Version 4.3.2 is out!

Hey folks,

I am happy to report that we just released Bootstrap Studio 4.3.2! The highlight in this update is a cool new feature which we call Smart Forms. It is an automatic backend for forms which delivers submissions to your email. To use it, select a form, enable the "Smart Form" setting in the sidebar and choose an email address. All form fields are supported (even file inputs which are delivered as attachments), enabling you to construct contact forms, surveys, application forms and more (a video tutorial is coming soon).

When you enable this feature, a small JavaScript library - smart-forms.min.js - is included in your website. This library communicates with our server which does the actual email sending. This way your forms will work regardless of where your website is hosted.

Also in this release we updated the Bootstrap framework to 4.1.3 and fixed a number of bugs that were reported. The next version is going to be 4.3.3 and will focus on the features that we originally planned for 4.3.* series.

Love this idea Martin! I've been using Machform for a number of years and although it's easy to use once you get around the app and around the idea that it's an online builder it's pretty powerful. Would love to just add them in the app though for some clients that don't need to keep track of things and just want a basic contact form or registration forms etc.

Question: Are the email addresses saved per project or per form? I'll play with it some more of course to see if I can figure that out, but easier if you enlighten us on some of the finer details of it. The main reason I ask is the 5 email limitation so I'm truly hoping this is per project.

Question: Is it possible to get that 15 minute time limit to enter the verification code for the emails a bit longer? Even 30 minutes or an hour would be great. I ask because I'm almost always using forms for clients, and 15 minutes is sometimes what it takes just for me to get their attention lol. Some I can't get answers from for a day, but we can work that out if we can get just a bit longer to do so?

More questions:

  1. Will we be able in any way to edit the "from" email to reflect the user's email entered into the form?
  2. Will we be able to edit the success message of the form after it's sent?
  3. Will we be able to edit the email Subject of the form's email message?
  4. Will we be able to edit the Title of the email message?
  5. Will we be able to (if it isn't already doing this without our knowing lol) add a setup for sending a success email to the user?
  6. Will we be able to have more than one form on a site/page?
  7. Can we turn off or change the footer content that is in the email we receive as the site owner/admin? I don't tend to tell my clients what software I use unless I have to for the purpose of them continuing updates on their own, so I wouldn't want that showing to them when they get the emails from their users. Also having the email come from Bulgaria probably isn't the best thing to show. :) I'm sure there's many more where that came from, but those are the ones that came to mind when I tested it out.

Most of my clients have multiple forms on their sites, so this setup wouldn't work at all for them as there's nothing to differentiate between forms and nothing to tell us what form is what so it's really not very useful as it sits at the moment.

New Smart Forms feature is awesome and timely. However the new js library doesn't appear which might explain why file attachment isn't working for me. Maybe the library appears when I (eventually) publish my website? Also, can the email heading be customised? It's not so meaningful in an application. Likewise the footer.

Published my half-baked web site and smart-forms.js was included. The file attachment feature still doesn't work. :( On a positive note, everything else worked sweet.

Further info re file attachment feature in Smart Forms. When "Choose file" button clicked, file finder window appears and selected file (370 bytes) is displayed on browser - all as expected. Email not sent when associated submit button clicked. Neither "Multiple file" nor "Validation required" options are selected.

On Mac OSX 10.10.5 with Chrome Version 68.0.3440.106

Hey Martin,

Just a small post to thank you again about the bootstrap studio update ;-) I'm really happy to have bought the lifetime licence !

Can I ask if, in the next version, you can made just a small improvement about custom code, as reported in the forum some times : is it possible to automatically open “Edit code” for custom code on double-clic on “Custom code” in the “Overview” left pannel on directly ? This will be a time saver.

I'm really waiting, with some impatience now, the charts.js component, and, more of that, the auto backup feature.

Anyway, thanks for your work :-)

Can we turn off or change the footer content that is in the email we receive as the site owner/admin? I don’t tend to tell my clients what software I use unless I have to for the purpose of them continuing updates on their own, so I wouldn’t want that showing to them when they get the emails from their users. Also having the email come from Bulgaria probably isn’t the best thing to show. ?

Offer to connect to own SES account (or other smtp services) and let us design anything. As a pro, I don't need sponsored freebies, nor email sent from a service not under my control. I see this solution uses Postmark, and that's an excellent choice. Even allowing to use own Postmark account could do. But I doubt serious developer that sells websites for real money will use this function as it is.

Let's hope next version will bring more features, like multi-monitor support, better editing functionality, full support of bootstrap 4 classes etc. There's a long list, even adding a nbsp or a comment are imho opinion higher in the list than adding free hosting -but no configurable sftp publishing- and form processing using a predefined branded service.

Thanks for the feedback!

@Jo here are a few quick answers:

1 - Unfortunately setting a different "From" email address isn't permitted by our email provider (Postmark). Even if it was, it would result in the message being detected as spam. Things have become very strict in recent years. We do set the Reply To header, so that replying to a message replies to the person that sent it.

