One of the least used tabs of the Contact Form 7 plugin is the additional settings tab, despite its tremendous power when it comes to customizing your contact forms.
In this guide we are going to see what this tab is and what you can use it for.
The additional settings tab of Contact Form 7
When you edit a Contact Form 7 form you usually configure the fields that the form will carry and little else.
Many users don’t even check the settings of the emails that are sent with the form.
Also, you can customize Contact Form 7 email labels, but we’ve already seen that.
What almost nobody takes advantage of is the additional settings tab.
It has only an empty text area field, with the only indication of a link to the plugin author’s website.
This text area is used to include code snippets in the format accepted by the plugin, but which ones?
It is understood that many people are reluctant to use it, it can even be intimidating, but we are going to solve that right now.
Subscribers only mode
If you want a form to be submitted only by users connected to your site you can use this mode.
If you add the following code only registered users who are logged in to your site will be able to submit the contact form.
subscribers_only: trueCode language: JavaScript (javascript)If the user is not logged in they will see a message that it is mandatory to access their account, and if they are logged in they will see it like any other form.
In this mode there is no anti-spam verification, as only logged-in users are supposed to be able to use it.
Demo mode
If you activate the demo mode the submitted form message will be shown but the form emails are not sent.
This is just to test if the form works. Even if you have the Flamingo plugin active the forms will not be stored, it is only for testing.
To activate it add the following:
demo_mode: onCode language: HTTP (http)Skip the e-mail
If you want the form to be stored normally in the Flamingo database but not send any email then the skip email mode is the way to go.
It is its only difference from the demo mode.
It is activated with this code:
skip_mail: onCode language: HTTP (http)Acceptance as validation
By default, an acceptance checkbox behaves differently from other field types.
For example, it does not display validation error messages even if the checkbox is not checked.
If you add the code to activate the acceptance as validation this field will behave like the rest of the form fields, showing validation errors in case the checkbox is not checked.
In my opinion this additional setting code should be added whenever your forms have an acceptance checkbox.
The code to add is this:
acceptance_as_validation: onCode language: HTTP (http)The most noticeable difference is that with this code the form will not be able to be sent, but you will see a forbidden icon when trying to send it, if you do not activate the acceptance checkbox, the user does know why it does not allow him to send it.
However, with the acceptance as validation deactivated, you can try to send the form normally, but you will get no error and no indication of what you are missing, in this case the validation box.
Additional settings for Flamingo
If you use Flamingo, the Contact Form 7 form management plugin, then you have some additional special settings.
Do not store
This additional setting is not only for Flamingo, it is valid for any plugin that stores Contact Form 7 forms.
It simply serves to not store the submissions of the form in question.
The code to add is this:
do_not_store: trueCode language: JavaScript (javascript)Once added the emails will be sent normally, but the submissions will not be shown in the form management of Flamingo or other plugin.
