DotNetNuke has some great premium modules available from DNNSoftware.com. The problem is when you're just playing around or getting started these can be cost prohibitive. Due to the maturity of the DotNetNuke Platform and the relatively small install base there are few vendors in the marketplace. This means that the ones there are highly skilled and put out an amazing product, but can also charge a bit higher price. It's common to find some modules for as little a $49, with some costing thousands.
The one noticeable absence from DotNetNuke is a built in forms module. Once again DNNCommunity has stepped in to assist. I've generally always used a premium module like Action Forms, which is fantastic, but it's nice to find a free module with the versatility to serve as a simple contact form, which is the topic of this post.
Click here to check out the Form and List module on GitHub
Like many of the DNNCommunity modules this is pretty straightforward to use. In this example I've set our module to act as a form.
I then added 3 fields for our form as shown below, the Created and Changed fields are by default and cannot be removed.
It was nice to see we can also utilize DNN Tokens to auto populate some fields, such as username and email, these will pull from a users profile it they happen to be signed in.
Here is the sample form
This module was really well put together and even appears to have an email on event function. Other than the more advanced features in a module like Action Forms, the DNN Community Form and List Module provide a nice no-cost alternative for forms and data gathering. You could utilize this for a simple survey. At the very least this is a good proof of concept tool when you want to play around without needing to purchase a premium module.
Click here to check out the video companion on YouTube
