Where to start with fixing this broken view?

Hi Rick,

Can you provide a link to the page or a screenshot etc?

The "display-frm-data" is part of the shortcode required to show a view on the page.

Your 'View' shortcode actually looks correct. Here's one of mine: [display-frm-data id=16398 filter=1]

Mine doesn't have the page size attribute included but apart from that it looks ok. It's probably just the id that needs to be updated.

If you go to to Formidable > Views do you see a list of the form views in there?

The right hand column should display the shortcode required to display them in a page / post etc. Just check that you're using the right ID in your existing shortcode.

See the attached screenshot.

Thanks

Chris

Chris,

Thanks for the reply.

The public webpage where this bug is shown is at

http://www.steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/endorsements-and-signatures/view-all-individual-signatures/

I think I might be missing a FF view, because the error message states

[display-frm-data id=”8691″ filter=”1″ page_size=”30″]

but I do not see that id in the following list which I viewed inside of WordPress -- see the attached screenshot of list of forms. I do not see an id = 8691 in that list.

Does this mean I need to create a form for this? I've not done that in WP yet...

thanks again,

--Rick

Hi Rick,

Ok so that screenshot is a list of your forms. Do you have any views set up yet?

If not you'll need to create one for the form that you wish to display data for.

Do you have Formidable Pro or just the free version?

Also, out of interest, if you don't have any views created, where did that short code from?

There's a lot of information on how to get started with views here: https://formidableforms.com/knowledgebase/create-a-view/

Hope that helps.

Chris

Hey Rick - I'm not sure if this was caused when you copy/pasted the shortcode into this forum post, or if it pre-existed in your WP Page, however it looks to me like it's been formed with invalid characters.

Try this instead in your WP Page Editor for http://www.steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/endorsements-and-signatures/view-all-individual-signatures/:

[display-frm-data id=8691 filter=1 page_size=30]

 
If the shortcode has been entered correctly and no View exists, then you'll see a message that says "There are no views with that ID" when you publish the page. If you're seeing the actual shortcode (the display-frm-data thing in brackets) then often that means that WP is not processing it correctly as a shortcode, so it's an issue not related to Formidable itself. We should still be able to help you out with it here, but I'm just mentioning that in case it helps you to investigate.

Hello Chris,

Yes, that is exactly what happens: WP displays the shortcode instead of the list. So I think you are correct, that WP is not processing the shortcode correctly...and that this may not be a problem with Formidable itself.

But I have also not solved these other questions:

This version of Formidable is not the Pro version. My understanding is that Views are only available with Formidable Pro, correct?
If so, is there some way to display a list of Entries (that were entered in another signup form) with this free version of Formidable? Since the previous developer put this in there, I assume there must be some way to do that.

Thanks!

--Rick

I have not heard a response to my question yet, but I'm assuming my conclusion was correct, that the free version of Forms does not include views. Thanks for the help....

I'm reopening this discussion because I have new information, and hope this forum can help me debug this.

My new information was that I found the shortcode "[display-frm-data" does appear in the source code for Formidable Forms, which I obtained from Github.

It is in the file FrmAppController.php (line 295), in this function:

public static function widget_text_filter( $content ) {
$regex = '/\[\s*(formidable|display-frm-data|frm-stats|frm-graph|frm-entry-links|formresults|frm-search)\s+.*\]/';
return preg_replace_callback( $regex, 'FrmAppHelper::widget_text_filter_callback', $content );
}

So what I do not understand is why this page:
http://www.steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/endorsements-and-signatures/view-all-individual-signatures/

is not processing this form correctly. In Wordpress, the form says it is using a template called Individual_Position_List, but when I look at my list of Templates, I see no such file (see attached screenshot).

So, I suspect the fix is to supply a new template with that name....but when I click on 'Create new Template', I get a dropdown picklist that is a list of the existing templates.

How do I create the missing template? And is this the correct fix?

thanks,
Rick

Hi Rick - I think you're right, the Views functionality is available only in the Pro version of Formidable, not the free one. That's most likely why you're seeing the shortcode itself, instead of the View rendering your data, when you look at that page. I don't know of any way to hack the free version to let you use views and even if I did, I don't think it would be appropriate to share that on the company's own forums. :-) Speaking as a long-time customer of Formidable, the Pro version is an incredible value in what it offers to a WordPress site; it's our one must-have plugin on anything we try to build. You can't go wrong if you decide that now is the time to sign up for the full functionality! The support you'll receive from the official Formidable team is also unmatched anywhere with any other software vendor we've experienced. (And no, I'm not affiliated with them in any way! Just a super happy paying user for many years.) The Pro license is a one-time fee so you won't have to keep paying for it every year unless you want to continue with support. If your site had been licensed to use Views in the past then perhaps you can find a way to retrieve that original license and activate it again? Might be worth posting on the main support forums to see if the Formidable team can help with those types of questions.

Though I have not had any more comments on my question, I am still trying to get to the bottom of this....and based on some new information, I think the problem might be that the code in Formidable Forms is using deprecated WP calls, and has not kept up with WP versions. Here is the evidence:

See the attached screenshot, which shows the error messages displayed for the page with the problem after I turned on debugging: it's full of deprecated messages. This is why, I suspect, that the correct data are not being returned to display.

Also, I found more evidence that the ID number in question, 8691, does exist: when I looked in the database table for wp_posts, I searched for that ID number, and it returned a record, where the post_name is "display-individual-signatures"....which is pretty conclusive evidence that this form used to work.

But the code in Formidable Forms surrounding this function call is....well, formidable! I would appreciate any help on whether the FF dev team can address these deprecated calls, and if there's some way of correcting this  bug.

Thanks,

Rick Casey

Hey Rick! You're probably going to have better luck reporting a suspected bug in the Formidable Support forums rather than here - not sure how much the Formidable team monitors these threads in the Community forum, which is where users can post stuff to help each other out.

https://formidableforms.com/help-desk/

Ok, thanks! Will do....

Hi Rick,

So just to confirm, you don't have Formidable Pro?

If that is the case, regardless of the info that the debugging mode is showing, that short code won't process anything as you won't have access to views and i think the behaviour you're seeing is normal.

Also, looking at that debugging information in your screenshot, the deprecated info looks to be mostly from other plugins that you have installed? I couldn't see anything about Formidable in there?

I think esadmin is right though and the best thing to do would be to submit a support ticket to the Formidable dev and see what they say.

Good luck. Hope you get it sorted.

With Formidable Lite you are only able to view entries on the backend. The shortcode will not be processed on the front end unless you upgrade to Formidable Pro.