Creating Custom Displays

Any data entered into a Formidable form can be displayed on your site using the custom display settings form. Here’s some detail on each option in the custom display.

Custom display options

1. Name/Description: Both of these fields are simply for your own reference to make it easy to find the correct template if you need to make changes later.
2. Display Format: There are four options available for what to display: All Entries, Single Entry, Both (Dynamic), or Calendar.
   • Single Entry: Only display one entry. The specific entry shown can still be dynamic and is determined by the options in the “Advanced” section at the bottom. If you want to show a specific entry, you can select the entry name, or insert the entry id into the custom display shortcode. The text in the “Content” box will not be repeated.
   • All Entries: List all entries in the specified form. Choose this option if you do not want a detail page for each entry. The text in the “Content” box will be repeated for each entry.
   • Both: List all entries that will link to a more detailed single entry page. See the demo site for examples. The text in the “Content” box will be repeated for each entry. The “Dynamic Content” box is for the single entry.
   • Calendar: Show the entries in a calendar. You can also add links to show the detailed single entry page as well. See example. The text in the “Content” box will be used on each date on the calendar that includes an entry. The “Dynamic Content” box is for the single entry.
3. Use Entries from Form: Select the form (and entry if only showing one specific entry) from which to get the entries you would like to display.
4. Content: After you selected a form in Step 3, a list of shortcodes appeared in a drop-down above the Content box. There are two shortcodes for each field in the selected form: id and key. The ID and Key work synonymously, although there are times one may be a better fit than the other. The field IDs will not change, and the field keys can be edited but can also be “locked” from editing on the “Formidable” -> “Settings” page. If you’re using WPMU, and copying your custom display settings to other blogs, you should use the field keys since that will be consistent, and the ids may not be. Any of these shortcodes are available for use in the Content box.

   You can also use each field shortcode in conditional statements. For example, if you have a website field with the id of 25, you could use a statement like this in the Content box:

   [if 25]<a href="[25]">Click here</a>[/if 25]

   You can also narrow this down further with

   [if 25 equals="Hello there"]I said [25][/if 25]

   Hide a block of content if a field is empty:

   [if 25 not_equal=""]Hide this if field #25 is blank[/if 25]

   Show a block of content if a field includes a certain word or phrase:

   [if 25 like="Hello"]Show this if field #25 includes the word "Hello"[/if 25]

   

   The shortcodes available for use here are:

   • [detaillink]: Inserts the URL for the detailed entry page. There will only be a detail link if you selected Both in Step 2. Include the [detaillink] tag anywhere you would like to add a link to the detailed entry page. This will need to be enclosed in HTML link tags: < a href=”[detaillink]“>Entry title< /a>
   • [evenodd]: If you would like to apply different styling to every other listing, insert this tag as an HTML class on the <div> surrounding all the content in this box. <div class=”[evenodd]“>The rest of your content here.
   • [siteurl] Insert the URL of your site.
   • [id] and [key]: Insert the id or key of that entry.
   • The id or key for each field in your form (more detail above).
     • File Upload fields will return the file URL. To show the image instead of the URL, add a little HTML around it.

       <img src="[25]" alt="" />

       To make the thumbnail image link to the full sized image:

       <a href="[25 size=full]"><img src="[25 size=thumbnail]" alt="" /></a>

       To check for an image and add a default if there isn’t one:

       [if 25]<img src="[25 size=thumbnail]" alt="" />[/if 25]
       [if 25 equals=""]<img src="/default.png" alt="" />[/if 25]

     • Date fields can be formatted in any way you would like. You can find a full list of options to use for the format at http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

       [25 format="Y-m-d"]

     • User ID fields can return a variety of information related to the user. Addshow=(first_name, last_name, display_name, user_login, user_email, avatar)
       Example: [125 show=first_name]
       Leave blank instead of defaulting to User Login: [125 blank=1]
5. Dynamic Content: If Both or Calendar is selected in Step 2, and second large text box will appear at the bottom of the form. This box can use all the same shortcodes and conditional statements that the Content box uses. This box is for the detailed single entry page. It will not be repeated.
6. Insert the Content: For more automation, you can select one of the first three options (After page content, Before page content, or Replace any page content). Otherwise, you can opt to use the shortcode. The shortcode can be used in posts, pages, or widgets.
7. Select Page: If you would like the content to be inserted automatically, you must then select the page in which to insert it.
8. Detail Link: This option will also appear if Both or Calendar is selected in Step 2.
   These two options are simply for building the URL to the detailed entry page. These two parameters will be added onto the page URL of the page you are using to list your entries. Give the link a parameter name and value. This will determine your URLs of the entries.

   For example, if I am listing entries from a jobs form on a page with the URL http://example.com/jobs, and insert ‘details’ for Parameter Name and ID for Parameter Value, the link to the detailed entry would look something like this: http://example.com/jobs?details=45. If you select Key for Parameter Value, the ID (45 in this example) would be replaced with the key you can optionally define when you edit or create an entry.

9. Order: Each field in the selected form will soon be listed here. But for now, you can randomize the content which will change order each time the page is refreshed, or order by date the entry was created. If displaying a Single Entry, the first entry found by this ordering will be used if an entry is not specified.
10. Where: Limit which entries are shown. For example, if you would like the current user to only see the entries they submitted, set the User Id field equal to the Current User.
    If you would like upcoming events shown that are no older than today, set your event date field to be greater than “NOW”. You can also show entries from any date range. For example, to show entries for the upcoming week, add two where rows: “Date field is greater than NOW” and “Date field is less than +1 week”
11. Limit: If you don’t want all your entries displayed, you can insert the number limit here. Leave blank if you’d like all entries shown.
12. Page Size: Optionally add a number here to add pagination to your entries.

Publish your custom display

You can insert your custom display on any page, post, or text widget using [display-frm-data id=x]
More Information →

Alternatively insert into a page using PHP:
echo FrmProDisplaysController::get_shortcode(array('id' => x));


Need more help? See an example of using Formidable Pro for testimonials on your site.