Custom Contact Form

A very basic contact form block that you can use as a starting point for creating your own custom form blocks with Concrete5. In my experience, this is a better solution than using the built-in "external_form" block as it does not suffer from many of the limitations of that approach (for example, see http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/external-form-with-own-controller/ -- or just search the forums for "external_form" to find other potential issues).

Installation / Customization

1. Move the custom_contact_form directory from this repo's blocks directory to your site's top-level blocks directory (note: this is just a block, not a package -- so don't put it in your packages directory).
2. Rename the custom_contact_form directory as desired (should be the lowercase_and_underscore version of your block's name -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a directory name of "my_great_form").
3. Edit the controller.php file:
   • Change the class name to be a TitleCaseWithNoSpaces version of the block name (otherwise known as CamelCase), followed by BlockController -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a class name of MyGreatFormBlockController.
   • Change the block name and description. It is recommended that the name correspond with the directory and class names, but this is not a technical requirement (just avoids confusion).
   • Change the table name to bt followed by the CamelCase version of the block name -- for example, "My Great Form" would get a table name of btMyGreatForm.
4. Edit db.xml file so the table name matches what you set in controller.php.
5. Install the block:
   • Concrete5.6 or higher: First disable the Overrides Cache via Dashboard > System & Settings > Optimization > Cache & Speed Settings > Overrides Cache. Then install the block via Dashboard > Stacks & Blocks > Block Types.
   • Concrete5.5: Install the block via Dashboard > Stacks & Blocks > Block Types.
   • Concrete5.4: Install the block via Dashboard > Add Functionality.
6. Customize the form as needed. The view.php file contains the form html. The action_submit_form() method in controller.php responds to form submissions.