The Different Types of Form Fields
A contact form is a short form that is web based, which is published on a website. Visitors can then fill out the form and submit it to the owner of the website. Behind the scenes, the contact form will trigger an email to be generated and sent to the website owner’s inbox. This email will contain the details of the contact form that the visitor has filled out. Contact forms are necessary for websites for many reasons. It helps to reduce spam emails, as you don’t need to reveal your email address on your website. It also allows you to keep track of any enquiries and get more business leads. Another reason why they are effective is that they help to build your own email marketing contact list. Formidable Forms is a plugin for WordPress websites which lets you drag and drop form fields to customise your own form. There are a fair amount of fields that you can utilise with the free version of this plugin. It is good to know what these fields are and what you can do with them, so you can design and create your own form for your WordPress website.
Single Line Text Fields
This is a commonly used field type. Single line text fields are typically used to insert a small amount, or single line, of text. These fields usually accept any type of text up to 255 characters. This means it is best to use these fields when you know that site visitors can fill it out using few characters. These fields are best used for values such as names, departments and subjects.
Paragraph Text
This field is used to insert multiple lines of text, such as descriptions, enquiries or requests. If you need your website visitors to give a larger detail of information then paragraph text would be the best field to use. In Formidable, you can adjust the size of the text box by dragging the bottom-right corner of the box. You can also set the amount of rows the visitor has to write on.
Checkboxes
Checkbox fields will have a list of options which the user can select from. These checkboxes are pre written by the person who created the form. The user will be able to choose from these, selecting one or more of the checkboxes and being able to check and uncheck them. You can use checkboxes to display a range of different options, such as categories, items or dates. As long as you want the visitor to be able to choose one or more options.
Radio Buttons
Radio buttons are similar to checkboxes. They both display a list, where the user will be able to select from. Radio buttons only allow one option to be selected. For example, you could use a radio button for a yes/no answer or to list multiple options where the visitor can only choose one.
Dropdown Field
Dropdown fields allow users to select one option, from a list of options. These options will only be visible when the user clicks on the dropdown button. This type of field is typically used when there are a lot of options to choose from, such as the user’s date of birth. This means you can add as many options as you need without taking up too much space on your form.
Email Address
An email address field behaves just like a text field. The difference is that it checks to make sure that it matches the format of an email address. So if a user forgets to include the ‘@’ symbol in their email address, then an error would appear and the form won’t be submitted until they fix the error. Formidable also lets you add the option to send an automated email response to the email address that the user enters.
Number Field
This field only lets the user enter numeric values, integers or decimals. This will only pass validation and let the form be submitted if the value that the user enters a valid number. You can set a range of numbers if you want the user to only enter a number between a specified range.
Phone Number
A phone number field checks if the value that is entered is a valid phone number. There are several types of phone number formats that will be accepted. This field can be easily modified to only allow a specific number format, such as social security numbers and zip codes.
HTML
The HTML field is used to display descriptive text or HTML to users. This is only inserted on the form builder, and users cannot modify it. The HTML field is often used to display static instructions, a progress bar or terms and conditions.
reCAPTCHA Fields
This requires the user to verify that they are human, before the form can be submitted. This can help to protect your email account from spam emails.
