Thanks for your review! It was excellent

I am struggling with this right now. There seems to be a ton of great extensions for Joomla to do almost anything you could want, but forms seems to be a gaping hole. I have looked at the free ones and one of the commercial ones and been extremely disappointed. Perhaps because I have used the great forms module for Wordpress, CFORMS II. I have no relationship with its developer, but I feel like he needs to move into the Joomla space. Surely someone out there has the need or the inclination to create a decent forms module for Joomla, but if it's out there I have yet to find it.

I have not tried BreezingForms. If I could see some screen shots or a video (many have this) on how to use, I might drop the $5 to download it. I think a better model is donations, as the inability to try it without spending $5 is a real stop sign for me. I know on the WordPress front, I have made a number of donations to program authors for plug ins that I find valuable and use.

Since this post is from June 2008, I would like to hear if you have any new words on this topic, or which Forms module you are using today.

In fact, I can not give you much update information. I'm still using ArtForms, as I'm quit pleased with that one. I don't know if there is anything new available.

I installed it successfully. I would like to update it. How?
I tried to upload it in install/uninstall, but did not work

I think you should upload the new version to the directory where artforms is installed (components/com_artforms). But to be sure, you should check with the guys from artforms

Hi,
Do you perhaps know how to turn on the "thank you for submitting" text, which shows after the user submits data? I've filled out the "Text after sending" part, but after submission as a user I get a blank screen, although the form is sent successfully.
10q. Ivan

I don't know this. You should ask this to the people from artforms.

have been trying RSForm?
i have tried. But its not free

Thanks for your suggestion to use artform..

I have download it..

I went to download artforms, but it had so many files to sort through to download, i hesitated. It's not that i don't know how to get what i need, it's just that i was just about ready for bed and didn't feel like doing that much reading at the moment. I looked up breezeforms and it is a commercial extension now. Guess I'll put some coffee on and get back to artforms.

artforms is simple for 1.5. there is only one download file. All components and mods are packaged inside for an easy install.

hi,
i want to create a form for an university
student will enter the registation number and the user should be displayed their respective results which is to retrived from database

ex:
Enter Reg No: 200983

Telugu : 60
Hindi : 29
English : 09
..
.
.
.

kindly help me which extension package should i use in joomla
and how to create a suitable database

mail it to : shakir544@gmail.com

You don't need a form component for this. A form component will aks users to enter certain information and send this by mail to whom it concerns. For what you ask, you should maybe look at components like community builder. I'm not that familiar with these kind of extensions, so maybe you should check this out on the website of community builder

Hi,

Breezingforms is partially commercial. The current version is commercial while the previous is "free as beer". Both still GPL. You just support the projekt by this, otherwise the rapid development and more important - the support - wouldn't be possible in that quality. Thanks to all supporters!

Regards,
Markus

Thanks for this post! Was very useful!

Steven

hi
i want to add my own PHP pages to joomla(forms etc).

so kindly help me in this regard



thanks

Thanks for saving me the time of trying out some of these. I used to use perForms which worked beautifully but from what I've read there were several vulnerability issues and I encountered problems with it when I upgraded to Joomla 1.5. Thanks again!

Indeed a great form editor, but it seems to lack a very basic functionality that keeps me busy for too long. I can't open the form directly from a menu. After assigning it to a menu (mainmenu in my case) it just offers a new link like the following: ArtForms, Select a form [showing name(s)of form(s)to choose]

Others have this problem as well. I did not find one solution. I just want to open the form directly after pushing the menu option. This problem shows up on the web for several month now.

With such a nice tool I can't imagine that a solution is so difficult. Do you know about this and if a solution already exists?

Solved the problem in previous message simply in the 'menu' option. Problem as being a Joomla starter and working without any ArtForms manual, is the repeating of wrong steps. In my case not corrected by results of searching on the web.
Don't bother to remove this and previous message. ArtForms is great, just waiting for a manual

glad I could help

Yeah, it costs $15 but BreezingForms is awesome.

