localized language and more importantly, it isn’t wrapped in a SPAN or a DIV with a CSS class that makes it easy to select.

Here is one of the questions on one of my development forms.  You can see I’ve already overridden the “hint” (which is also new):

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Here is the same question with the “Other” text overridden:

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So how do we select just the “Other” text but only when using a multiple select widget which employs an Other choice? jQuery and Javascript to the rescue:

$("div.ss-radio label:last+span.ss-q-other-container").prev().contents().filter(function() {
        return this.nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE;
    })[0].nodeValue = "<<<<Other:";

This snippet of jQuery (which I got some help on from this thread on StackOverflow) combined with Javascript selects the one case there is and replaces it with my override.  Pretty slick eh?

Look for another beta update today with more override options.

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 (7982 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.

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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 (7982 downloads )