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Bug #2029

closed

CForms error

Added by Matt Gold over 11 years ago. Updated over 11 years ago.

Status:
Resolved
Priority name:
Normal
Assignee:
Dominic Giglio
Category name:
WordPress (misc)
Target version:
Start date:
2012-08-08
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Estimated time:
Deployment actions:

Description

I spoke to Chris Caruso today, who is working on the high-profile ARC website (http://research.commons.gc.cuny.edu/). They are starting a major advertising campaign for visiting faculty fellows and were potentially interested in using a form on their site to process submissions. However, here's the error Chris received when he tried to activate:

-

Here's the error I get when I try to activate cforms on the Commons:

It appears that cforms was not able to create abspath.php in your
cforms plugin folder. Please check file/folder permissions
(plugins/cforms), then re-activate cforms.

If the problem persists, please create a file (using your preferred
text editor) manually with the following content:

Save the file as abspath.php and ftp to your cforms folder.

--

Chris has used Gravity Forms and likes them, so maybe we should reconsider Feature 2021


Related issues

Related to CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #2021: Buy gravity formsRejectedMatt Gold2012-08-07

Actions
Related to CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #2260: Hide Google Calendar PluginResolvedDominic Giglio2012-11-16

Actions
Related to CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #2312: Upload Gravity Forms PluginResolvedDominic Giglio2012-11-27

Actions
Actions #1

Updated by Matt Gold over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4 to 1.4.1
Actions #2

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

If in order to run correctly CForms requires permission to create php files in that directory, then I think we need to uninstall CForms.

I think the Contact Form 7 plugin works, though I haven't used it much. I have hard good things about http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/formidable/screenshots/, though again I haven't used it. If you're gung ho on Gravity Forms, go ahead and buy it and open a ticket for me to install it.

Actions #3

Updated by Matt Gold over 11 years ago

Thanks, Boone. I haven't used Gravity Forms or Formidable Forms. Chris, since you've used GF, would you mind giving FF a whirl and letting me know what you think of the difference in functionality?

Actions #4

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.1 to 1.4.2
Actions #5

Updated by Chris Caruso over 11 years ago

Thanks. I will check out Formidable Forms.

Actions #6

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.2 to 1.4.3
Actions #7

Updated by Matt Gold over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.3 to 1.4.7
Actions #8

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.7 to 1.4.8
Actions #9

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.8 to 1.4.9
Actions #10

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.9 to 1.4.10
Actions #11

Updated by Dominic Giglio over 11 years ago

Matt,

I'm taking a quick look at Boone's 1.4.10 issues to see if I can help out. This issue seems a little old. Do we know if Chris (Caruso) still needs this functionality? What is the current status of the ARC advertising campaign mentioned in the original description?

Basically, is there something I can do with this ticket to move it forward?

Actions #12

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Target version changed from 1.4.10 to 1.4.11
Actions #13

Updated by Chris Caruso over 11 years ago

Hi Dominic,

The ARC Fellowships didn't use a web-based form for our application process this year, but we would like to for next year. Here's how it was handled this year: http://research.commons.gc.cuny.edu/arc-distinguished-fellowship-program/

However, we would prefer to go with Gravity Forms if that is a possibility. We could probably tap ARC's budget for this if costs are a factor.

Thanks for checking in,

Chris

Actions #14

Updated by Dominic Giglio over 11 years ago

Thanks Chris.

Boone,

You raised the concern above that if CForms needs special permissions then we should remove it. There are currently 9 blogs using CForms:

An Artem Altman Blog
Gslis720 Digital
gslis790.3 digital
Graduate Student Organization at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing (GSO@HBSON)
Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing Alumni Association
Podcasting and Pedagogy
Advanced Research Collaborative
Remix in Tech & Teaching

Of those 9 blogs only one (Advanced Research Collaborative) is not also using Contact Form 7. I've never used CForms but I have used Contact Form 7. It seems to me that we could effect a zero-sum plugin gain in this situation. We can remove CForms becuase it's being duplicated, and add Gravity Forms which I believe is now a valid request. As Chris says above:

we would prefer to go with Gravity Forms if that is a possibility

Let me know what you think.

Actions #15

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

Thanks for researching this, Dom.

Simply looking at which blogs have activated CForms is only the beginning. What really matters is how many are actually using CForms forms in practice. The fact that nearly all of these blogs has also activated CF7 makes me think that a good number of them are not using CForms. But it could be that some of them are, in fact, actively using CForms, in which case we can't simply remove it.

We have a couple of options:
1) Do nothing. Leave CForms.
2) Keep CForms installed, but do something to prevent it from being installed by anyone else on the Commons. (Adding Ray as a watcher, as he can let us know how hard that'd be - Commons In A Box has the code we need for the purpose.)
3) Verify which blogs are actually using CForms, and help them to migrate to a different plugin. To verify, we can either (a) reach out to the admins of the blogs to ask whether they're using it, or (b) use our super admin privileges to see whether they are actively using it.

The ideal situation is probably (3) (which is what Dom is suggesting here), but this will take a lot of work. I have a feeling that (2) is going to be far easier, and is probably good enough for our purposes. Thoughts?

Actions #16

Updated by Dominic Giglio over 11 years ago

It's only 9 blogs. I don't mind trying 3b. Even if only half are actively using CForms for their contact forms I don't think it will be difficult to help those folks over to CF7.

Plus, there isn't a huge rush here. Chris says he doesn't need Gravity Forms until next years app process. So we can take our time and get rid of CForms properly.

Actions #17

Updated by Raymond Hoh over 11 years ago

2) Keep CForms installed, but do something to prevent it from being installed by anyone else on the Commons. (Adding Ray as a watcher, as he can let us know how hard that'd be - Commons In A Box has the code we need for the purpose.)

So we want to omit CForms from being seen in the plugins list, but leave it installed for those that already have it installed?

If we want to go with this approach, should be quite simple by filtering 'all_plugins' and unsetting the CForms file loader from the plugins list.

Actions #18

Updated by Matt Gold over 11 years ago

Hi All --

Just FYI, I'm going to purchase Gravity Forms in the next week or so and hope to have it ready to add to the site by the next update on the 21. If not then, then we'll have it by the 1st.

Actions #19

Updated by Boone Gorges over 11 years ago

  • Assignee changed from Boone Gorges to Dominic Giglio

So we want to omit CForms from being seen in the plugins list, but leave it installed for those that already have it installed?

Yes. Let's go ahead and do this for 1.4.11. (Dom, I'm reassigning to you. add_filter( 'all_plugins', 'foo' ) and then have a look at what's passed to foo() to figure out what to do :)

We can explore migration away from CForms for existing users, but this is not so urgent, since AFAIK no existing CForms users (aside from Chris, who will move on to Gravity Forms anyway) are having problems with the plugin.

Actions #20

Updated by Dominic Giglio over 11 years ago

Boone,

Thanks to what I've learned from both you and Ray about the plugin api, here's what I was able to come up with:

/**
 * Prevent cforms from being installed by anyone else on the Commons.
 */
function cac_hide_cforms( $plugins ) {
    if ( array_key_exists( 'cforms/cforms.php', $plugins ) )
        unset( $plugins['cforms/cforms.php']);

    return $plugins;
}
add_filter( 'all_plugins', 'cac_hide_cforms' );

I've added it to the bottom of mu-plugins/cac-functions.php. Let me know if this looks good and I'll commit and close this issue.

Should I open another issue to move forward with removing cforms completely? Or should we just stay with this solution?

Actions #21

Updated by Dominic Giglio over 11 years ago

  • Status changed from New to Resolved
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