It was a bit complicated to learn at first, but the author has like 6 tutorial videos on his website and after tweaking around with the software for a bit, this software rocks!!! My personal favorite is the "quick" builder. This allows you to drop in elements and manage your form with sections and element lists. After playing around with it I figured out how to do those drop down lists like you see on pro sites (like pick your state or your country). You can totally customize the drop downs to take any kind of data you want. The other killer feature of this package is that every form entry creates a record in your MySQL database and you can export this data to a *.CSV file and then import it into excel. If you are dealing with a ton of data or want to graph things out or put together a mailing list, this software handles all of the grunt work for you. I can export the entry list, import it into excel, grab the "e-mail address" column and I've got a mailing list in about 2 minutes. I am assuming there is a way to automate this process, but my site isn't that big yet.

The other nice feature is the "security code" anti spam validation feature for your forms.

For $15, I am very very happy with BreezingForms. I got this software for handling 2 specific forms on my site: a Feedback Form and a Job Application form and this software handles both of those functions nicely.

The only drawback I can see with BreezingForms is a farily limited data validation functionality (built in), but the package was designed for people to create their own validation scripts and plug them into BreezingForms (if you are a coder).

Hope this helps!

YOu just saved me like 3 hours of extra work. I'll definetely try artForms.
Thanks for the review.

I agree with Louis. artForms is ok but Breezingforms is so much better. I did a multipage form in quickmode and wow, wasn't it a breeze? Pretty fast form builder.

Great article by the way. Thanks for the tips, helped me a lot.

Hi friends , I have installed artforms in joomla1.5 local, I also created a form too, I got a new menu link in the main menu, but when i click that link, i am getting a blank page displayed. Can anyone tell me the steps for creating a form in artform and display it in the front-end or as a menu item to display separately

thanks

I have tried artforms and really like it, BUT for some reason I cannot load more than 12 fields, it simply does not want to add more, has anyone come across this, built all my forms in CK forms, but now I cant seem to edit the properties of forms afterwards, seriously scratching my head.

@stephen: ARtforms is not an extionsion of Ulti Joomla, this is just a review article. So support questions about ArtForms should be asked to the owners of the extension

I am very impressed with this review. Very well done. I have installed JFrom
and I think is an excellent extension.
However I still have to understand how i can render the data that i have collected on my web page.

Cheers

breezing forms is the best. no doubt, worth the few bucks.
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/contacts-&-feedback/forms/4709/details

i m facing the prob in joomla ,i can't make my own form, plz tell me the structure of joomla

i m facing the prob in joomla ,i can't make my own form, plz tell me the structure of joomla

@varsha: You just need an extension to create forms. Install the extension and then use it to create your form

I was searching for a good form component and found also this blog.
I can only recommend Mooj Proforms. This is the follow-up software of Mad4Joomla Mailforms. It is brand new and I purchased a copy which I can use as often I want. There are no restrictions.
You can check it on your own. There are some eyecandy demos on the site of proforms. Explore it on your self: http://www.mooj.org

indeed artforms works fine and its simple to figure out how it works. but there are some minor things:
1> Security code check failed! is what i get all the time, no matter which option i choose in the captcha-list in Settings. is this a bug? or more: how can i make it work?
2> if i dont use the captcha option, and i still use the redirection option, after 'send' you end up with a blank page! the information is send though, so it works, but it has some beauty problems.

@jelle vanhijfte: this is just a review article. If you have problems with artforms, you should check it on their site.

me likes breezing forms for joomla http://www.crosstec.de

People looking for Joomla forms may also want to consider the extensions listed under Quiz and Surveys at the JED, because these extensions collect their data using forms.

Very informative article.. thanks!

@Chris7:

sure, but these quiz extensions often miss field types, for instance, see these breezing forms examples:

http://crosstec.de/all-elements-example.html

You rarely find professional looking forms like this for joomla.

sorry, this is the link

http://www.crosstec.de/all-elements-example.html

Great blog! The information you provide is quiet helpful, why I was not able to find it earlier. Anyways I’ve subscribed to your feeds, keep the good work up.

I'm wondering if there's such a component. This would really be interesting in order to increase your interactivity.

10x

Great blog! The information you provide is quiet helpful, why I was not able to find it earlier. Anyways I’ve subscribed to your feeds, keep the good work up.

I had been looking for a good form plugin when I found your site. I had already tried CK forms and mad4joomla and was not pleased with the results. 5 minutes after installation, I was able to have a form on my site with this plugin. I am glad that you found it and shared it.

