Form will not load after successful addition

[Ben]

Hey Dave,

Sorry for the huge wait time on this. Just been digging myself out from under a pile of work.

when I go into the form and select edit, in a record that I know had a submission with the new field(s), it does not show up there. This is so, even though when I look at the database, the new field(s) are there and there is data in them.

Yup! This is because you'll need to update the View(s) to show the new fields. Views are really powerful in that you can totally customize what fields can be seen and edited by users, but the one drawback is that they're not linked to the database fields directly. So when you modify the database to add fields, they won't automatically show up in the Views. (Deleting fields DOES remove them from the Views, though).

This is a significant nuisance, I'll admit. In my own experience, re-configuring Views after adding new DB fields can be a real time-waster, especially when you have lots and lots of Views.

I have a couple of solutions which I may well apply in a future release.

How can I resize the captcha? Right now it is too big for the form. Is there a minimum width?

I believe the only way to do this would be to re-skin it using a custom theme, or another theme that is built in. Give the "Look & Feel Customization" section a read over on this page:
http://recaptcha.net/apidocs/captcha/client.html

Hope this helps, and again, sorry for the wait.

- Ben

[filch]

No worries Ben, I understand huge workloads ;-)

One last question: and this is about the database itself. When I look directly into the database, there seems to be a huge number of null entries. This is supported by the fact that, if I enter a test submission, it may have an ID of say 100. then, if I submit another one shortly thereafter, it may have an ID 0f 140. When I look in the dB, there are all these null records in there. Any idea? I am afraid of the dB getting huge for no reason.

Dave

Hey Dave,

Sorry for the huge wait time on this. Just been digging myself out from under a pile of work.

when I go into the form and select edit, in a record that I know had a submission with the new field(s), it does not show up there. This is so, even though when I look at the database, the new field(s) are there and there is data in them.

Yup! This is because you'll need to update the View(s) to show the new fields. Views are really powerful in that you can totally customize what fields can be seen and edited by users, but the one drawback is that they're not linked to the database fields directly. So when you modify the database to add fields, they won't automatically show up in the Views. (Deleting fields DOES remove them from the Views, though).

This is a significant nuisance, I'll admit. In my own experience, re-configuring Views after adding new DB fields can be a real time-waster, especially when you have lots and lots of Views.

I have a couple of solutions which I may well apply in a future release.

How can I resize the captcha? Right now it is too big for the form. Is there a minimum width?

I believe the only way to do this would be to re-skin it using a custom theme, or another theme that is built in. Give the "Look & Feel Customization" section a read over on this page:
http://recaptcha.net/apidocs/captcha/client.html

Hope this helps, and again, sorry for the wait.

- Ben

[Ben]

Hey Dave,

Yeah - the API always reserves records for the form submissions, even those that don't get finished.

But here's an easy fix:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That function deletes all old unfinalized submissions. You can just add it to your form page and it will always keep the database nice and clean.

Note: I strongly recommend omitting the second parameter (not setting it to true). The documentation page explains why.

All the best -

Ben

[filch]

The thing is though, I do not think these are a result of unfinished submissions. There is simply too many of them. there is no way that someone started and did not finish this many times.

Dave

Hey Dave,

Yeah - the API always reserves records for the form submissions, even those that don't get finished.

But here's an easy fix:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That function deletes all old unfinalized submissions. You can just add it to your form page and it will always keep the database nice and clean.

Note: I strongly recommend omitting the second parameter (not setting it to true). The documentation page explains why.

All the best -

Ben

---

Ben, where do you put this bit of code ... on the form page or the thankyou page? I assume the form page ... yes?

Dave

Hey Dave,

Yeah - the API always reserves records for the form submissions, even those that don't get finished.

But here's an easy fix:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That function deletes all old unfinalized submissions. You can just add it to your form page and it will always keep the database nice and clean.

Note: I strongly recommend omitting the second parameter (not setting it to true). The documentation page explains why.

All the best -

Ben

---

Ben, can you clarify what "form_tools_submission_id" means in this case. In the instructions, you say "the $fields variable should be named to whatever your ft_api_init_form_page() function call returns" are you referring to the ID or what? Sorry is this is obvious and I just don't get it.

Dave


$fields["form_tools_submission_id"

The thing is though, I do not think these are a result of unfinished submissions. There is simply too many of them. there is no way that someone started and did not finish this many times.

Dave

Hey Dave,

Yeah - the API always reserves records for the form submissions, even those that don't get finished.

But here's an easy fix:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That function deletes all old unfinalized submissions. You can just add it to your form page and it will always keep the database nice and clean.

Note: I strongly recommend omitting the second parameter (not setting it to true). The documentation page explains why.

All the best -

Ben

---

Ben, where do you put this bit of code ... on the form page or the thankyou page? I assume the form page ... yes?

Dave

Hey Dave,

Yeah - the API always reserves records for the form submissions, even those that don't get finished.

But here's an easy fix:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That function deletes all old unfinalized submissions. You can just add it to your form page and it will always keep the database nice and clean.

Note: I strongly recommend omitting the second parameter (not setting it to true). The documentation page explains why.

All the best -

Ben

[Ben]

Hey Dave,

Any time the form is loaded, a submission ID is reserved for that session. So you'll potentially see a lot of NULL entries; I'm pretty sure this is the cause.

You can put that line of code on your first form page, after including the api.php script.

- Ben