Does what is needed in the heart of CF7

  • I was introduced to CF7 by another WordPress Developer. The heart of the idea is simple, create a contact form without having to use PHP or a lot of HTML code to form everything (especially if you want a simple contact form). I’ve read now on CF7 website, he never intended to control the looks but left it controllable by CSS. This is a blessing and a curse, as if he had, would have removed flexibility, however, CSS requires two ends and a lot more learning.

    So why am I so impressed with this plugin? This plugin changes CF7 to have form and format. It doesn’t change the language, in fact, it itself is another language and functions on the same concept of CF7 in two ways: 1) a form for building and 2) click text and you can edit the language (CSS labels and DIV statements) directly. This was handy in repeating a section of code I needed to reproduce and alter variable names of.

    It is far more powerful, CF7 + Smart Grid than if Contact Form 7 had incorporated these features to begin with, as CF7 is simple and requires a learning curve. Smart Grid too requires a learning curve. Learning CF7 and realizing you “want” (not need) a plugin to format out a page, makes Smart Grid a valuable add-in and still much faster than trying to format with CSS.

    I found Smart Grid after creating a simple but very long contact form for a client and his insisting that it was too long and needed formatting to shorten it up.. After the few hours spent learning how this thing really works, I save certainly hours of time playing with CSS and plan on using it again and again..

    cons: If you have contact forms that exist in a website, they will collapse do to the incorporated CSS with this plugin. That is easily fixed with <br> or as I had intended, replacing the form in the grid system. Second, existing contact forms WILL NOT suddenly format to the new grid system (no Borg mentality). So really wasn’t a negative.

    ps. Read the Div tags, you will be amazed at the simplicity of his formatting and labels.

    pss. someone wrote, dependence on another plugin as a con. It’s not dependent, it’s an enhancement to another awesome plugin.. There is a hug difference..

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  • Plugin Author Aurovrata Venet

    (@aurovrata)

    thank you for your detailed review. Much appreciated!

    This was handy in repeating a section of code

    are you aware that the plugin also introduces the concept of reusable form sections? You can design a sub-form and introduce it into a parent form (as a separate section). The big advantage is that for large forms, you can break down your form into more manageable pieces, easier to maintain.

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