Really good article but not up to date.
I suggest an overhaul.
If you view all new entries at Joomla Extensions Directory you will see lot of new components.
The latest top form is Mooj Proforms also missing an extensiv review of Breezing Forms and Fabrik.
Although Fabrik is not top listed it is a very good component (for experts).

Hi,
Can I receive guidance on what folder to download from http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/jartforms/frs/ to Artforms for Joomla 1.5.I tried a few folders to install through Install/ Uninstall and directory but all of them are giving an error. So let me know how to install em.


Thank you

I use chronoforms. They have a wysiwyg editor and since I dont know html or php (the reason i got joomla in the first place) I thought that would be easy. My problem is not with making forms, its with how to allow the user to change or edit the saved data on the front end after the form is submitted. I have no idea how to allow them to retrieve thier submitted data or change and resave it. Is there an easy way to do that? Does it require an entirely different extension? Im going to have to break down and learn a bunch of coding languages arent I?

Hi,
I should thank you for the review.
What I noticed with joomla is that almost every extension has positive
reviews and user experiences.
I think the developpers hire people to write positive reviews on the joomla website.
When you go on the internet, it seems that CK forms is the form builder to go with.
In 5 minutes you can set up your customized form and even edit the css.
I tried that out. And they are right. In 5 minutes I had my form online.
However the css code that comes out of the box is total crap.
the form didn't look as it should.
The field names were just floating over the page. In order to get it right you need to rewrite the whole css page.
This is not out of the box.
Then I came across your page. so I will try Artforms since it is free and I will also try breezerforms since it has very good documentation and some special features I want.
My tip: don't botherr with CK forms. It will give you more work than needed to recode the css and you will find very little information and support online. In addition to that CK forms has security issues and some hosting companies don't allow you to install this extension.

Peter

Great job, Webmaster! I commend you for your effort.

Taking the time to obtain, install, implement and evaluate the functional merits of any number of extensions in any category is almost as invaluable a contribution to the community as writing code. Many of us daydream about doing just that but always seem to come up short on time.

More than a blind-taste test and subjective review of the 'starred' one or two Forms extensions in the Joomla! repository, you went about it methodically in a manner that is as fair as the process was thorough — with a control point, no less — on the basis of a pre-established set of criteria.

Each extension in the test group had to be:
* Free. And I couldn't agree more. The implied profit motive of outright trading of extensions undermines the spirit of major projects like Joomla! and could well be the undoing of OpenSource. I firmly believe that the proper financial model for the supporting casts of any truly OpenSource project is 'donation' in cash or kind from those who use them. If you don't believe me, ask the MySQL Core team about the upheaval that erupted in the aftermath of its acquision by Sun, and subsequently by Oracle.
* Joomla! 1.5 Native.
* Backward-compatible with older versions of PHP.
* Install easily and work out-of-the-box as advertised.

This is systems analysis, pure and simple!

Granted, these criteria may not be the same as I or anyone else might have used, but they are objective, and they are consistent. Besides, the point of this exercise is not to recommend one over the other. It is precisely to point out some of the shortcomings of extensions in the test group, which can help us all make a more informed decision. That's a real time-saver, especially for those of us perpetually pressed for time or have no idea where to start.

Now, some have commented on this blog that certain worthy candidates, such as BreezingForms, were not included in the test group. To the best of my knowledge, BreezingForms is not free, and, on that basis alone, fails to meet the criteria outlined at the outset.

I happen to use BreezingForms and find it to be quite capable. It has an impressive set of functional attributes. And, more importantly, it is stable. Regrettably, however, other than in QuickMode, it is far more complicated to use than it needs to be. It is unbearably slow, documentation is lackluster and grossly outdated, and support is virtually nonexistent. All in all, BreezingForms has real potential. Sadly, so much of it is lost in translation. It remains to be seen if the authors will take the initiative to clean things up. If it isn't obvious by now, I'm not exactly thrilled to discover that the extension I paid for is less than desirable in so many respects. Had I read this blog sooner, I might've made an entirely different decision. And that's precisely the point.