2 3 and 4 are all great ideas. We can implement these in the next releases.

5 - I am not sure how useful notifying the user would be. Anyone else have an opinion on this?

6 - Yes, you can have an unlimited number of forms on a page/site.

7 - We did that to comply with the CAN SPAM act. You are required to include your name and address in all marketing communication. These emails aren't marketing though, so I will review the requirements again to see if we can omit the email footer.

@Chris975 Can you send us a link to your site so we can check it out? Maybe your file input was dropped outside the form?

@Larsene double click to open is planned, and the chart component and autobackup are coming soon :)

@marrco Smart Forms is intended as a simple solution to building working forms, which is a pain point for a lot of users. Supporting external email services would significantly complicate our backend. Pros (who know what SES and SMTP is) will always be better served by rolling their own code. Our Todo list is long indeed, and we have a lot of new features coming.

Dev web site: https://head-butt-101.bss.design/

See "Apply for TMP" page

@jo here are a few quick answers:

1) you could use a different domain for the from. Where there's an empty website if a user tries to connect to the domain specified in the from. Like "forms@premiumforms.com" with no relation to zine EDOD or bootstrapstudio

5) definitely not, I could insert a false email, so you would be spamming an innocent user.

7) Yes, please. Leave yours as a default, but allow users to modify it.

of course, all these additions could be sold. Basic sponsored for can be free, but a white label with a neutral from address and personalized footer is something I could pay for.

now let's talk about the GDPR part. When users visiting a website submit a form they will load external resources and transmit their email address and data abroad. And you (it's your postmasrk account) have access to lots of personal data. Are all parts GDPR compliant and can we access (and link to) a public GDPR certification for Zine EDOD, Postmark ecc. ?

and what data is transmitted? Are BSS license checked when creating a form? If I quit my yearly subscription will my sites still work? How long will you keep logs with my data? In Europe can.spam act is not a law, but we have the new GDPR.

Thanks for the ideas! We will keep this in mind when planning our next releases.

We've updated our Privacy Policy and License in relation to Smart Forms. The only data that is stored on our servers is the ip address of the submitter for spam/abuse prevention. The data is removed after 30 days. For the data that Postmark stores, you can see here: https://postmarkapp.com/eu-privacy#gdpr

Question: Are the email addresses saved per project or per form? I’ll play with it some more of course

to see if I can figure that out, but easier if you enlighten us on some of the finer details of it. The main

reason I ask is the 5 email limitation so I’m truly hoping this is per project.

@jo it's clearly explained in the new License policy

4.3 Customer may register up to 5 email addresses in the system. Deleting an email address frees up a slot for another.

and Martin already specified that:

Pros (who know what SES and SMTP is) will always be better served by rolling their own code.

so any developer that has built more than 5 websites is SOL. It looks like BSS new target is amateurs building their own website via drag and drop and no previous html/css/bootstrap knowledge needed. I still think that allowing to put own SES credentials would offer a much better solution to a broader audience. Especially towards serious developers. I don't think -even though I have a lifetime license- that Martin has to pay for my mail delivery forever, nor I want my customer to trust him. What if he just forgets to pay his Postmark bill one month, or it gets suspended? BSS is a developing tool, so giving the option to add a aws SES account would allow me to use that feature for ALL my websites, not just 5 forms. So I don't think this feature adds value to BSS. Formspree was already quite easy to use.

/rant

Thanks all for the feedback on my list :)

Here's my responses to some of them:

@Martin:<br /> Thanks on all the others that are planned! 7. I understand that completely, but, what if we were to put ours or the client's information there instead of what's there now? After all, in most cases, that's where it's coming from in the long run, just taking the scenic route through Belgium :P

@Marco: 1. I think you misunderstood my question (or I misunderstood your answer lol). I'm talking about the email that shows as the From when you get the result email after it's submitted. It should actually say the name and email address of the person that submitted it rather than "Smart Forms" forms@bootstrapstudio.io. Sounds like it may already be ok to do though so I'll not worry about it from here on lol.

  1. One of the great things about having a reply email to the user that fills it out is you can use it for lots of things, not just a generic reply. Some of my clients use it to gather emails for their list and when the person submits their email address to acquire something, the reply email supplies them with a link or image or whatever that is being offered. Not all items offered via email need to go through a service to supply them such as software licenses and such, some are just general informational links or document links to pdf's which allow the client to gather email addresses while offering something in return without a lot of protective hassles.

Because of that, having a reply situation would be quite helpful. Not only that, in reply to your worry about the spam, that's also a good point as well, but I look at it the other way, if someone is getting spammed they will contact me or remove themselves from the list via a link which I or my client will get the info for and we will then know that the person that filled out the form with that email was not legit. Use it as a check point so to speak. I've done reply emails for years with many of my customers, and so far haven't had any spam issues arise as of yet. :)

  1. Most definitely I agree with Marrco here. That would be a typical scenario for having a paid subscription, even a monthly one for a couple bux or so a month to be able to have access to the features that allow us to personalize things. I look at it this way. I pay approx. $50 to $75 a year to use the form builder that I'm using now. Granted it has every bell and whistle you can think of, but ... if you expand on a subscription and it has everything people need, then if the price is lower than what we pay for some of the other software it is well worth it. Good idea Marrco!

