Contact Form 7 is an excellent WordPress plugin and one of the top choices of free WordPress plugins for contact forms. Contact Form 7 \u2013 Dynamic Text Extension (DTX) makes it even more awesome by adding dynamic content capabilities. While default values in Contact Form 7 are static, DTX lets you create pre-populated fields pulled from other locations. Some examples might include:<\/p>\n
The possibilities are endless!<\/p>\n
View Demo<\/a><\/p>\n For over 10 years, DTX only handled DTX provides flexibility to WordPress users in creating dynamic forms in Contact Form 7. DTX comes with several built-in shortcodes that will allow the contact form to be populated from HTTPS GET variable or any info from the Don\u2019t see the shortcode you need on the list? You can write a custom one<\/a>! Any shortcode that returns a string or numeric value can be used here. The included shortcodes just cover the most common scenarios, but DTX provides the flexibility for you to grab any value you have access to programmatically.<\/p>\n The bread and butter of this plugin, set a dynamic value! This field can take any shortcode, with two important provisions:<\/p>\n Set a dynamic placeholder with this attribute! This feature accepts static text or a shortcode. If using a shortcode, the same syntax applies from the dynamic value field. However, this field also has a few more needs:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re using Contact Form 7\u2019s tag generator to create the form tag, those extra needs are already taken care of. Dynamic placeholders are not available for dynamic hidden form tags.<\/p>\n Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n DTX is cache friendly! You can set a field to be calculated after the page loads by setting the Many websites use caching plugins to optimize for performance. If your website caches the HTML of the form, then any dynamic form fields you have get their first calculated value cached alongside it. This becomes an issue if you\u2019re using DTX to pull values from a cookie or the current URL\u2019s query string.<\/p>\n This is best for dynamic form fields that:<\/p>\n For dynamic fields that are page-specific, it\u2019s perfectly safe to cache those values. For example, dynamic form fields that:<\/p>\n Note: Enabling a dynamic field to be calculated after the page loads will add frontend JavaScript. Depending on the shortcode used as the dynamic value, an AJAX call to the server may be sent to be processed. The script is minified and loaded in the footer and is deferred, minimizing impact on site performance and the AJAX calls are called asynchronously to avoid being a render-blocking resource and minimizing main-thread work. The script itself can be safely cached too.<\/em><\/p>\n Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Check this box if you do not want to let users edit this field. It will add the If you\u2019re pre-filling a form field with an email address, bots can scrape that value from the page and use it for spam. You can add an additional layer of protecting by obfuscating the value, which turns each character into it\u2019s ASCII code. To the human eye, it looks like the character it\u2019s supposed to be because browsers will render the ASCII code, but for bots, it won\u2019t look like an email address!<\/p>\n After installing and activating the plugin, you will have 2 new tag types to select from when creating or editing a Contact Form 7 form: the dynamic text field and dynamic hidden field. Most of the options in their tag generators will be familiar to Contact Form 7 users but there have been some upgrades.<\/p>\n All of the shortcodes included with the DTX plugin allow the The Contact Form 7 tag with obfuscation turned on would look like this: All of the dynamic form tags can be enabled for processing on the frontend of the website, or the client-side, by adding the In the form editor of Contact Form 7, your form tag would look like: If using the tag generator, it\u2019s as simple as checking a box!<\/p>\n The plugin includes several shortcodes for use with the Dynamic Text Extension right out of the box. You can write your own as well\u2014any self-closing shortcode will work, even with attributes!<\/p>\n Retrieve the current URL: In the form editor of Contact Form 7, your form tag would look like: Optional parameter: Host: Just the domain name and tld Query: The query string after the ?, if one exists Path: The URL path, for example, \/contact, if one exists Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Get the referral URL, if it exists. Note that this is not necessarily reliable as not all browsers send this data.