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4.4. Contact Us Form

4.4.1. Setting up the Contact Us Form

Once you have installed the Contact Us Form, you can begin using it right away or you can change the default configuration settings if they don't meet your needs. To make changes to those settings,

 

From here you can edit and select the configuration settings for your Contact Us Form. A description of these settings follows.

Title: You can call this module whatever you'd like!

Form Layout: Select from three pre-configured layouts for your form

Group fields together: decide whether or not you want to group information fields together and select your preference

Email Notifications: enter the email address where you want completed contact forms sent and indicate whether you want pre-formatted HTML emails or text-only emails

Email Autoresponder: When someone completes a form, Bistro can send them a thank you email. Select whether you want to use the autoresponder

Send Auto Responders from this address: If you select Yes for the autoresponder - enter the email address you wish to have the autoresponder email sent from here.

The subject line for Auto Responder emails: If you select Yes for the autoresponder - enter the subject line for your autoresponder email here.

The body for Auto Responder emails: If you select Yes for the autoresponder - type what you would like your autoresponder email to say in the large white text field.

Fields to Display: Select all the fields you want to include in your form by clicking the respective radio buttons to the right of the named filed. Fields that are marked "Yes" will be displayed on your form, but visitors may leave them blank. Fields that are marked "Required" will be displayed on your form, and must be filled out by visitors before they can submit the form.

Note: Be careful not to make all the fields on your form required. The more required fields you have on a form, the less likely your visitors are to complete the form.

You may include the following fields in your Contact Us Form:

*A CAPTCHA is an image with distorted letters, that the visitor must read before they can submit the form. These images are used to verify that the individual submitting the form is a human, and not a program sending spam.

Thank You Message: Once a form has been submitted, a thank you page is shown to the user. You can customize this page by entering your desired message here. Use the various features on the editing toolbar to format and customize your thank you message. For more information about using the WYSIWYG editor, review section 3.9.1. Using the WYSIWYG editing toolbar in Standard Mode and section 3.9.2. Using the WYSIWYG Editing Toolbar in Advanced Mode.

As with every page on your Bistro site, when editing your thank you page, you can take advantage of a number of useful shortcuts to help you make the most of your website. You will find these additional options directly below the white editing area at the bottom of your configuration screen. Instructions for using each follow.

Linking to Other Pages on Your Site

A quick way to insert hyperlinks to other pages within your site is to use the Insert a link: drop down list directly below the main editing area. Every page on your site is automatically added to this drop down list (once it is saved), offering a quick and easy way to add internal page links on your site. To do so,

  1. highlight the text you would like to link within your editing area
  2. select the page you would like to link it to from the Insert a Link drop down list below the editing area.
  3. Once you have selected the page, click the [Insert Link] button to the right of the drop down list.

Adding AutoStuffTM

Another powerful shortcut that is built into Bistro is called Autostuff. When you use the Insert AutoStuff feature, you are actually inserting a data field that will automatically update certain information, when your website loads.

For example, if your Bistro installation includes an Event Calendar Module and you want the page you are creating to include a reference to the next three calendar events; you can insert the AutoStuff statement [SUMMARIES OF NEXT 3 EVENTS] anywhere you want within the content of your page. When a site visitor views that page, they will see links to the next three upcoming events. As events are added to the calendar, the page will update automatically to display the next three chronological events.

This means that you can add content in many places on your site that only has to be updated or changed in one location. The drop down list of available Autostuff is updated automatically based on the modules currently installed on your site and is accessible from all modules that include content editing capability.

To enter an AutoStuff tag:

  1. click where you would like it inserted within the editing area,
  2. select the appropriate AutoStuff tag from the drop down list to the right of the AutoStuff field,
  3. click the [Insert Tag] button to the right of the AutoStuff drop down list.

You will find a list with explanations of all module related AutoStuff tags in section 9.3. AutoStuffTM Entries

Showing a Sub Menu

If your website design supports submenus, you can also easily add a defined submenu to the page you have created by selecting it from the Show a sub menu drop down list. Note: if you have not yet created your submenu structure, you can do so using the menu manager, and then return to your new page to add the appropriate sub menu.

Creating Custom URLs

The typical URLs that websites generate automatically are not user friendly. In many cases, they make it more difficult for search engines to properly index your website pages. Bistro allows you to easily create an easy to recognize, custom URL for each page on your site, to do so simply type your custom URL into the Create a custom URL: text field just below Insert AutoStuff.

Once you have finished configuring your Contact Us Form, click [Save] to save your settings and exit the configuration screen. To exit without saving your changes, click [Cancel]

 

4.4.2. Using the Contact Us Form

The Contact Us Form module is one of the more automated modules in Bistro. Once it has been installed and configured, it basically creates a contact form that can be linked to directly from your website menu, from a button or within the design of your site, or from anywhere else on your site you choose.

To add the contact form to your website menu, follow the instructions provided in section 3.9.3.1 Adding a Menu Item

To link from an image, a button, or text phrase on one of your website pages, follow the instructions in section 3.9.5 Cross Linking the Pages on Your site

You can also insert the entire contact form into a page on your site (rather that linking to the stand alone form). The most common reason for doing this is so that you can include some introductory text on the page above the form itself.  To insert the Contact Us Form into another page on your site, simply insert the AutoStuff tag into your page where you want the form to appear.

For more information on using AutoStuff, review Chapter 7. of this manual - Using AutoStuffTM