Coolmaps Components Club : Components : SendLetter Tutorial : Creating a form in Fusion

Creating your SendLetter Form in NetObjects Fusion
We strongly recommend that NetObjects Fusion users use the coolmaps' Fusion SendLetter component that can be downloaded from the coolmaps site. This component will work with both Fusion v4 and v5.

The SendLetter form you create in Fusion works in partnership with the List settings in the online SendLetter admin area. For example if you are creating a form to add user information into List X which has Email, Firstname and Lastname as required fields, the form you create in Fusion MUST have those same fields.

Getting Started with the SendLetter Component

Download the Component and run the Installation program, specifying the location of Fusion 4.0/5.0's component directory

Launch Fusion. If the coolmaps services component toolbar is not visible choose View > Toolbars > Component Tools > coolmaps services

Select the SendLetter component and drag out an area on the page. SendLetter Properties now appears in Fusion's properties palette.

You will need to know the Contact List ID and Contact List Code of the List you would like Contact data from the form submitted to. This info is listed in the online admin Statistics/Logging area.

When you place the SendLetter component on the page Fusion will warn you that you must assign the region as a form.

Check the box 'Layout (or Table or Layout Region) is a form'.

The default text on the Submit button is 'Submit'. Enter a custom value in the SendLetter properties palette, e.g. 'Subscribe Here!'

Enter the values for Contact List ID (e.g. 1) and Contact List Code (e.g. Demo-1234) into the SendLetter properties palette. These values are listed in the SendLetter Admin Statistics/Logging section.

The SendLetter properties palette should now look similar to this:

With the component configured, the remainder of the form must be created using Fusion's form tools. It is critical that these additional fields are named correctly and present in the form if you have selected 'required' in the admin for that field. Correct names for the form fields are:

Contact_email - this is required in every SendLetter form

Contact_firstname

Contact_lastname

Contact_fieldname

NOTE:
1) The names above apply to the name value entered in the form properties box as shown below.
2) Be sure to enter the names as shown. No spaces in between the words, only an underscore.

Adding the Contact_email Field
The Contact_email field must be included in every SendLetter form. Select the 'Forms Edit Field' tool from the Forms Toolbar and place a Form Field on the page.
With the Forms Field selected enter Contact_email as the field name in the properties palette. Adjust the visible and maximum length to suit your needs.
With the Contact_email field added, continue to add other fields as you have specified in the SendLetter online admin area.

NOTE: Regardless of how you present the optional 'Other' field to the site visitor, the field name in the form must always be Contact_fieldname

POWER TIP: Having trouble with the alignment of your form elements in the generated page? Lay out your form in a table. This will help to display the form as you intended.

Creating Success and Failure Pages
If you have set the Success and Failure URLs to YES in the SendLetter admin area then you will need to create these pages and place them on the server at the URL you have specified. This can be done as part of your Fusion site. The site visitor will see the Success URL when the SendLetter form has been successfully submitted, the Failure URL if there has been a problem - e.g. a required field has not been completed.

NOTE: The Success and Failure URLs must be absolute URLS beginning with "http:".

SendLetter Form TroubleShooting!
With your site published to the server you are ready to test your SendLetter form. If you receive an error message from the services.coolmaps.com server it means you have an error in the form. Check the form source. Ignoring all of the other code, the form code should look similar to the code below (with your own values inserted).

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