Contact Form Update
Do you use a contact form on your site? If so, you’ll enjoy today’s update. Our [contact-form] shortcode has always been boring. It never had any configuration options and didn’t work in widgets. Today we’re giving the shortcode a makeover.
The old shortcode would send an e-mail message to the author of the post or page. Now you can send the message to any e-mail address you wish. You can even send to multiple e-mail addresses.
[contact-form to="you@me.com"]
[contact-form to="you@me.com,me@you.com,us@them.com"]
Maybe you never liked the [Blog Title] Post Title style subjects on the e-mail messages. Set your own default subject.
[contact-form subject="My Contact Form"]
You can even let the visitor set the subject by showing a subject field on the contact form.
[contact-form show_subject="yes"]
Use as many or as few of the options as you need. The old [contact-form] without any options will still work as it has in the past, but you now have the flexibility to do something like:
[contact-form to="mom@wordpress.com,dad@wordpress.com,billy@wordpress.com" show_subject="yes" subject="Contact WordPress Family"]
These changes allow us to improve the consistency of the built-in contact form from the following themes: Blix, Flower Power, MistyLook, and Sweet Blossoms. The contact page template in those four themes allowed your visitors to send you a message, but didn’t work in the same way as our shortcode. With today’s update, the contact page template in those themes will work just like using [contact-form] with any other theme.
For more details on how to use the contact form feature, head over to the Contact Form page on our Support site.
May 25th at 12:03 am
Oh, what a nice update! With these new possibilities I definitely will use the Contact Form more often! Thank you, guys! You’re great!
May 25th at 12:15 am
I’m looking forward to seeing more great upgrades like this. Thanks for doing this. I’m sure many bloggers will make use of it and I’ll share the news.
May 25th at 12:16 am
Definitely liking this. It will be a lot more convenient to use the Contact Form now–especially it will make it easier to send it to tech illiterate friends (moms!
) who would be cautious to open emails with foreign subject lines.
May 25th at 12:34 am
Just so nobody gets a surprise… after playing with the code, it appears that the word “yes” in the show_subject flag has to be in all lower-case.
“Yes” doesn’t work.
May 25th at 12:40 am
Nice catch! I put in a fix so “yes” can be any combination of upper and lower case letters.
May 25th at 12:42 am
Excellent features. Thanks so much for this update.
May 25th at 12:45 am
nice job wordpress. i didnt even know there was a contact form
May 25th at 12:47 am
I just wish I could use it in a widget as I can use [ archive ], just like formspring… but It’s a improvement!
May 25th at 12:49 am
You can use it in a text widget. Give it a try.
May 25th at 1:16 am
Yeah, I had no idea there was a way we could use a contact form. I’m relieved! Thanks.
May 25th at 1:18 am
Wow this will help my blog a lot! Thanks.
May 25th at 1:28 am
Did not even know about this, I’ll take a look now.
May 25th at 1:31 am
I did not even know about [contact-form] shortcode.
I think this is just an additional source of spam
May 25th at 1:39 am
great, nice update. this is what I’ve been waiting for.. thanks Nick!!
May 25th at 2:04 am
Yeah! I love this update! Couldn’t have come at a better time, as my contact form is getting used a lot lately!
May 25th at 2:09 am
Really nice work! I’m sure a lot of people have been looking forward to this. I’m going to have to check it out. Thanks, WordPress!
May 25th at 2:22 am
Looks nice. Going to release this as a plugin?
May 25th at 2:41 am
Mark, we’ll be updating Grunion Contact Form.
May 25th at 2:29 am
The Grunion Contact Form on the WordPress plugin directory is updated too?
May 25th at 2:41 am
Not yet, but we will.
May 25th at 2:34 am
I’m a little confused…on the MistyLook contact page on my site, when I logout I get I nice form with Name, Email,, Website, and a textbox for comment. How do I add subject? How do I configure who the page sends to? Otherwise, it is great to see new features. While the new themes are great, I’m more interested in seeing new features and updates to my theme!
May 25th at 2:43 am
You’ll have to switch the page template back to the Default Template and then manually add the contact-form shortcode to the content of the page where you can configure the options.
May 25th at 2:39 am
Sweet. Will definitely take advantage of that. Thanks for the update.
May 25th at 2:42 am
May 25th at 2:56 am
So, at the beginning, you mentioned how the code used to not work in widgets. Does it now?
May 25th at 2:58 am
Yes, it works in text widgets.
May 25th at 3:21 am
OK! This is AWESOME! Well. Now with all these options coming up, I am wondering if I need to go to wordpress.org at all! I am confused. HELP!!!
May 25th at 3:39 am
I like it already!!
*Double like*
May 25th at 3:53 am
Wow, I didn’t even know this shortcode even existed…implementing it right now hehe.
May 25th at 4:07 am
Interesting, I may have to use this one over my current use of comment box hehe
May 25th at 4:49 am
Awesome. Thanks for the updates on this. I always wanted to put in a subject line to reduce the headaches of figuring out where the emails were coming from. Much appreciated.
May 25th at 5:10 am
Making more stuff available to put into the widgets is fantastic…
May 25th at 5:36 am
Thank you, this really helps.
Esp the “subject” field for me
May 25th at 5:54 am
Will amend my contact form today. Is there a widget WordPress can create to ensure all post visitors then find themselves under severe mental pressure to contact the blog writer and request to utilise their business services? Just wondering
May 25th at 6:34 am
Thanks a million for this update. In fact just the other day I’d been struggling with sending updates to friends etc…but this feature is sure going to make my life a lot easier.
May 25th at 6:47 am
Very good update, really adds flexibility.
May 25th at 7:37 am
Great invention, WordPress never ceases to impress.
