Adding reCaptcha To A Custom Contact Form Page On WordPress

Image credit: Madison Magazine

At first I thought this was going to be easy, just install the WordPress reCaptcha plugin and add a couple of lines to the form and that should do it. Once I was ready to go and actually do it, I could not find any info on teh web on how to do this, so after two hours of research and trial and error I found the answer. I hope this will help someone out there.

I am building a custom contact page with a PHP contact form on it. I need the reCaptcha to sit at the bottom of the form and keep Spammers out.

First we needed to go and register an account at reCaptcha.net and get the public and private key for the domain the reCaptcha is going on. Then download the reCaptcha library PHP file that will be including in the form processing code.

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Some More jQuery Resources & Apps

There are more and more awesome examples of jQuery apps and uses that I find. This one is a list of 50+ stunning jQuery applications that is posted over at DeveloperSnippets.com. I’m going to keep adding the jQuery info that I find to this blog, so next time you need some info, remember to come here to WDI and search for the keyword “jquery” and you’ll get a list of great resources on this topic.

3 Practical Ways To Efficient CSS

Most probably already know this but it doesn’t hurt to remind and have it down on “paper”. When writing CSS code and as you adjust things to make it all look good in the browser your CSS file becomes huge with extra lines of unneeded code that can be purged to make the size of the file smaller. All though this is not a complete list, this is practical and easy to remember steps that really make a difference. What I am talking about is Shorthand, Default Values and Multiple Declaration.

Shorthand

There are several elements that you can apply shorthand to font, border, background, padding & margin.

font

 Instead of declaring:

font-family:   Arial;
font-size:        12px;
line-height:   18px;
color:              #333;

You can say all that in one sentence:

font: 12px/18px #333 Arial;

border

 Instead of declaring:

border-color:    #ccc;
border-width:    1px;
border-style:      solid;

You can say all that in one sentence:

border: 1px solid #ccc;

background

 Instead of declaring:

background-color:         #fff;
background-image:        url(images/bg.gif);
background-position:    top;
background-repeat:        no-repeat;

You can say all that in one sentence:

background: #fff url(images/bg.gif) top no-repeat;

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jQuery Proves Very Usefull…

Aha! Now we’re talking…SmashingMagazine just published 45+ New jQuery Techniques For Good User Experience. This is what I was looking for, it shows examples of what jQuery can do.  In a previous article, Not Too Impressed With jQuery, I wrote how I could not find any useful information on how jQuery can be used in a practical web development situation. I was disappointed but at the same time I found MooTools very useful.

This opens more doors for me personally … Sweetness … Gonna go check out the demos…

Drag And Drop With JavaScript & CSS

It can be used for various purposes but one is sorting things in a list, like a menu. Even WordPress Uses this function in the admin side to order the widgets on the sidebar. Drag and drop lists have many uses and I’ve never made one before so I am goign to follow the tutorial that I found and see if I can make this thing work.

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