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[Resolved] Using Types and Views with 3rd party forms plugin

This support ticket is created 6 years ago. There's a good chance that you are reading advice that it now obsolete.

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This topic contains 6 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Vane 6 years ago.

Assisted by: Nigel.

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#1149821

I'd like to use 3rd party form plugin with Toolset.
(this 3rd party form plugin has some advanced features what CRED doesn't have)
I haven't found anything about how should I set Toolset up for this,
so I'd like to input these values fetched from the form plugin's forms to Toolset CPTs and their custom fields (CF).

Thank you,
Best regards,
V.

#1149854

Nigel
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/London (GMT+00:00)

Hi there

If the other form plugin is capable of publishing posts from the front end, then there should be no reason why it cannot publish custom posts that you set up with Types, these are just standard post types that could have been set up with any number of tools, or directly in code with WordPress functions.

Likewise taxonomies defined in Types would be just the same as taxonomies created by some other means, and should work with the form plugin if it works with taxonomies.

Your forms plugin should have documentation about how to use it to publish posts from the front end.

The one area where you need to be careful is with custom fields.

Types custom fields are stored with a 'wpcf-' prefix, so if you had a custom field with a slug of "email-address" then this would be stored in wp_postmeta with a key of 'wpcf-email-address', so be sure to use this prefix when adding Types fields to your form.

Also, this should work fine with many Types fields, i.e. those which are stored as simple strings (e.g. text fields, numbers, email fields, url fields etc.).

With date fields, for example, you need to make sure that the form saves such fields in a UNIX timestamp format (and if the form cannot directly, you would need to add some code to process the form fields after submission so that you manually save the field in the required format).

Checkboxes fields are stored in a proprietary format and it would not be possible to use them with a different form plugin.

#1149919

Hi Nigel,

thank you for your detailed explanation!

I remembered this and like this:
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/letting-cred-edit-custom-fields-created-by-other-plugins/
so I may not edit forms' data, but integrate 3rd party CFs to Toolset with Toolset Forms...

BTW this post quoted above doesn't state the 3rd party plugin can not be a Form plugin and custom fields can not be created by that form plugin...
So do you think I should use both my Form plugin and Toolset's Forms together?
And every time I create a new form I should scan in Toolset's Forms for new form data like custom fields?

Thank you,
Best regards,
V.

#1149976

Nigel
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/London (GMT+00:00)

I doubt mixing two form plugins is a good idea, so I would either use the alternate form plugin and learn what is required for it to be used to submit posts together with custom fields and taxonomies, or use Toolset Forms.

The documentation page you linked to is about including non-Types fields in Toolset Forms.

Is that the problem you have?

I'm not sure what is the original problem which has encouraged you to use a different forms plugin.

If you describe the problems I might be able to advise you.

#1150008

Well, basically I supposed, if Toolset Forms (later: TF) is able to scan 3rd party plugins' custom fields (CFs) and allow us to select which we want to manage with Toolset, then we might be able to use those CFs eg. in content templates as shortcodes or other way.

I installed and activated TF and checked "Post Forms" page and clicked "Manage non-Toolset Post Fields",
then I checked all post types including hidden fields, but I haven't found any CFs which supposed to belong to the demo forms I've already imported with 3rd party form plugin (later: 3PF).

Simultaneously I found:
https://toolset.com/forums/topic/gravity-forms-integration-2/
and it writes that:
"...Views can query and show information about any public post type, but Gravity Forms "Entries" are not public post types...."
In my case I dont need the entries (submissions), I only need the form "template".

So I was wrong when I supposed a form template can be handled as a CPT!
Despite the similarity it can not! 🙁

Anyway, I think it would be a great Toolset feature if Toolset (not necessarily TF) would be able to scan 3rd party plugins objects (like these form templates) and manage their custom fields, again: not necessarily for editing purposes, but for example to be able to insert them into content templates!

Maybe that would be enough if we would be able to insert 3rd party plugin's shortcodes into Toolset content templates ?!!

What do you think about the feature suggestion and the 3rd party shortcodes into content template direction?

#1150469

Nigel
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/London (GMT+00:00)

Fields and Views button.png

This "scanning" already happens.

If you edit a Content Template (or use any editor where the Field and Views button is available) you will see that as well as your Toolset-based fields you can insert non-Toolset fields, too (see screenshot "Fields and Views button.png".)

Sometimes plugins will store data in "hidden" custom fields (where the name begins with an underscore and the do not normally appear in the UI), and you can expose these hidden fields at Toolset > Settings > Front-end Content.

That's for displaying such fields.

If you want to be able to submit posts from the front end with Toolset Forms and include fields from 3rd party plugins in the submission, then you can do so according to the documentation you already linked to (https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/letting-cred-edit-custom-fields-created-by-other-plugins/).

By the way, if the 3rd party plugins provide their own shortcodes, these should work wherever you use shortcodes generally, including in Toolset templates and forms (unless they only work in a limited context).

#1150487

My issue is resolved now. Thank you!