Tag: Website development

Contact Forms Comparison

Contact form is an integral part of any website. It provides a medium for the customer to connect directly with the users. Traditional html forms always work but Wufoo, Google Forms, WordPress Contact Form, and so on are the latest contact forms taking over the website world. They are equipped with inbuilt functionalities which otherwise require hours of programming.

HTML and PHP

Traditional HTML Contact forms involve creating forms with ids and capturing them via php and storing in database. The values from the MySQL database could be later retrieved in to a Excel sheet or a web page. This version works fine even now. The developer needs to take care of SQL injection, blank values, naming the fields in the database, and so on. With HTML 5,  the inbuilt validations come in handy for developers. A lot of code needed to store and retrieve values from database. Further, the out put where the values are displayed or stored must also be taken care of. Sending the form values to an email via the mailto function is the safest and simplest way to achieve the goal. Adding recaptcha is another safety measure for added security. In addition, blocking spam bots at server side is good for securing your website and contact forms.

Wufoo

Wufoo is another way of adding contact form to your website. However, the entire data and control is with them. Wufoo has four pricing options. The basic version of the form lets you add the fields and put the code on your website. The form also comes with captcha so you don’t have to worry about any additional coding. The data is stored on Wufoo site which can be accessed via your Wufoo login. Wufoo lets you create three forms and three reports in the basic package. The reports are awesome too and you can customize any way you want. The report can further be downloaded in to a Excel file or as a CSV file for further processing. Wufoo forms are great for basic requirements. But, if you want the paid versions you can buy Wufoo membership depending upon your requirements. The basic version also leaves the big message about ‘Form created with Wufoo’ message on your website. You can remove that with paid version. Wufoo also has surveys and emails which can be added later with paid packages.

WordPress ContactForm Plugin

Another gem is the WordPress ContactForm plugin, which you need to set up to be used on your website or blog. The ContactForm plugin is free and can be set up by downloading the plugin from the WordPress Plugins. You can have multiple forms with this plugin and can set up the colors and fields based on your client’s requirements. It comes with captcha for added security. But, ContactForm 7 needs to be updated for latest bug fixes and releases. You can send emails with contact forms in them using this plugin. However, you need to be aware of how to set it up otherwise you will end up with lot of errors. This has to be tested in multiple browsers and devices as the form throws an error if you give invalid input names that are reserved in this plugin. I think this ContactForm is great again and the data can be import or export data from the WordPress admin tools.

Google Forms

If you are a big fan of Google and use Google Apps for most of your web business and data management, Google Forms are a great way. With your google login you can create the form and get the code in your website. Once you submit the form, thank you message from Google Forms remains on the screen. You can edit the colors and fields and set up is easy. You can limit the number of responses, include surveys, send confirmation messages,  and so on. The plugins available for Chrome make the set up even more efficient. If you want to send an attachment with the confirmation message, you have to set a trigger for the function on the form submit. First, save the document to be sent in your google drive, then get the id of the document by opening it in a new window. Set up the Google script to send the mail with subject, body, and attachment to the email specified in the Google Contact Form. You may need to test it out multiple times before you can successfully send the attachment. Spend some time to get a hang of the Google script and related errors. Google Forms Example shows that the data can be saved in an excel sheet on your drive or you can specify the format required. The beauty of the Google Forms is that the Contact Form data sheet on your drive is instantly updated. Sending confirmation messages and sending mail to self is also simple. You can set to send you daily or weekly reports as well.

Let me know how you incorporated Contact form in your website and which you think is the best! Here is one so you can contact me. 🙂

 

Tawk.to – live chat on your website

I recently came across this tool tawk.to that is used for incorporating live chat on your website. What’s amazing about this tool is that it is completely free and can be installed on your android or iPhone as well!

Tawk.to is a web tool that is free to signup. You need an email and a valid website where you want the live chat to be installed.

Once installed, you can manage the chats from your desktop or laptop. Users with valid email address can be configured as an agent. Many agents can be set up and the users can start chatting.




 

The web chat is a must for all websites who want to sell their products or services. The instant chat lets users get answers immediately. Their queries can be answered and any further sales leads can be developed.

Tawk.to application has inbuilt tracking and analytics of the chat and the website in general as well. It gives you the number of visits and pages where the users spent and so on.

All the chat history and communication between the agents is stored in the application. In addition, agents can answer the chats on the go by installing the mobile app. The chat sessions can be recorded on the phone and stored in the computer applications.

Agents are able to see what the user is typing in real time and it gives time to prepare for the answer. Time when the chat ended, when the user left the website, if the user liked or disliked this tool everything is recorded. The application lets you set the status message as available, away, or invisible.

I thought it is similar to any customer service web application but the answers are not customized or suggested.

Overall, tawk.to is a cool asset for your website and let’s you instantly connect to the user! Let me know your thoughts.

Forget Everything: Just Learn AngularJS!

Angular or AngularJS is the next most powerful Javascript framework out there which is becoming increasingly popular among the tech world. Angular JS along with CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap coupled with the REST services is redefining Website development.

AngularJS

AngularJS was developed by Google and is the most important Javascript framework which makes easier for the developer to maintain the code and achieve the same and better functionality achieved with Javascript. The best part of AngularJS is that it is open source and is having the largest support available of all the frameworks available. The current stable version is 1.4.7 and Angular 2.0 is on the way!

Advantages of AngularJS

AngularJS is similar to Javascript and it can enhance the HTML which will enable it to achieve client side programming. It has inbuilt JQuery support called JQLite which helps us in utilizing almost eighty percent of functions in JQuery library.

Browsers

AngularJS has inbuilt multi-browser support and it works on any browser such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. You can access your website from any device, tablet, computer, or desktop. Large-scale Enterprise applications can be developed using AngularJS. AngularJS is widely used for developing Single Page Applications (SPA) which are super light and super fast at the same time delivering unbelievable amount of data to the user.

Design

AngularJS facilitates rapidly changing user requirements and business needs at the same time leveraging the skill sets of Front end web developers. Separation of concerns that is defining the model, view, and controller-makes it easier for modular programming and keeping any changes manageable. Dependency injection and use of patterns is simple with AngularJS. Angular supports the very popular Model View Controller pattern(MVC), Model View View Model (MVVM) pattern, and Model View Whatever (MVW) pattern. AngularJS also supports responsive design which is way more important for modern day websites.

Testing

AngularJS is also super good for testing as it allows testing of Model and Controllers in isolation. AngularJS is designed to run unit testing with Karma, Jasmine and Angular mocks. The interactions between View and other components requires mocking framework to unit test. This can be achieved with AngularJS.

Prerequisites

To learn AngularJS, you must be familiar with Javascript, HTML, CSS, and website development. You also need basics of Java, PHP, and MySQL. You can download the latest version from the Angular website or include the CDN in the script tag of your web page.