I think we can all agree that OpenSource is the greatest thing since Microsoft. But there is also no denying that its one Achilles' heel is arguably the virtual absence of an independent, qualitative clearing-house. I truly hope that this individual effort is the beginning of a new movement afoot to inch the community ever closer to that ideal. The Joomla! Core team can't do it all alone. It's up to the rest of us to chip in and help in whatever we can.

Hello:

I came across this thread and thought I'd let you know about an extensive review I've posted for BreezingForms. I mostly cover QuickMode, but I do detail some issues I encountered with client-side Javascript timeouts when trying to deploy forms above a certain level of complexity. (This is the number one issue I encountered.)

You can find my review (along with Javascript details) here:
http://prototaph.com/index.php/Protoblog/Joomla/joomla-extension-review-breezingforms.html

Or here's a shorter URL that also leads to the article:
http://bit.ly/ao3sBg

I welcome any feedback you might have!

You did a great job. All the extentions that you explored...Couldn't have done it better myself.

Thanks,
Bob
Firm Body Sculpting System

JForms is the way to go!

I checked almost all form components and Proforms is the best.
There are a lot of form components listed at Joomla's Extension Directory.
Nearby 90% of the free forms are sh*t. Only Chronoforms and Mad4Joomla are fine. If you need a professional solution get Proforms, Breezingforms or maybe RSForms PRO. The flaw of RSForms is that it is really old fashioned. If you run Joomla 1.0 this might be ok but not for Joomla 1.5.
blue flame forms is made for retarded, smart forms is crappy eastern sh*t , nobody understands fabrik and JForms is too buggy. All of the rest is made by home brew coders not knowing what they are doing.

Hi,
At first thank you for the useful info.
I look for a joomla form which ideally has two functions:
- RTL support
- Dynamic Drop-down change form, like rsforms (see sample at: http://www.joomla-form.com/for...rm-example).
Can you help me?
Ugo

ArtForms This extension has been unpublished for the following reason: VEL list: http://docs.joomla.org/Vulnera...t#ArtForms

Did anybody look at LFRM ? Seems very powerful but steep learning curve. Complete application generator. But too complicated for my purposes ...

Artform has been unpublished. So wats next

Wearing MBT Sandals Shoes this summer on the feeling of home, because the work needs, party needs, every time fiercely discard high heels, MBT Walking Shoes rubbing suffered a torn ankle were hurt, too much reliance on high heels Oh, also no good ankle. Time, MBT Sport Shoes to choose the right pair of MBT sandals own good, to let their feet rest rest.

Hi. Does anybody know which of these form components is not affected by the Joomla session time.

I had a terrible experience with aicontactsafe. I had created a long survey form in aicontactsafe and a number of my users were spending over an hour filling the form which was longer than the Joomla session time. When they submitted the form they would get a session timeout message and lose everything that they had entered. Very frustrating for them. Can't understand why a form needs to bother about the session.

This extension has been unpublished for the following reason: VEL list: http://docs.joomla.org/Vulnera...t#ArtForms

I cant seem to create more than one field - there is simply no ADD FIELD button - which would be logical - whenever I type a new field at the bottom it just overwrite the previous field with ID 1.

what I am doing wrong? - can someone make a step to step posting on how to add a field - since there are no tutorials on this - I am using IE8, Joomla 1.5.6.

hi all

can anyone help me to know how to edit the data in ck forms.

is there any other component that needs to be loaded.

any other forms which can display data as well as edit the data submitted by the users.

Regards

imtiyaz

Hi "Webmaster", thanks for the article, but I'm still in doubt which one to use. Since your article, have you found another great component? Have you heard about JUser? The ArtForm was removed from Joomla library I think it was due vulnerability.

Thanks in advance.

I even made a donation to Gonzalo, but never got the least feedback. I have been searching for such a key application as forms for Joomla and am still surprised that no one has yet developed a stable, simple and basic extension for making forms. A pity that no one has yet worked on improving and eliminating the few remaining flaws from ArtForms.

superb ! great articles. It is very helpful. Thanks

Breezing Form win among all of them from my own perspective having tried a few

Mooj has published a free version of Proforms.
If you don't need database function this is the right form.
Very very easy to use, great looking forms and for FREE!

It is a very awesome information.

