Using Custom Displays

Any data entered into a Formidable form can be displayed on your site using the form pictured. We’ll go through this form step-by-step.

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. Show: There are three options available for what to display: All Entries, Single Entry, or Both (Dynamic). Single Entry is the simplest option. If you would like to only display one entry, select this option. Choose All Entries if you would like to list all entries in the specified form. Both is a bit more complicated than the previous two options. Use this option if you would like to list the entries that will link to a more detailed entry page. See the demo site for examples.
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 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]

   

   Depending on what you selected to show in Step 2 will determine whether the HTML inserted in this box will be repeated or not. If you selected Single Entry, this will not repeat. Otherwise, it will be repeated for each entry in the selected form.

   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 ] Inserts 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. 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 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 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. It may be necessary to use the shortcode if you need extra HTML surrounding it that you do not want repeated. 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 is selected in Step 2.
   The fields here will be different depending on your WordPress settings. If your WordPress permalink setting is something other than “Default” you will only see a drop-down select here. Depending on whether you select “ID” or “Key” will determine your URLs of the entries. This will create a URL that will look similar to this: http://example.com?jobs=45

   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.

   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. 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 filed equal to the Current User. If you would like upcoming events shown that are no older than today, set you event date field to be greater than “NOW”.
10. 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.
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 for the number of entries per page.

[display-frm-data] shortcode

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

Parameters

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.