Form Tools

What Form Tools is

Form Tools is, in its own words, a "powerful, flexible, free and open source PHP/MySQL script you install on your website for managing your forms and data." The homepage files it under "Data Management." It is a form builder and submission manager that you download and install on a website running PHP and MySQL, rather than an online service you sign up for. The site's main navigation is built around that: a Download link sits next to the docs, and the documentation menu covers Installation and Upgrading. The reader it fits is a webmaster, freelancer, agency or in-house IT person who is comfortable installing a script, wants form submissions kept in their own MySQL database, and wants forms without writing form-handling code. The site's news feed is written in the first person by the developer.

What you build and how

The homepage says "Forms come in all shapes and sizes" and describes three ways to work with them. You can use Form Tools to "house the data from your own forms," meaning a form you already built by hand in HTML can post to Form Tools, which stores and manages the submissions. You can create private forms for use by specific users only. Or you can create forms right on your website through the Form Builder module. The page says all three work "with no programming knowledge needed." A Form Types page gives an overview of the options.

The product is built from modules. The homepage says Form Tools "offers a range of extra functionality through optional modules, letting you tailor your installation for your own project requirements. And if the module doesn't already exist, you can always write your own!" It features four:

• Form Builder: "Create single or complex forms through an interface, and publish them on your website."
• Data Visualization: "Display your form submission data in pie, column, bar, line and area charts."
• Report Builder: "Generate simple, clear reports of your form submissions."
• Custom Fields: "Customize the field types (radios, inputs, etc.) used within Form Tools and your forms."

The news feed mentions two more. The Export Manager module was updated to make its timeout configurable, with a default of 5 minutes, and the Google Maps module gained a "your location" button for installations running on https. The Extensions menu lists modules, themes, an API and translations as separate sections, and the Docs menu has module development and theme development guides, so both functionality and appearance can be changed by anyone willing to write the code.

User accounts are the other core building block. The homepage says you can "Create as many accounts as you need," and that each account "can be set up to show exactly which forms, and form fields you want the user to see." You control read and write privileges, which data export options are available, "and much more." For an agency collecting submissions on behalf of several clients, or an organization where each department should see only its own forms, that is the central feature: one installation, many accounts, each with its own view of the data and its own permissions.

Results are not locked in. The homepage says Form Tools "is much more than just a data gatherer." It lets you visualize submission data through the Data Visualization module and "provides a simple way to export your data for use in whatever other applications you need." Combined with Report Builder, that covers the usual reporting loop of collecting responses, summarizing them in a chart or report, and moving the raw data into a spreadsheet or another system.

Form Tools also has an API for developers. The homepage headline is "And yup, there's an API," aimed at "people wishing to do a deep integration with Form Tools." The API page calls it optional and meant "for programmers wanting to perform various low-level tasks." Its methods let you submit form data via PHP code "rather than POSTing the information to process.php," access and display Form Tools data in your own web pages, and manage client accounts via code instead of the Form Tools interface. The homepage adds helper functions for maintaining sessions and displaying captchas. The API page says "The documentation is pretty exhaustive," offers two tutorials, "Adding a Single Page Form with the API" and "Adding a Multi-page Form with the API," and lists the latest API download as version 2.0.0.

The interface can be localized. The homepage says "With over 50 translations available, using Form Tools in your language is as simple as selecting it from within the Form Tools interface," and that "Each account can have their own language setting." That helps when one installation serves client accounts or staff who read different languages.

Cost, support and project activity

The cost story is simple because the software is free and open source. There are no plans, price lists, response caps or per-user fees on the site; the navigation instead carries a "Donate!" link and an "Our services" link. Running it means a website with PHP and MySQL plus the time to install and upgrade, and the documentation's Installation and Upgrading sections cover those steps.

Support and community resources sit in the navigation and footer: user documentation, tutorials, a Help menu, a "Report a bug" link, an "About the code" page, a "Where's Form Tools used?" page and archived forums.

The news feed gives a picture of how the project moves. It records the release of Form Tools 3.0.16 and an updated installation document, then a decision to "fast-track Form Tools 3.1," a version that would include only the updated installation script, along with website changes to support it. A later post says the maintainer needs "to focus on another project for a while" and that "3.1 will have to wait a little longer!" The same feed shows the Export Manager and Google Maps module updates above, so module updates continue between larger releases.

Who it suits and who it does not

Form Tools suits developers, agencies and IT teams that want a form back end they control: submissions in their own MySQL database, accounts with form-level and field-level visibility for clients or colleagues, charts and reports without a separate analytics tool, and an API and module system for custom work. It also suits anyone with existing HTML forms who wants them to store and manage data without rebuilding them, and multilingual teams who benefit from per-account language settings.

It does not suit a founder or marketer who wants a form online in five minutes with no technical setup, because installing and upgrading the script is part of the job. Release timing depends on the maintainer's time, as the news feed makes clear, so teams that need a predictable roadmap should look at recent activity before committing.