Craig,
Checkboxes are surprisingly tricky fields, especially when you start changing them on the fly. I am not sure Gravity Forms handles it any better than the plugin you currently use. I am going to explain how our checkbox data is handled with an example.
Lets say i have a checkbox with two items: "First" and "Second"
Somebody submits a form with "First" checked.
If you export the entries for that form, you will get a csv file that looks like the following
"First","Second"
"First",""
Note: First row is a header row.
Now you decide to add a new item "Third" to that field, and a user submits the form with "First" and "Third" checked. Then your export would look like the following:
"First","Second","Third"
"First","",""
"First","","Third"
Now you decide to rename "First" to "First Item" and a user submits the form with "First Item", "Second" and "Third" checked. Your export would then look like the following:
"First Item","Second","Third"
"First","",""
"First","","Third"
"First Item","Second","Third"
Now you decide to reorder the field so that "Third" comes before "Second". A user then submits a form with "First Item","Second","Third" checked. Your export would look like the following:
"First Item","Third","Second"
"First","",""
"First","","Third"
"First Item","Second","Third"
"First Item","Third","Second"
I hope this answers your question.
To be honest, I am not sure this is the best way to handle the checkbox field, but it does have the advantage of keeping the history of the submissions so that you don't lose any data (even though the headers get a bit out of sync with the data under it).
You seem to have a good amount of experience dealing with checkboxes. If you have an opinion on how you would like to see them working, I would love to hear it.
Posted 15 years ago on Tuesday October 27, 2009 |
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