My accurate review of this product was deleted from the JED. Never again will I leave a review, positive or negative on the JED since they are clearly playing favorites with certain developers who are friends of the moderators. I'll post it here and see if it sticks. I too, would like to know of a good Forms extension for Joomla that is recent and decent.

****************************
Pros:

* Seems after watching the demo video that this product would be worthy of a test drive.
* $30 US dollars (after conversion) is not a bad price to pay for a forms solution that boasts of all of the listed features.
* Timely response to after-sales question.

Cons:

There are two parts to commercial extensions on the JED. One is the product itself, and the other is the support. I didn't get so far as to get it working after all of the system error emails I received after installation, but what I did get to experience very much, even more so than I wanted, was the "support."

But first, let me describe the demo video before the developer modifies it. The Developer clearly does not understand how to use the recording software to properly demo his extension. Many, if not all of the menus are off screen and can't be seen during the demo. The product he's using to demo is top notch and has the ability to "zoom and move" along with the mouse, but I suppose he didn't take much time to learn how to use it. During the video, his phone rings at least on two different occasions while totally interrupting the tutorial. I believe the developer needs a tutorial on how to mute his cell phone. I mean, who does that during a tutorial?

One of my accounts is hosted by one of the large hosting companies. As it may be, large hosts are typically problematic. I simply could not get this extension installed as it would just hang. Ok. Thought I'd try putting in a request in the forum asking for help. Here's where things went south. I was given a canned templated request to give the developer the following info: my joomla admin id, my joomla admin password, my host account login, host account password, my ftp host, id, and password, my SQL id and password, my name, email, and my phone number. In my 20 years IT experience, we typically start out with the least security given out to an untrusted third party, then widen the net as needed. Not so with this guy. He demands it all and he demands it now along with exclamation points and EXTREMELY rude comments that come out of nowhere, after I gave him only my joomla admin id and password. He could have at least looked to see if maybe there was a missing PHP module with my host that was preventing his product from installing. I gave him a warning to watch his manners, but that warning was followed by some name calling (called me a "time drain" and told me I was wasting his time). The remainder of his email was filled with how great he thinks he is in resume style, and him whining and moaning about all of the free help he's giving out for his COMMERCIAL product. He promptly got a very rude response back from me at that point. This developer is a typical coward who dishes out bitterness over the Internet but can't take it when it's returned to him, then he plays the victim (watch for more of this in his reply). I mean seriously? To top it off, he demands all of your credentials from the get-go before he'll give you any type of answer to your question. The form requesting all of your id's and passwords is a secure form - but he turns right around and sends the credentials in a plain text email response to the email address you provide in the form. That kind of defeated the purpose of a secure form, didn't it? Does someone need to teach him how to use his own form as well as how to silence his cell phone and give him some manners? I believe so. He interpreted this as a "violent threat" - go figure.

This is the first negative review I've ever given and I've spent thousands of dollars on commercial products from the JED. Don't waste your time on this guy or his extension. His bad behavior is completely unacceptable and totally off the deep end. To make matters worse, he was stalking one of the web sites listed in my signature that had nothing to do with the installed extension, while clicking on the admin links. I wonder why? Calls me a time drain while he has all this time to go "mad dogging" me on other sites. Makes no sense. I totally regret wasting my time on this clown. I sure would like to have the opportunity to reply to the ridiculous "owner's reply" that is sure to follow this TRUE and ACCURATE review.

The best integration with Joomla is with JotForm. Never had any problems so far and I hope I will never have any.

JotForm is too buggy and not really comfortable. I am fine with breezingforms http://crosstec.de

First off all great job thank you spending your time reviewing forms extensions.

BUT it is really outdate and readers of this article could really save a lot time if you could do a little update.

In fact there are only 3 professional form builders. RSForms,ProForms and my favourite Breezingforms.

They all offer a free version, so do not waste your time checking out others.

I am a fan of Breezingforms, as it is easy to use and the possibilities are endless.

Althoug it has a free version, I paid for a subscription just to donate the great work. In my opinion this is the extension to use. And great plus is the 100% integration of Breezingforms with their extension ContentBuilder an amazing content construction kit( by the way also FREE).

Enough words, as I said all these formbuilders have a free version so test it out yourself. But once used Breezingforms you never need anything else.

Been looking for a great extension, I will give it a bash. Thanks again.