Can I use alternative field names or ids for column headers?

Hi Kim,

Not currently. The standard ‘cforms’ function (get_cforms_entries()) that I use to get the data doesn’t currently support this kind of ID and doesn’t pass it back through the function.

What I’ve added to the development version is a function where you could change the name in the table if you framed it as, say, “Please type your full name.|Name”.

I’m not sure how we will solve the comma problem.

Martin

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your response! I’ll consider trying out the development version for the next cforms table I plan to create. In the meantime, I got my original form up and running using your plugin by taking the following steps (I include this in case others with absurdly long field names run into this issue):

1. Get rid of all commas in my field names (perhaps not very grammatically correct, but not the end of the world)
2. Move any html syntax towards the end of the field name. There seems to be a character cutoff in cforms in terms of what it considers the field name, so I figured what the cutoff was by looking at the “Tracking” area of the cforms plugin and then made sure it didn’t include any html syntax.
3. Figure out where each field name is cut off and reproducing the field name exactly (making sure the number of spaces between sentences are exactly as input in form settings).

In the end, for this form, I end up with a shortcode that looks like this:

[cformstable form=’Application for UCLA Outreach Visit’ display=’table’ vars=’Date,First Name,Last Name,Email Address,Phone Number,School or Organization Name,School Address,Would this be a UCLA-based event or a school visit?,If you are requesting a UCLA-based event can you provide your own transportation?,Is your request date specific?,Please select a date for your outreach event. To get a better idea of when volunteers might be avai,Please select a second date for your outreach event. This option will only be used if we cannot acco,What is your preferred start time? Please specify AM or PM.,Please include any additional availability details that may help us to better accommodate your event,How many students would be participating in the event?,What is the age/grade of the students in your group?,How long would you like the outreach program to last? Programs are typically between 1 and 3 hours.,Which activities would you like to see? To access a detailed list of the available activities click,If required will you be able to provide:,Are you a Title 1 school?,If you are not a Title 1 school what other information can you provide about the diversity of your s,Is there anything else we should know about your school or students? Let us know if your students a,If our program is not suited to your schedule or event what type of outreach did you have in mind?’]

Anyway, a bit on the long and unwieldy side, but after a few hours of trial and error all fields display properly. This has been really useful in displaying form data on a password protected page that people I designate can access without getting access to the inner workings of our site! Thanks!

-Kim

Kim,

Many thanks for this.

I think I may see what I can do with column numbers…. Something like cols='1,2,4,6,7' or even cols='1|New Name,2,4,6,7'.

Martin

Hi Martin,

No problem! I think what you suggest would be very useful, and would make it so I wouldn’t have to keep changing the shortcode every time we change the wording on the application :-).

Thanks!
-Kim

Kim,

Done! The development version now has this as an option.

You can now use cols='1,2,3,4' to pick columns.

Martin

And now the live version does too! ??

Wow, thanks! I can’t wait to try it out! I’ll plan to experiment with the new feature in the next day or two and will let you know how it goes!

Works like a charm, thanks! As an example, that huge mess above has now become:

[cformstable form=’Application for UCLA Outreach Visit’ display=’table’ cols=’10,11,8,9,7,6,5,4|UCLA or School Visit,3|Transportation,2|Date Specific,1|Date 1,0|Date 2,22|Start Time,23|Availability Details,21|Participants,20|Age or Grade,19|Duration,18|Activities,17|Can Provide,15|Title 1,16|Diversity Info,14|More Information,13|Other Suggestions’]

Much more manageable and now I won’t have to worry about changing the wording around on the form :-). Thanks again!

Hi Martin,

Me again and sorry to bother you! I have been running into a snag using column numbers in the shortcode. For some reason, the column numbers seem to be changing around so that different numbers represent different form fields! I used the shortcode above and then went back a week later to find that the fields were completely scrambled. So I re-identified the new column numbers and fixed the shortcode like this:

[cformstable form=’Application for UCLA Outreach Visit’ display=’table’ cols=’1|Submitted,0|First Name,14|Last Name,15|Email,16|Phone Number,17|School Name,18|School Address,13|UCLA or School Visit,12|Transportation,11|Date Specific,10|Date 1,9|Date 2,8|Start Time,7|Availability Details,6|Participants,5|Age or Grade,4|Duration,3|Activities,23|Can Provide,21|Title 1,22|Diversity Info,20|More Information,19|Other Suggestions’]

However, I just checked on the page now and found everything is scrambled again (i.e. the data displayed under “First Name” is no longer the first name, instead it is the data I’d expect under “Availability Details”. I’ve been getting the column numbers by using a plain shortcode without the “cols” variable, but these seem to change for no reason I can determine. Any suggestions?

Thanks so much for your help!
Kim

I’ll take a look.

If the fields aren’t coming back from the CForms function in a predictable order, I may need to sort them first – before assigning numbers to them.

But I’ll see what can be done.

Martin

Thanks, Martin! At first it seemed they were coming back in a predictable order, which was kind of scrambled with respect to the actual order of fields on my form. I thought it might just be related to the order in which I created the fields on the form – that would be fine as I don’t mind figuring out which numbers correspond to which fields, but when the numbers keep changing it makes things more challenging :-).

Thanks for your help!
Kim

Kim,

I think the new version should work now! ??

Best wishes,

Martin

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your help! I’ve re-designated the column numbers and will let you know if they stay put!

-Kim

Hi Martin,

I’ve kept an eye on the table and so far I haven’t had any problems with the columns getting scrambled – thanks!

One thing I did notice is that I added a new field to the application today and that new field is not showing up in the variable table when I type [cformstable form=’form-name’ display=’table’].

I put in my own information into the form and submitted it. The information (including the new field) shows up under the “Tracking” portion of cforms, but a column variable doesn’t seem to be assigned to the new field (it isn’t listed in the variable table at all). Any suggestions on how to make that new field display?

Thanks for your help!

-Kim

As an update, the new field (called ‘UCLA Contact’) will display if I use vars like this:

[cformstable form=’Application for UCLA Outreach Visit’ display=’table’ vars=’UCLA Contact’]

However, since I have the whole thing set up as columns, I was hoping to figure out what number I could use to call that field using cols…

Thanks!