When I first installed a contact form plugin I went with the most popular- Contact Form 7. Contact Form 7 is very popular for good reasons, it is very capable and full-featured. Just a bit complex for me. I just need a simple contact form.
After much looking through and test-driving many of the available WP contact form plugins, I settled on Pirate Forms Lite. It was perfect for my needs – simple and easy. Unfortunately it was too good. Pirate Forms was purchased by WPForms, and discontinued to eliminate the superior competition.
I gave WPForms-Lite a test drive, and I didn’t hate it. Except for the obnoxious spam marketing and the hideous lime-green background of the confirmation message. Those I hated.
I kept looking. I found Jeff Starr’s excellent Contact Form X, which is perfect for me. Like the discontinued Pirate Forms, it provides a simple, easy-to-use contact form with no complex features that I don’t need and free of obnoxious marketing spam. Contact Form X remains my preferred contact form.
Then, six months ago – at the start of July 2020 – I switched my reseller account from MDD Hosting to HostManitis. Contact Form X does not live happily on HostMantis – at least not for me. Jeff let me know that JavaScript errors – not originating with his plugin – are to blame. Good to know but a bit beyond my comfort level to fix.
So, I circled reluctantly back to WPForms. After some trial and error, I found a custom CSS fix for the lime green background:
.wpforms-confirmation-container-full {
color: #333;
margin: 0 0 24px 0;
background: #f1f1f1 !important;
border: 2px solid #000000 !important;
padding: 15px 15px;
}
And after I ranted on their support page, WPForms let me know how to disable the obnoxious marketing spam:
WPForms > Settings > Misc > Hide Announcements and Disable Email Summaries
With those two peeves out of the way, WPForms works great for me. I’ll still switch back to Contact Form X if the opportunity arises.
