Using macros with forms

Values of the fields that you need to fill in when configuring a form can be obtained dynamically from the submitted values in form fields. The following table shows which macro types you can use for particular values of form configuration.

Localization

Context

Query String

Cookie

Custom

Path

Context (Data) macros

General tab - Form display name

General tab - Display text

General tab - Redirect to URL

General tab - Submit button text

Fields tab - Default value

Fields tab - Field caption

Fields tab - Table layout

Notification email tab - all fields

Autoresponder tab - all fields

Context (data) macros

You can use values from current context when configuring a form. This can be achieved using a data macro in the {%column_name%} format. The column_name part of the macro is the value of the Column name property of a particular form filed. When the form is submitted, the macros are automatically resolved and replaced with particular data from the form.

These macros can be used in the following text fields:

  • General tab
    • Display text
    • Redirect to URL
  • Email notifications
    • Sender email
    • Recipient emails
    • Subject
    • Email body
  • Autoresponder emails
    • From email
    • Subject
    • Email body

Example 1

When configuring notification emails for a form, you may use the following values:

  • Sender email: {%Email%};
  • Subject: Event registration by {%FirstName%} {%LastName%};

Email, FirstName and LastName are the column names of the defined form’s fields.

This will result in the email having the user’s email address as the sender address, which enables the recipient to easily reply to the email. The subject of the email will have the first and last name of the user, which will help identifying the sender of the email.

Example 2

If you enter the Display text value on the General tab of the form like this:

  • Dear {%FirstName%}, thank you for your message. We will contact you shortly.

The text will be resolved as the following when “Jane” was entered in the First name field by the user:

  • Dear Jane, thank you for your message. We will contact you shortly.

Form text localization

If you need to display the form on a multi-lingual website, you can localize field captions and other text strings using localization macros, e.g.:

  • {myform.fullname}
  • {$=Hello\|de\-de=Hallo\|it\-it=Ciao$}

You can find more details in Working with resource strings.

Detailed overview of all macros in Kentico can be found in Macro expressions.