SMTP?

Hi,

Should have mentioned this, but you still can add the email you want, while adding a shortcode attribute:

[contact email_to="your-email-here"]

Only thing I have changed is the From header; not email from sender anymore, but email from admin (or the one set via an attribute).

As far as I know also Contact form 7 only uses a From header with email ending on the domain of the site if USER sets this email him/herself.

Guido

Yes, I understand the mail_to address but the problem is with the FROM header address that should be part of same domain as site.

As Sanjay said before, if you use the admin’s address it won’t work if the site’s admin uses a different address in WP settings (like gmail).

Contact Form 7 doesn’t set this address automatically, it just recommends/requires you use a FROM header address that is part of your site (and you fill it in by yourself) and then uses the reply_to address for the message so that you may reply to the sender.

This issue occurred in the beginning with Yahoo users but then spread everywhere.

Here’s a blog post that explains this quite clearly:
https://www.sumydesigns.com/2015/01/19/emails-contact-form-arent-coming-yahoo-users/

As far as I know also Contact form 7 only uses a From header with email ending on the domain of the site if USER sets this email him/herself.

Not true, I’m sorry. It does use a default email ending on domain of your site, check this link again. I did not find this feature in the source code of Contact form 7, so I will take a look at the source code again..

Guido

Guido,
John is right about contact form 7.
And thank you for mentioning me in update of your plugin

Hi again,

I found the way how Contact form 7 creates the email that ends on the domain of the site, which is being used by default as From header. Check this link. Similar how WordPress does it, check this link.

I don’t want to create a settingspage for this (my form should stay very simple) so I’m thinking about creating a new shortcode attribute. So user can add a custom “From” header in shortcode.

To be clear: I fully understand the problem and want to solve this asap. But until now most form submissions where being deliverd so there was no need to change it.

I will keep you informed.

Guido

ps John: about page load mentioned in that article… please check other recent topic from Sanjay in this forum. I’m trying to build a function that load plugin styleheet only when form is being displayed. Almost there ??

Guido, I think we all agree on everything here.
That’s why I prefer to use your own plugin as often as possible.

I really dislike CF7, not only for the issues discussed in this article but also because, most of the time, we don’t need to have so many settings and that’s why you make the difference with yours: simple and straight forward.

In a previous message I mentioned “settings” for defining a custom FROM header but in fact I was meaning “shortcode” in order to comply with this philosophy.

Guido

I don’t want to create a settingspage for this (my form should stay very simple) so I’m thinking about creating a new shortcode attribute. So user can add a custom “From” header in shortcode.

I can understand your concern, your main selling point is simplicity, but providing simple setting pages is not a huge task and it does not make the plugin complicated. Settings are used to define constant thing that probably will remain same for entire site, whereas shortcode parameters are used to control the current instance of your plugin. This is design principle.
Since form from email address will remain same for most of the users for all forms they will use, so it is good candidate to be a setting, while messages can be different for different form so it is good candidate to be shortcode attributes. Suppose a user changes its domain in future, now he/she has to manually edit your shortcode at every place where it is present. But if it has a setting then he can easliy change it from there.
In short, I am telling you to understand the importance of where to use settings and where to shortcode attributes. Hope you will consider it in future, if not this time

But until now most form submissions where being deliverd so there was no need to change it.

Hosting companies are getting stricter now, specially the good one. So you have to prepare yourself ??

I’m trying to build a function that load plugin styleheet only when form is being displayed. Almost there

That’s fantastic news, You know now days everyone is getting optimization freak, people want to optimize every bit, since google has said that fast loading pages will be preferred. You will be amazed that people are checking every possibilities in google pagespeed tool, GTmaterix and Pingdom. Surprisingly lot of plugin popped in recent days which are related to optimization.

When you achieved that, please do not forget to mention it on your plugin main page, believe me people will prefer it over other for only this reason.

John,
I think CF7 is still a very good plugin, if you want customization, control and want to make some complex form. Every aspect can be controlled. But in case you need a very simple form Guido has very simple solution indeed.
Sorry for my bad english I am not native of english speaking country ??

