Add-on Review: Freeform

This is the first of what will be many blog posts regarding plug-ins for ExpressionEngine. ExpressionEngine contains quite a lot of functionality right out of the box but there are times where a plug-in really fills in. Freeform is one of those plug-ins. Freeform is a free module offered by Solspace, one of the largest add-on developers for ExpressionEngine. This awesome module allows you to easily create secure forms. One of the other additional benefits is that it stores all of the submissions in your database so that you will never have one of those sinking moments where you realize that you just deleted the email that contained the contact information for the leader of a large project. Any number of fields can be collected and validated and the email templates for both the sender and receiver are customizable so that you can tailor the email to the site.

So here’s the deal… we use this module on just about every site that we build. It is just that good. It works exactly as it should. Setting it up is a matter of downloading the package and uploading the files into the pertinent spots in your system folder on the web server. You then need to install it from your modules tab. Once installed you really just need to build your form. Make sure that the corresponding fields are created in the Freeform control panel and you are done. Each time someone submits their information to the form the module will send out the necessary emails with the custom fields that you defined and the person’s information next to the name of the custom field.

So if you have been searching for a good form component for your ExpressionEngine websites then look no further. Freeform is highly customizable and free but best of all IT WORKS!

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Add-on Review: Boomerang

Boomerang is a new add-on from the folks at SmoothFunction. And before we dive in I will tell you this is pretty damn exciting. I’ll explain later. For now they have set the price to $95 USD per license.

But how well does it do it? Let’s start at the beginning…

Well purchasing from their site is easy. Just register and walk through the process to use paypal to purchase the add-on. Once you have paid then you should be able to go back to the site, log in and click on the My Account link to see the items that you have purchased. This is very familiar as it is the same process that we use. They have made Boomerang in such a way that you need a license to use it. So on the page that opens when you click on my account you will see the following (only your license key will be filled in):

Amazon S3 Integration with ExpressionEngine

This is just a quick post to say that Stephen Lewis released a new fieldtype for ExpressionEngine. For those of you that do not know what FieldTypes are they are used in conjunction with Brandon-Kelly’s most useful Extension called FieldFrame. With FieldFrame a user can add additional rows of content based on their needs or they can just have different types of content like check boxes, field matrices or BucketLists. I think Stephen has a real winner here with BucketList. We are using it for as custom client right now in an effort to make their Amazon S3 integration easier to manage. BucketList allows a user to navigate their Amazon Bucket via a treeview to the file that they need. Or they can navigate to a folder or location on the Amazon account and upload a file from within the ExpressionEngine Publish form. Very Very cool stuff indeed. So make sure to check Stephen’s new add-on out as it is a hit. And when things slow down we will do a proper review.