

Show HN: Fireform – Hook your website form into a hosted private back end - jenkinsj
http://fireform.org/

======
orware
Just in case it might be helpful for someone else (I know it's been helpful
for us at the college the past few years).

Here's a great Wufoo-like self-hosted Forms Application (version 4.0 sounds
like it's right around the corner too):
[http://www.appnitro.com/](http://www.appnitro.com/)

The software is called MachForms (I don't remember how I found it, but I'm
definitely glad I did). I was able to add in LDAP authentication on my own
with some customization of the core code (I wish it would be built-in as a
feature, but aside from that it works really nicely out of the box).

~~~
aytekin
We have a simple version of JotForm in the same space. You can install it on
any LAMP server:
[http://www.interlogy.com/products/jotform/](http://www.interlogy.com/products/jotform/)

It does support LDAP as well.

------
bung
Anyone have the link to the other online form api/processor that was posted
the other day?

it was like POST someSite.com/your@email.com

Just wanted to compare a few of them

~~~
jenkinsj
formspree.com,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7298195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7298195)

~~~
bung
cheers

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yesimahuman
All these static form hosting tools make me think maybe one of our side
projects had some possible legs: [http://formend.com/](http://formend.com/)

It's a backend for form data. The idea being you never set up a schema or
layout ahead of time, you just send named fields and file uploads and it just
works.

The implementation is a bit buggy though, it was more of a proof of concept.

~~~
DLarsen
I love the concept, but I'd much prefer to self-host such a tool.

I'd pay for something that easily handle all the ad-hoc forms we want to cook
up on our otherwise static marketing site.

~~~
girvo
Funny, I've been working on a tool that is exactly that. Sounds like it might
be worth uploading to Github?

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cooperx
What I want/need is a more robust system to handle spam/server side
validation. i.e. filtering out known bad email addresses or domains, blocking
IPs, blocking known spam phrases from text fields, validating selected dates
between ranges etc. Any plans for things like that? Also what about email
alerts for submissions etc?

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ytjohn
Ahh.. this takes me back to when you had your page on something like Angelfire
or Geocities and someone else would provide free guestbook or "contact us"
type forms. You just had to plunk some code into your html and go.

This is the Web 2.0 version of that.

~~~
jenkinsj
So glad someone remembers the good old days.

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gatopan
Awesome!!

Can I assign a custom tags on a form? I'd love to differentiate when the form
was submitted on a dev environment, a landing page 1 or landing page 2..

~~~
jenkinsj
You can add a hidden field with the URL or a flag. You can also sort off that
field in the results.

------
jenkinsj
It's really awesome we were able to build this completely on Firebase's
system. The zapier integration for email was clutch too. Ne sweat on the
scaling.

~~~
at-fates-hands
I noticed the Firebase reference on your page. Very nicely done. I just
started working with Angular and using Firebase is a no-brainer.

------
p4bl0
Their demo is really a pain to use in my 1024x700 browser windows. And even
when I switch to fullscreen actually (but I'd rather not).

~~~
woah
Making mobile-responsive tables is a pretty involved thing, and would have
been even more complicated by the fact that the table sorts. I think that most
people will be able to scroll if they happen to check the backend on a phone
or 90's era computer.

~~~
p4bl0
I'm not using a mobile. I'm using a recent laptop, I just don't like to browse
in fullscreen. Is it okay with you?

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OhHeyItsE
looks sharp, but doesn't wufoo have a pretty solid foothold in this market?

~~~
jenkinsj
We made this because we are particular about our markup and wufoo's iframe and
banner in the form was a non-starter for our client's needs.

~~~
iandanforth
This. Wufoo is a PITA when it comes to doing custom stuff. I've spent hours
mucking with css trying to overcome their layouts.

~~~
DLarsen
Yes. Their process is backwards. Lots of folks don't want to start with their
markup. It'd be much better to be able to code up your forms and submit
_whatever_ you want.

------
jenkinsj
Regrets for the sizing issue. Hopefully it still get's the job done.

~~~
balls187
Is the sample form suppose to look like this?

[http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09b77l09xvfrta7/2014-02-2...](http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09b77l09xvfrta7/2014-02-28%20at%2012.07%20PM.png)

~~~
abimaelmartell
"how to milk a goat" LOL

~~~
christinericks
The answer to this important question was tragically not found on our Fireform
example, so they had to turn to Google. Haha

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ageyfman
What are your thoughts on pricing for this? How about a form builder?

~~~
jenkinsj
We are not sure about pricing for now. We shied away from making a form
builder. A la wufoo or google forms. This is made to be as close to HTML forms
as possible. It's made to work on any static site with any form markup. If you
are like us you are picky about your markup and wouldn't think of using an
iframe.

~~~
ageyfman
makes sense. Since you used angular, I'd love to see JS form serialization
that does good markup output. This way, you don't have to build a form builder
(but I might), and the tool supports storing these forms in DB easily. Food
for thought. I've written something like this already, and it's been very
helpful.

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longstaff2009
do you need to design a schema for the backend or does it automatically create
it based on the form data that is posted through?

~~~
christinericks
It automatically creates the schema based on the form data :)

~~~
longstaff2009
cool, what happens if I change the form?

~~~
christinericks
Right now if you add fields, you'll automatically get that new column of data
added. We haven't added a way to delete fields yet, so if you remove fields,
you'll still see the old data in there.

~~~
Edmond
You might be interested in our "Preemptive Schema Data Modeling" technology
([http://crudzilla.com/doc/eu-doc/#data-modeling](http://crudzilla.com/doc/eu-
doc/#data-modeling) )

It basically allows you to do what you are doing without having to manage
tables by adding and removing columns.

The idea is simple, preemptively create a table with a certain distribution of
column types and then allow the developer to define models in their app and
map properties of their model to available columns.

It is a pretty robust idea and works well, we use it in our product.

I'll be doing a thorough write up on it sometime in the near future.

~~~
jenkinsj
Thanks Edmond! We used Firebase's validation rules to create a basic schema
but something more robust might be called for in the future.

~~~
Edmond
no problem, feel free to get in touch if you need assistance trying it out.