I separated this post because, Marrco and Larsene and a few others over the past months and years bring up a good point. One of the things that endeared me to this app is that it gets such frequent updates and added features etc. That's all well and good, but I'm getting very concerned about the "content" of these updates.

There are so many features and suggestions that have been asked for many times that have been passed over for over two years now yet we get features that I've not even seen one person ask for (this update basically is one of those, no one really asked for a form sending setup, just asked how to do it). Granted, the updates are great, and I love that you add the new things, but I really would love to see some of the things that are "needed" added to the app before new features that haven't hardly even been asked for maybe once or twice compared to the dozens that have asked for simple things like:

  • comment ability
  • BR and NBSP coded into the app so we don't have to make our own
  • Ability to edit the HTML and the list goes on and on over the years (I'd be happy to organize that list out of the forums if you would like to see the full numbers).

Basic to complicated items yes, but most of the ones that have been asked for dozens of times really should be given some priority over things someone just mentions once or twice. Just my opinion on it of course, but I don't think I stand alone on this.

It seems to go back to the same argument that those of use that have used it a while have said many times. The app is catering way too much to those that have no clue how to build a website and those of us waiting on true functionality are left in the dust de-prioritized so to speak.

I love the app, always have from the day I started using it, and the people here are great, but we're still waiting on some of the features and suggestions that we've been told (in many cases, not all) would be added and so far ... not. It's discouraging and I think you will lose users, good users, smart and experienced users that help a lot of others, if you don't start working with the things that are "needed" by pretty much all rather than just "wanted" by a few.

Ok end rant haha. Please don't be offended, just needed to get that out there so you see how important it really is to those of us that do know what we're doing for the most part (well I pretend pretty good anyways hahahaha).

@jo said :

1. I think you misunderstood my question (or I misunderstood your answer lol). I’m talking about the email that shows as the From when you get the result email after it’s submitted. It should actually say the name and email address of the person that submitted it 

I didn't answer that specific question of yours. Martin did and was correct, deliverability would be an issue. Mine was just a suggestion to Martin to use a different domain so as not to tell our customers we're using BSS.

Doing as you suggest means risking that to use a forged or wrong email, or simply one that has SPF -all<br /> It's a big NO to use a user-supplied mail as a reply-to or mail-from. It's much better to use a fixed, standard "forms@website with user Website Form".

sure, @jo, you're not alone to think what you think. Sure, i'm a little desappointed that these "simple" features are not implemented for now. But perhaps this update, and the "Smart Forms" is to gain more people from tools like Wix, Mobirise, or other tools like that, and to earn more money, needed for the product life. Personnaly, I won't use "Smart Forms", as i prefer to use my code, my server, my datas (and i use BSS mainly to prepare some templates before integrating in Python developpement frameworks). But i think that some tools like these are great for promotion, Youtube Video, functionality advertisement, and so on. "export comments or double clic to edit code" are no sexy functionality to taalk about :-) More users, more money, more developpement (even if these features are, you're totally right, absolutely not for developpers or integraters)

I'm a new customer to BSS, and i really hope that, in a near future, these little function we've asked for will be added soon. But if you say that you've asked that for two years and no respond about that, i'm a little frightened....

Perhaps we could suggest a survey about the features to be integrated, then we could vote for them. The more successul features could be integrated first.

@larsene I still have a gut feeling that dumbing down requests often come from people pirating BSS, so I'd propose to let register to the forum only with the same mail used to buy BSS.

If I had only to build only my personal, small, amateurish website I'd never spend my money to buy prototyping software like BSS (nor adobe illustrator, photoshop etc). A much better solution would have been to find a working wp template and use that. No need to buy Bootstrap Studio if you don't know bootstrap (and html/css website coding).

So let's hope Martin will stop pirates from polluting the forums with their requests. But maybe I'm plain wrong, almost no developers use BSS and perpetual licenses are sold to people working in Fiverr with no real tech background.

Many serious requests have not been implemented in the last months/years while other features like free website hosting and this new, limited form processing have been added. So I'm really confused is it's still a serious tool for devs or slowly becoming a wix alternative, often to be pirated.

@marrco, i'm totally within your purpose. Perhaps the feature request could be opened only to registered users who bought BSS.

I really hope that BSS will reinforce the "pro" features instead of theses ones, but i understand that for the "visibility" of BSS on the Web, these features are easely advertisable.

We'll see. for now, i'm happy about my lifetime licence, but i'm waiting the features we spoke on the forum. And i've bought BSS thinking these features will be implemented in near future. And, with an update by month, i've been confident they will be added...

And for me, an export script explanation, how to replace some code parts or adding some and automate it would be a great time saver, and reduce the time I spend to edit the generated code with Brackets.