Every website needs some service to get in contact with the author/creator of the page. May this be a simple mailto-link or – as it can be found on many sites – a contact form. As I needed one for this blog as well, I figured that this could be a good starting point to practice how to develop a WordPress plugin. The result of my efforts: JACF – Just Another Contact Form, with a screenshot-collage to show you how this works.
At the beginning, I did some research to find out what kind of contact form plugins are already available for WordPress. Chip Cuccios Contact Form ][ appeared to be a great starting point to find out how to develop WordPress plugins. I’d like to give Chip credit here (he is also mentioned in the description-property of the plugin) cause taking a look at this work helped my a whole lot.
The plugin can be installed easily and offers some basic options in the WordPress admin panel. By using a QuickTag it can be put on any page you like. The form consists of 5 input fields (Name, Email Address, Web Address, Subject and Message) whereas the required fields get checked upon input (with JavaScript enabled) and on the server (when no JavaScript is available). The message is sent to the Email-Address provided in the admin options.
If you would like to see a live demo, please check out the Contact page on this site. In case you are interested in trying it out, check out the JACF detail page for more info and installation instructions. Please let me know if you have any tips or improvement suggestions for me or if you have spotted a bug.