Documentation Form2Content
Getting started
Form2Content is a powerful Joomla! component which has helped us give our clients and users control over part of their website without the need of any HTML knowledge or back-end functionality.
The Form2Content component installs without any core hacks and can be easily installed. Because of the flexibility of the component some basic understanding of how it works will help you create your Contents more easily.
- Upgrading from F2C LITE to PRO
- LITE versus PRO Comparison Chart
- Creating your Content Type (Project)
- Form2Content Definitions
- Installing Form2Content
- Form2Content Global Configuration
- Form2Content installation requirements
- Uninstalling & Updating Form2Content
Form2Content Field Types
Form2Content Articles are created using forms for every Content Types created. The forms are made in the Content Type Manager and apart from the Joomla fields (title, meta, etc.) you can add as many custom fields you like. The goal is to standardise input (i.e. select list of country names instead of an input box) so spelling, layout and options are kept the same.
Explanations of the expected field input in the form can be added to each field type. This will results in a blue information icon in the form and help the user fill out what is expected.
While creating your custom forms per Content Type you can choose from the following field types.
- Check box list
- Dropdown or radio button list
- Text box (single line)
- Check box
- Hyperlink
- Image
- Text area (without editor)
- Text area (with editor)
- Display list (ordered or unordered)
- IFrame
- Date picker
- File upload
- Database lookup
- Info Text (editor)
Form2Content Templating
The Form2Content Templates are combined with the information from the forms to create the HTML which is inserted into the Joomla database as an article. Each Content Type (project) has field variables which you can create in the Project Manager. These variables can be called and displayed in the template. Using patTemplate codes it is possible to be very creative with your templates and include conditional statements.
- Use of Intro & Main Template
- F2C Template Parameters
- Creating a Form2Content Template
- The Template Manager
- patTemplating
- Including plugins/mambots in your F2C Template
Form2Content Articles
The Articles generated by Form2Content are saved within the Joomla! sections and category structure. Each Form2Content article is linked by ID to the corresponding Joomla! Article. This means there are two versions of your article within the Joomla! database. One is in the Form2Content tables, neatly split into all the fields used to submit the article and the other as a standard HTML field in the Joomla! article table. Whenever you change something in the F2C submission form of the article the Joomla! database value for the corresponding article is overwritten.Form2Content Front-end
One of the best features of Form2Content is the Front-end Article Manager. Users, depending on the setting can access all or their F2C Articles. A great way to implement Web 2.0 and get your users to submit their content to your website!Technical Stuff
Since Form2Content 'simply' replaces the HTML in an article content there are very few problems related to 3rd party components and SEF. Below a list of common questions and suggestions.