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by sanjayojha.

Personally, I don’t fully agree with your statement about settings/shortcode in this particular case. Of course, I’m not the plugin’s author but as a user I like the idea to not having settings at all and just a line of shortcode with 2 email addresses: FROM & TO.

As about CF7, I agree this is a fully customizable contact form utility but I believe 90% of cases nobody really needs that sort of customization as in most cases you get contact form pages with just 4 fields: name, email, subject and message + possibly a sort of Captcha and nothing else. Sometimes just an attachment upload field but not very often either.

And the point here is that you have nothing else between full customization, such as CF7 and “very simple” contact form generation such as Guido’s plugin.

Hi again John and Sanjay,

Quick response, it’s getting very late here…

Have updated plugin few moments ago.

Default From header is now: [email protected]
Have added a shortcode attribute to change that: from_header
Did not add a settingspage, because a page for just 1 setting is overkill ánd then I must ask all plugin translaters to translate the new strings.. don’t want that now.

Can you please try it, and also inform me if it works with SMTP as well.. and let me know which plugin you’re using?

Guido

That’s great!
I just tested and it works fine WITHOUT SMTP at the server that had issues before and that was requiring SMTP!

Hence, I didn’t even test further with SMTP as it’s fine as it is.
But, when needed, I always use and recommend the POSTMAN SMTP plugin which I find to be the best and most effective for such needs. I runs an automatic SMTP setting detection and configuration that works and also provides a Gmail 0auth utility that also works fine.

My only remark so far would be about your instructions and FAQ: I don’t find them to be very clear for novices, especially regarding this issue you just corrected.

I would add a sentence like this one somewhere:

In your WP admin email address that is used under Setting-General in your WP Dashboard is not part of the same domain as your site (ie. if you use a Gmail account) and/or you also want to receive the contact form’s messages to a different email account than this one, we recommend you use this shortcode:
[contact from_header=”[email protected]” email_to=”[email protected]”]

This is just an exemple and I’m sure it can still be improved but I find it very important to be mentioned clearly somewhere.

Great job, thanks a lot!

I just realize your default FROM header is now correct and should work in most cases as it’s not anymore the admin’s one used under WP settings. In that case, my suggested text above is maybe not needed?

(setting this topic as resolved)

Hi John,

The default From header is now indeed ‘wordpress’ and ends with the site domain.. So most site owners (admins) will use it as it is, because the Reply-to header is still the email that visitor has filled in; they not even notice the changed From header.

While updating plugin it was very late in the evening, so I have added a minimum of info in the readmore for now… it’s a good idea to add more info about the From header and why it’s so important. Besides this some info about SMTP plugins my plugin supports. That’s why I asked you about it.

Now still 1 other issue to solve… check this link..

Guido

Hi Guido,

I already found the plugin’s description a bit confusing in the beginning and the latest version is even more…

So I tried a re-write of your readme text in order to bring some clarity. As I’m not a dev and rather an implementer I always try to use simple words so that everyone gets the message.

You’ll find the new text here: https://cloudup.com/cs2amiqfUxY

It’s just a tentative re-writting and it certainly needs some more improvements but I mainly tried to clarify as much as possible the main points.

Use a text comparison tool to see the differences with the original one as I edited the same readme.txt file as the one found with latest plugin.

Hi John,

You’ve used the old readme version. Meanwhile I’ve updated the readme again and changed the 2 FAQ regarding the From header. IMO it’s much clearer now. Personally I think there’s no need to add much info about this, because most users don’t even notice this. And if they do, they will find an answer in the FAQ. Will take a closer look at your other changes..

Guido

No, I think I used the latest one that comes with version 6.5
Most of my edits are in the first 2 paragraphs anyhow and this hasn’t much changed in your recent versions. As the FAQ redirects to the Description section, I found important to have it more explicit.

No problem, just have a look and take whatever you want in there.