<\/p>\n CF7 Tag: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retrieve information about the current page that the contact form is displayed on. Works great for use in templated areas like the site header, footer, widget, or sidebar! The shortcode works as follows:<\/p>\n Built-in shortcode: Required attribute: Possible values for For pages that use a For author pages, this acts as an alias for In the form editor of Contact Form 7, your form tag\u2019s value could look like: And then the full form tag would be: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retrieve information about the current post or page (must be for a WP_POST object) that the contact form is displayed on. The shortcode works as follows:<\/p>\n You can also retrieve any parameter from the global The Contact Form 7 Tag would look like: Need to pull data from a different<\/em> post\/page? Not a problem! Just specify it\u2019s post ID like this:<\/p>\n Dynamic value: Contact Form 7 Tag: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retrieve custom fields from the current post\/page. Just set the custom field as the key in the shortcode.<\/p>\n Note: You must add any meta keys that you want to allow access to to the allow list in your admin panel > Contact > Dynamic Text Extension > Meta Key Allow List. More Information<\/a><\/p>\n The dynamic value input becomes: And the tag looks like this: For the purposes of including an email address, you can obfuscate the custom field value by setting obfuscate=\u2019on\u2019 in the shortcode like this: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retrieve the current post\u2019s featured image, the featured image of a different page, or any attachment from the Media Library with this shortcode!<\/p>\n The base shortcode is simply: By setting the By setting the By setting the Want to return the attachment ID instead of the URL? Also not a problem! Just set Most of the optional attributes can be used at the same time. For example, if I wanted to retrieve the attachment ID of a featured image for a different post, then the dynamic text form tag would look like this: If I wanted to get a specific image at a specific size, I can use this: The only two attributes that can\u2019t play together is Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Get data about the current logged-in user.<\/p>\n Dynamic value: Note: You must add any user keys that you want to allow access to to the allow list in your admin panel > Contact > Dynamic Text Extension > User Data Key Allow List. More Information<\/a><\/p>\n Valid values for But also custom meta user keys!<\/p>\n For the purposes of including an email address, you can obfuscate the value by setting obfuscate=\u2019on\u2019 in the shortcode like this: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want to grab some information from your blog like the URL or the site name? Use the Enter the following into the \u201cDynamic Value\u201d input: Your Content Form 7 Tag will look something like this: Your form\u2019s dynamicname text input will then be pre-populated with your site\u2019s URL<\/p>\n Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want to retrieve values from your active theme\u2019s Customizer? Now you can with the Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want to use a variable from the PHP Enter the following into the \u201cDynamic Value\u201d input: Your Content Form 7 Tag will look something like this: Your form\u2019s dynamicname text input will then be pre-populated with the value of Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Grab variables from the PHP Dynamic value: Your Content Form 7 Tag will look something like this: Learn more and see examples from the DTX Knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n If your WordPress website uses cookies, you might want to pull the value of a specific cookie into a form. You can do that with the Dynamic value: Your Content Form 7 Tag will look something like this: <\/code> and <\/code> form fields, but version 4 finally introduces more:<\/p>\n\n
WHAT DOES IT DO?<\/h3>\n
get_bloginfo()<\/code> function, among others. See below for included shortcodes.<\/p>\nDynamic Value<\/h4>\n
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[<\/code> and ]<\/code>). So, instead of [CF7_GET key='value']<\/code> you would use CF7_GET key='value'<\/code>.<\/li>\nCF7_GET key='value'<\/code> and not CF7_GET key=\"value\"<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\nDynamic Placeholder<\/h4>\n
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'<\/code><\/li>\n%20<\/code> and other non-alphanumeric characters are converted.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nCompatible with Caching Plugins<\/h4>\n
dtx_pageload<\/code> attribute to any dynamic form tag.<\/p>\n\n
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Read Only Form Fields<\/h4>\n
readonly<\/code> attribute to the input form field. This feature is not available for dynamic hidden form tags.<\/p>\nObfuscate Values for Enhanced Privacy<\/h4>\n
HOW TO USE IT<\/h3>\n
How to Obfuscate Values<\/h4>\n
obfuscate<\/code> attribute that you can set to any truthy value to provide an additional layer of security for sensitive data.<\/p>\n[dynamictext user_email \"CF7_get_current_user key='user_email' obfuscate='on'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nHow to Enable Cache-Friendly Mode<\/h4>\n
dtx_pageload<\/code> attribute to the Contact Form 7 form tag.<\/p>\n[dynamictext current_url dtx_pageload \"CF7_URL\"]<\/code><\/p>\nINCLUDED SHORTCODES<\/h3>\n
Current URL or Part<\/h4>\n