May 25th at 7:44 am
Great! For me too it is new information!
May 25th at 9:32 am
This is great! Aside from the additional features, the tip you mentioned upstream – that it can be used in a text widget – is brilliant, too. Suggested feature for your next update: If used in a widget, have an option to automatically pull in the page title on which the widget appears. So, if someone is contacting from the homepage, nothing is added, but if someone is contacting from a post/page, it pulls in the post/page title if so configured. Thanks for all your hard word to improve an already great blogging platform.
May 25th at 9:36 am
Excellent! Thank you so much for this update!
May 25th at 9:44 am
Thats a super awesome update- thanks for working towards this..
May 25th at 9:52 am
Cool! I don’t even know about this form. I wished that I knew this before.
But if I knew it then, it won’t be as interesting as it is now, lol
May 25th at 10:48 am
Wow…endless possibilities! Always a good thing!!
May 25th at 10:54 am
I like the additions. Been using it for a while and now I can customize it
.
Thanks
May 25th at 11:51 am
wow..e VERRY IMPORTANT UPDATE..thanks a lot
May 25th at 12:08 pm
Using two contact-forms on the same page still isn’t possible…Maybe with the next update?
May 25th at 12:47 pm
There are not any plans to make 2 contact forms work in one page.
May 25th at 1:27 pm
Never even knew a contact form was available via shortcode!
Awesome, thanks!
May 25th at 2:10 pm
That’s so nice. I was wondering if I could do that.
May 25th at 2:15 pm
Nice feature update… Thanks, this is cool.
May 25th at 2:40 pm
Very nice and very important update.
May 25th at 4:42 pm
Well, I was already pretty happy with the old contact form, but extra bells and whistles certainly don’t hurt!
May 25th at 4:45 pm
Cool! This update can help me a lot.
May 25th at 4:49 pm
Brilliant, just added a contact form to my blog with the new code.
May 25th at 4:59 pm
This is a very handy update, very much appreciated.
May 25th at 5:40 pm
Just what the doctor ordered
Thank you!
May 25th at 6:57 pm
What a cool new feature to have available!
May 25th at 8:20 pm
Thanks. Very good update.
May 25th at 8:47 pm
This update is really a good thing!
May 25th at 11:03 pm
You can send the email to any email address? Methinks you have enabled us to send messages to the powers that be.
May 25th at 11:11 pm
I’m new here in wordpress. Thanks, it will help a lot!!
May 26th at 1:55 am
Awesome. I wanted to have the form send messages to a different email address for quite a while. You just checked one thing off my wish list.
By the way, I added the code [contact-form subject=""] and the subject box shows up blank. Now, that’s perfect!
May 26th at 2:57 am
You guys are the awesomesauce! Thanks so much!
May 26th at 6:55 am
Thank You very nice stuff keep em coming!
May 26th at 1:25 pm
Great but we need a captcha.
May 26th at 1:48 pm
Sorry, we will not be adding a captcha. The messages pass through Akismet to check for spammers.
May 26th at 2:21 pm
Great addition. Now users don’t need to add plugins for this purpose.
May 26th at 2:37 pm
This is good… Captcha is really necessary thing in the present cyberworld to avoid thousands of junk mails in one day.
May 26th at 2:55 pm
I have no idea what you are talking about. I love this stuff. Something more to learn.
May 26th at 3:01 pm
Thanks a lot guys. It’s really nice work.
May 26th at 4:15 pm
Good update! Thanks.
May 26th at 6:04 pm
Great feature. I know I would love to put in my WordPress blog. Thank you.
May 26th at 6:18 pm
I like the idea, but it looks like the box comes out too big for my needs. Could the next update for this particular piece of code be to allow me to change the size of the box? That would be fantastic. Otherwise, I may use it around. It is quite a good idea.
May 26th at 7:31 pm
Love it! Definitely needed!
May 26th at 8:00 pm
Cool update I will try it on my blog to see how I like it. Thanks!
May 27th at 2:55 am
Wow, I never knew that I also can use contact form on WordPress.com hosted blogs too, I thought we just can use a plugin on self-hosted blogs. BTW great update, thank you so much WordPress.
May 27th at 10:21 am
Good update.
May 28th at 2:15 pm
I never knew about this feature. Awesomesauce, now I won’t have to hide my email behind a reCAPTCHA page.
May 28th at 11:41 pm
Love it, never new till now that you could get this feature. Two suggestions. I think it would be great if one could chose which author the email is directed towards. Another is, where can we find the code for and what other features one can add like the contact me thing?
May 29th at 4:09 am
great update
May 31st at 5:15 am
The Option I would really like is to not display the Website field. I have had many comments from people visiting my website that find this confusing. The field is not very well explained for people with limited web skills. It says just Website and several people have asked me which website am I referring to. Many people do not have a personal blog or website and don’t understand what is required here. If removing the field is not practical, then a better explanation of what is required might help.
Jun 1st at 1:58 am
Would a guy be able to customize this contact form for people to put there phone numbers in a certain box or different boxes for different subjects? Or is some things like that going to be in the works for the future?
Jun 8th at 2:49 pm
There are not any options for this type of customization. Maybe in a future update.
Jun 1st at 2:52 am
fabulous!!! thank you so much… so easy…. You are awesome!
Jun 1st at 3:45 pm
Can you provide a release date for the Grunion Contact Form plugin update?
Jun 8th at 2:48 pm
The plugin was updated last week.
Jun 2nd at 1:51 am
Not sure what I’m doing wrong but after adding an additional address I’m still only getting mail in my default/owner mail box.
I did [contact-form to="second address"] but it doesn’t send the message to the new address. Should I use the quotes or not? Sorry to sound slow!
Jun 8th at 2:47 pm
You need to use both addresses with to=”".