Upgrading cForms Plugin

September 4th, 2009 by Heather

Tip on some steps: Before creating or editing files such as abspath.php or cforms.js, change your local directory to a folder named after the site you’re working on. This will help prevent accidental uploading of these edited files for one site onto another, which will cause the forms to stop working. Having these for backup for each site worked on also comes in handy.

1. Before beginning, be sure you have the latest cForms downloaded and unzipped from Delicious Days.

2. FTP to the plugins directory of the site, download a full backup copy of cForms.

3. Do a database backup in the wp-admin, if you haven’t already done it.

4. Deactivate cForms.

5. Upload the new cforms folder through ftp. (Be sure you are uploading the cforms folder and not the zip file name – this will cause cforms to have errors and partially work.)

6. Leave the ftp on for now – activate cForms again.

7. Go to the cForms admin page.

8. Does it say: It appears that cforms was not able to create abspath.php…?
If it does, start a new text file. Copy the green highlighted code cForms produced.
Looks like: <code>&lt;?php $abspath = ‘/home/www/domain-name.com/’; ?&gt;</code>
Paste that code into your new text file and save as abspath.php.
Upload that file to the cforms folder.

9. Refresh the cforms admin page to be sure it’s correct now.

10. If you see more notations at the top, such as upgrade database table, just follow the instructions. This isn’t as common anymore unless you’re upgrading a very old installation.

11. Final step: test one of the forms.

Failed tests:

1. Did you add the abspath.php file and is the path on that correct? If the installation is in a sub-directory, check to see that cforms recognized that and the sub-directory is showing at the end of the file path in abspath.php.

2. If cforms didn’t tell you to add the abspath.php file, check that it’s actually in the cforms folder anyway. If not, create one using the above code with the correct server path.

3. Is the cforms folder it’s own? In the plugins directory, when you open the cforms folder, do you see files or another cforms folder? If you see another cforms folder, you will have to open it, select all the files and folders, and drag them up one directory.

4. Follow this path in your ftp: cforms/js/. Download the cforms.js file and open for editing.
Just past the copyright information, look for this line:
<code>var sajax_uri = ‘/wp-content/plugins/cforms/lib_ajax.php’;</code>

If the wordpress installation is in a sub-directory, add it to the code like this:
<code>var sajax_uri = ‘/sub-directory-name/wp-content/plugins/cforms/lib_ajax.php’;</code>

Upload the file and re-test the form.

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