CF7_URL<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_URL\"]<\/code><\/p>\npart<\/code>, which will return a parsed part of the URL. Valid values are host<\/code>, query<\/code>, and path<\/code><\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext host \u201cCF7_URL part=\u2019host'\u201d]<\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext query \u201cCF7_URL part=\u2019query'\u201d]<\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext path \u201cCF7_URL part=\u2019path'\u201d]<\/p>\nReferrer URL<\/h4>\n
[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_referrer\"]<\/code><\/p>\nCurrent Page Variables<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_current_var<\/code><\/p>\nkey<\/code><\/p>\nkey<\/code> include:<\/p>\n\n
id<\/code><\/li>\ntitle<\/code><\/li>\nurl<\/code> (an alias for CF7_URL<\/code>)<\/li>\nslug<\/code><\/li>\nfeatured_image<\/code><\/li>\nterms<\/code> (an alias for CF7_get_taxonomy<\/code>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nWP_POST<\/code> object, this acts as an alias for CF7_get_post_var<\/code> so those attributes work here as well.<\/p>\nCF7_get_current_user<\/code> so those attributes work here as well.<\/p>\nCF7_get_current_var key='title'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_current_var key='title'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nPost\/Page Info<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_post_var key='title' <-- retrieves the Post's Title\nCF7_get_post_var key='slug' <-- retrieves the Post's Slug\n<\/code><\/pre>\n$post<\/code> object. Just set that as the key<\/code> value, for example post_date<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_post_var key='title'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nCF7_get_post_var key='title' post_id='245'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_post_var key='title' post_id='245'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nPost Meta & Custom Fields<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_custom_field key='my_custom_field'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_custom_field key='my_custom_field'\"]<\/code><\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext dynamicname \u201cCF7_get_custom_field key=\u2019my_custom_field\u2019 obfuscate=\u2019on'\u201d]<\/p>\nFeatured Images & Media Attachments<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_attachment<\/code> which returns the absolute URL of the current page\u2019s featured image.<\/p>\npost_id<\/code> attribute to a post ID, you can get the featured image of another page.<\/p>\nid<\/code> attribute to an attachment ID, you can get the absolute URL of any image uploaded to your WordPress website.<\/p>\nsize<\/code> attribute to any size registered on your website, you can get a specific image size.<\/p>\nreturn='id'<\/code> in the shortcode.<\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext input_name \u201cCF7_get_attachment post_id=\u2019123\u2032 return=\u2019id'\u201d]<\/p>\n
\n [dynamictext input_name \u201cCF7_get_attachment id=\u2019123\u2032 size=\u2019thumbnail'\u201d]<\/p>\nid<\/code> and post_id<\/code>. If both are specified, it will get the attachment specified by id<\/code> and completely ignore the post_id<\/code> attribute. If neither are specified, then it looks to the current featured image assigned to the global $post<\/code> object.<\/p>\nCurrent User Info & User Meta<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_current_user key='user_displayname'<\/code>
\nCF7 Tag: [dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_current_user\"]<\/code><\/p>\nkey<\/code> include:<\/p>\n\n
ID<\/code><\/li>\nuser_login<\/code><\/li>\ndisplay_name<\/code><\/li>\nuser_email<\/code><\/li>\nuser_firstname<\/code><\/li>\nuser_lastname<\/code><\/li>\nuser_description<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n [dynamictext dynamicname \u201cCF7_get_current_user key=\u2019user_email\u2019 obfuscate=\u2019on'\u201d]<\/p>\nSite\/Blog Info<\/h4>\n
CF7_bloginfo<\/code> shortcode. For example, to get the site\u2019s URL:<\/p>\nCF7_bloginfo show='url'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_bloginfo show='url'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nTheme Options<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_theme_option<\/code> shortcode.<\/p>\nHTTP GET Variables<\/h4>\n
$_GET<\/code> array? Just use the CF7_GET<\/code> shortcode. For example, if you want to get the foo parameter from the url
\n http:\/\/mysite.com?foo=bar<\/p>\nCF7_GET key='foo'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_GET key='foo'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nfoo<\/code>, in this case, bar<\/code><\/p>\nHTTP POST Variables<\/h4>\n
$_POST<\/code> array. The shortcode is much like the GET shortcode:<\/p>\nCF7_POST key='foo'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_POST key='foo'\"]<\/code><\/p>\nCookie Values<\/h4>\n
CF7_get_cookie<\/code> shortcode. It only needs a key<\/code> attribute.<\/p>\nCF7_get_cookie key='foo'<\/code><\/p>\n[dynamictext dynamicname \"CF7_get_cookie key='foo'\"]<\/code><\/p>\n