JotForm is one the best online Form Builders out there. It offers more enticing features on its free edition than any of its rivals.

But, why would a developer need an online Form Builder? If you are building a site from scratch or if you are using a powerful CMS such as DNN, you'd probably build the form yourself or use a form builder module. But, increasingly more people are deploying BlogEngine.net as a CMS as it's much more simpler to theme, customize, deploy, train and maintain. And BE.NET, meant to be a blog engine doesn't (yet!) have the cabailities to build forms on the fly: Nor there are any modules (yet!) to do the same. So, the likes of JotForm becomes a really good option. [More]

The problem? Well, there's no easy way to embed a JotForm on a BE page or a post. That's why I went ahead and built this simple extension.

How do I use it?

You just drop the JotFormEmbed.cs in to the App_Code/Extensions folder of your BE.NET installation. Then inside a Page or a Post, type [jotform:formid,width,height] where formid is the unique ID for your JotForm form. The width and height parameters define the size of your form area.  You can find out the form ID by looking at the URL JotForm genreates for you.

e.g. http://www.jotform.com/jsform/111111111 where 111111111 is the form ID.

e.g.

[jotform:111111111,100%,250px]

And, that’s it!

NOTE: I couldn’t get the JotForm script tag to work because it seemed to mess up the rest of the BE.NET template. I left the code to insert the script tag in tact. But, I doubt I’d get back to fixing it as the IFrame works fine enough for me.

The C# Source

JotFormEmbed.cs (3.15 kb)

Almost for the last 2 years, I’ve been working on a substantially large and complex project. And like in any long haul project, some areas of the project’s code has been developing their own distinct smell. Much of the project is in good condition however, thanks mostly to my OCD. But, there’s this one library of code that’s been haunting me in my dreams, begging me to refactor it out of it’s misery. Then again, this is working code… More...

First of all thank you very much for trying to boost my  ego with all your "Nice Wok!", "Appreciate the effort you put in to this" comments. But, the fact of the matter is, it's getting a bit old and really annoying. So, cut it out.

k?

tx,

- Sameera.

I came across a weird issue today with my ASP.NET Dev Server. I’m running Vista Home Premium with Firefox set as the default browser. I was consistently getting a “Failed to Connect: Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:<port>.” error. Little bit of Goolge pointed me to several posts suggesting that I turn off IPV6 on my network adapter. Hmmm… Nope!  I know a better way to fix this (fingers crossed). More...

The good folks at NDepend were kind enough to ship me a Pro license last week. Interestingly, they had offered me a license back in 2007 and I had unfortunately missed it back then (long story short, BE.NET never delivered me that email). Anyway, after all these time when contacted the guys were more than helpful to grant me a license (Thanks Patrick!). Anyway, I'm now taking baby steps in trying to harness the power of NDepend. I know I'm gonna end up addicted this app :)

I will keep you posted!