Using eForm with external chunks

on 20-Sep-2009 | Comments ( 0 ) Tags: Evolution

In this tutorial I will create a simple "Contact Form" page that will be populated using external files, not regular HTML chunks.

By looking at eForm's code I found the following 2 lines:

$tpl = ( $doc=$modx->getChunk($key) )? $doc : false;
//try snippet if chunk is not found
if(!$tpl) $tpl = ( $doc=$modx->runSnippet($key) )? $doc : false;

As you can see eForm uses the runSnippet API but it does not take advantage of its parameters. Because of this limitation I had to create a snippet for each chunk used in my eForm call.

Let's start by saving the eForm templates to the server as files. In this case I choose to use the following path: 'assets/templates/site/chunks'

First file will be named: contact-form.html

[+validationmessage+]

    
    
    Your Name
    

    Your Email Address
    
    
    Comments

Second file will be named: contact-report.html

This is a response sent by [+name+] using the contact form:

Name: [+name+]
Email: [+email+]
Comments: [+comments+]

You can use this link to reply: [+email+]

Third file will be named: contact-thank-you.html

Thank you for your message!

I will get back to you as soon as possible.

The second step would be to create the 3 snippets that will load the above 3 HTML templates:

getContactForm

<?php
$path = $base_path .'assets/templates/site/chunks/contact-form.html';
return file_get_contents($path);
?>

getContactReport

<?php
$path = $base_path .'assets/templates/site/chunks/contact-report.html';
return file_get_contents($path);
?>

getContactThankYou

<?php
$path = $base_path .'assets/templates/site/chunks/contact-thank-you.html';
return file_get_contents($path);
?>

All that is left is make the eForm call in the contact page template:

[!eForm? &formid=`contactForm` &to=`[(emailsender)]` &tpl=`getContactForm` &report=`getContactReport` &thankyou=`getContactThankYou` &subject=`Modx Rules - Contact Form`!]

How it works:

At first, eForm looks for a document ID then for an existing chunk and in the end tries to execute the snippet with the name you entered. As I mentioned above you cannot assign parameters for your snippet. If you know how to fix this limitation please leave a message.

Note: If you are looking for an @FILE solution take a look at this post.