Contents
Any data entered into a Formidable form can be displayed on your site using custom displays. The Custom Displays page can be found by going to “Formidable”→ “Custom Displays”. To get started with creating your own custom display, learn about what the built-in options allow you to do.
Basic Settings
To create a custom display, begin by setting up the following items.
Use Entries from Form: Select which form you would like to get entries from for use in your custom display.
Display Format: You can display All Entries, a Single Entry, Both (Dynamic), or a Calendar in your custom display.
- All Entries: List all entries from the specified form. Choose this option if you do not want a detailed page for each entry. Any text you add to the “Content” box will automatically be repeated for each entry.
- Single Entry: Only display one entry. Select which entry you would like to display from the dropdown that appears or insert the entry id into the custom display shortcode which will be placed on your page. To make the displayed entry dynamic, do not select an entry from the dropdown and select Random order in the “Advanced Settings” section at the bottom. Text added to the “Content” box will not be repeated for a Single Entry custom display.
- Both (Dynamic): List all entries that will link to a more detailed single entry page. When you select this option, a Detail Link section will appear. Learn how to use this in the Detail Link section. The “Content” box should be used to add all the field entries you would like listed and the “Dynamic Content” box is for the detailed single entry. The text in the “Content” box will be repeated for each entry. See the demo site for an example of a Dynamic custom display.
- Calendar: Show the entries in a calendar format. Each event on your calendar can be turned into a link to a more detailed single entry page. When you select this option, two dropdowns will appear. The first, titled Date Field, determines where an event will appear on the calendar. For example, if you select “Entry Creation date” from this dropdown and you create an entry on March 1st, 2013, the entry will appear on your calendar on March 1st, 2013. If you have any date fields in your form connected to this display, you can select a date field from the dropdown. The second dropdown, titled End Date or day count, allows you to select when you would like each event to end. If you have a second date field or a number field in your form, you can select this from the dropdown. See the demo site for an example of a calendar custom display. Any text added to the “Content” box will be used for each date on the calendar that includes an entry. The “Dynamic Content” box is for the single entry.
Detail Link: This option will only appear if you selected Both (Dynamic) or Calendar for your Display Format. This helps you build the url for the detailed entry pages. In the Parameter Name box, add the text which you would like to add on to the end of your site url. The Parameter Value dropdown allows you to select the entry ID or key, which will also add on to the end of your site url. For example, if you type “jobdetails” in the Parameter Name box and select ID for the Parameter Value, your url for the detailed entry page would look like: http://example.com/job-listings/?jobdetails=1309. The ID number on the end is specific to each detailed entry page. If you select Key for the Parameter Value, the ID (1309 in this example) would be replaced with the key which you can optionally define when you edit or create an entry.
Content
The content section is where the code for your custom display needs to go. You may present the entries from your form as a table, list, calendar, or anything else you can think of using text, HTML, and CSS. The Customization panel in the right sidebar contains links and buttons which will help you create your display. For some examples of what you can do with custom displays, see the demo site. The bottom of each custom display tells you what was put into the Content boxes.
Before and After Content
These boxes are optional, but the Before section is a good place to put styling that will apply to your entire display.
Dynamic Content
If Both (Dynamic) or Calendar is selected as the Display Format, a 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 which will not be repeated.
Advanced Settings
- Order: Order your displayed entries by any field, entry creation date, entry update date, or randomly rotate. If you have a Single Entry Display Format, you can randomly switch between entries each time the page is refreshed.
- Filter Entries: 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 (you must have a User ID field in your form for this to work).
If you would like to display entries with a date that is in the future, set your date field to be greater than NOW.
This will not display entries with today’s date. You can also show entries from any date range. For example, to show entries for the upcoming week, add two rows: “Date field is greater than NOW” and “Date field is less than +1 week”.
- Limit: If you don’t want all your entries displayed, you can insert the number limit here. Leave blank if you would like all entries shown. If you would like to limit the number of entries displayed on a page, type the number of entries in the Page Size box. This will split your display into multiple pages.
- Message if nothing to display: Enter the message you would like users to see if there are no entries to display.
- Insert Display: If you would like to insert your display into a page automatically, then select where you would like it to appear: After page content, Before page content, or Replace page content. A dropdown will then appear allowing you to select which page you would like it to appear on. Otherwise, select “Don’t insert automatically” and insert the custom display shortcode on a post, page, or widget. This shortcode can be found in the right sidebar panel titled “Publish”.
You may select when your display will be loaded on a page by using the Insert Position field. If you choose 1, the display will be called first when the page is loading. If you enter a higher number, this will force the custom display to load after other elements. If your custom display is not showing up, enter a higher number in this field.
Publish your custom display
You can insert your custom display on any page, post, or text widget using [display-frm-data id=x filter=1] or [display-frm-data id=x]. For more information, see the Insert Custom Display page.
Alternatively, you may use PHP to insert the display into a page:
echo FrmProDisplaysController::get_shortcode(array('id' => x));
Need more help? See an example of using Formidable Pro for testimonials on your site.
