Hey everybody.

We are going to be making some changes to how web forms functions. Our goal is to make them easier to set up and manage and potentially add some new functionality.

We have a pretty good list of stuff compiled but I'd like to get your feedback.

What do you wish you could do with web forms? What things about web forms drive you nuts?

I'll get our list organized and throw it up here so you can pound on it and let us know what you really want. For now though, let's use this thread to brainstorm a little bit...

Here are some of our ideas to get the conversation started.

Make it easier to get fields onto a form and to organize them.

• anybody else ready to be able to re-order the fields on the form?
  


• how about creatin "field bundles" so I can just insert address as a bundle instead of street 1, street 2, city, etc...
  


• adding the ability to create a custom field on the fly while I am setting up a web form
  

Improve Thank You page handling

• add the ability to redirect users to different thank you pages based on their reponses to the web form
  


• for hosted Thank You Pages, the ability to insert merge fields or an easy way to pass contact data into that page for personalization


• add the ability to create a special thank you page for people that have already filled out the web form


• an easy way to use a web form as the thank you page for another web form (this would allow me to more easily set up a squeeze page into a full info opt-in page

Make it easier to get the form online

• option to host web forms (i.e. create landing pages)
  


• option to send code to "my web guy"


• options when generating the code (e.g. strip out all tables, include code for prefilling contact info that is passed through query string, etc...)


• upgrade code output to be standards compliant

Well, that is a small portion of the ideas we came up with but I would really like to hear what you all have to say.

Do you like those ideas? Which ones do you like? What else do you want to see?

Frankly, I think the Web Forms work quite well.

I have a couple of suggestions:

Change the Editor to WYSIWYG Pro. It is cleaner and easier to navigate than TinyMCE.

Allow customization of the Generated HTML. Placing the fields in a single column is, well, boring. Only a couple of options are likely necessary to make big improvements: Allow multiple columns with ability to place fields in either column, add customizable place holders to insert labels above groups of fields (much like the Infusion Standard Contact entry form), ability to set Tab order. In fact, if we could use WYSIWYG Pro and have the ability to place the fields (much like the Merge Dialog in template editor) in the form, that would about cover everything.

Better form validation (e.g. email address validation that validates that it contains an "@" and ends with a ".net" or ".com", etc...) Preferably, some JavaScript that checks each field and pops up an alert box prior to submitting...and not just web forms, but order forms too.

So when your setting up a form, next to each field, there is a Yes or No option to validate and the system would dynamically create some validation JavaScript. The only validation done now is after the form is submitted and it only check whether a field is required or not.

Btw Brad, the thank you page handling stuff sounds pretty cool. And I agree with Chuck that TinyMCE is a bit lame. My beef with it is that it always strips out common HTML tags.

TinyMCE is configurable. Right now we have it set to accept only strictly valid XHTML 1.0, which is the header used by HTML email content sent through Infusionsoft. What "common HTML tags" is it still stripping out? We can probably set it up to allow it.

They update with patches / new features quite regularly. For example, we reported a bug to them and they fixed it in 2 days.

There is also a vast array of plugins and customizations available for it that we have not yet begun to explore including in Infusionsoft.

I'm a huge fan of TinyMCE in case you couldn't tell.
Sorry for the derail!

Brad,

Great List. Of course I want it all yesterday.

What would save me alot of time:

#1 In Importance: Being able to edit/reorder a webform to add a new field anywhere.

#2 Adding a custom field on the fly

#3 Being able to send the html by email to your "web host" could be nice

Improvements in the thank you page are great as well.

Keep up the great work.
Craig

Suggestions for Thank You pages.

Success Page redirects you back to the page you were already on. A Continue Shopping Button on the Thank you page that would provide an effect similar to the shopping cart.

If someone is browsing your goods and feels like filling out your opt in form it would be nice to get them back to what they were doing easily.

Hey everybody, thanks for the great ideas.

We are going to start designing the new tools for web forms and we'll post back here as we make progress and show you where we are so you can provide feedback.

Thanks again, your ideas have been great.

Brad