Steps to Using Separate Fields for First Name and Surname in a Form

Currently a form needs a value of "s_name" to submit properly. Lets take a look at how we can include two separate fields into "s_name".

Currently a form needs a value of "s_name" to submit properly. Lets take a look at how we can include two separate fields into "s_name".

Introduction

When a Form is created you'll notice two standard field that are always required; Name and Email. These two fields must have a value when a user submits the Form or it will fail (as the required fields haven't been given). If two separate fields are required for both first name and last name there is a way of getting round this!

Step 1) Create Separate Name Fields in the Form in the Siteglide Admin

Firstly we'll need to create/ locate the form we need to add custom fields to. Head over to your site's admin, from here click "CMS" and find "Forms" within there. From here you can choose to create or edit a Form (as seen in red highlights):

Firstly we must create two separate form fields for First name and Last name, to do this click "Add Fields" and name them accordingly:

These must be set to 'required' as they're being inserted into the name field (which will prevent the Form from submitting without a value).

Since this article was first written, we've added CMS custom fields. You can alternatively head to CMS and create custom CMS fields for first and last name. You can then attach these CMS fields to the form instead of the standard fields. The benefit of this is that it persists the names against the customer in the CMS.

Step 2) Copy the Default Form Layout to Create a Custom Layout

We will be building upon the "default" Form layout as it automatically creates all the correct fields the Form needs to submit. Go to code editor:

layouts/forms/form_1/default.liquid (replace form_1 with the ID of your form).

Copy the code inside this file. Create a new file in Code Editor and paste the content inside:

layouts/forms/form_1/first_and_last_name.liquid

Now we'll need to create a custom layout. Right click the Form we're working on and select "Create File".

Copy the code from the default layout into here (we'll be using this as a starting point).

Step 3) Hide the System Field for the User's Full Name

You'll notice that the full name field has a type of "text", this will need to be replaced with "hidden" (this field is just for the database- users don't need to see it!).

Remove the label element as it will still display otherwise. Here's what it should look like:

<input
  class="form-control required"
  name="{{ form_builder.fields.properties.name.name }}"
  id="s_name"
  type="<a data-footnote-ref href="#user-content-fn-1">hidden</a>"
/>

Step 4) Add Unique HTML IDs

Next we must add unique ids to our custom fields, we will use these to combine the two fields later on.

Update each field to include id="lastName" and id="firstName" after the name value. These aren't normally required but will be used to refer to our fields in the following Java Script. Here's what the custom fields should look like:

<label for="form_field_2_4">First Name</label>
<input
  class="form-control required"
  name="{{ form_builder.fields.properties.form_field_2_4.name }}"
  type="text"
  id="firstName"
/>
<label for="form_field_2_5">Last Name</label>
<input
  class="form-control required"
  name="{{ form_builder.fields.properties.form_field_2_5.name }}"
  type="text"
  id="lastName"
/>

Step 5) Change the Form Submit Behaviour to Run a New Data Normalisation Function First

Next, we must look at the submit button. Normally it uses the onClick attribute to fire Siteglide's form submit function- but we want it to wait until we've handled the name fields.

<button
  type="button"
  class="btn buttonAccent"
  onClick="s_form_submit_v2(this,'form_2')"
>
  Submit
</button>

So we switch it to run my handle_names(this) function instead, we'll also need to remove 'form_2' as this submits the form. The submit button should look like now:

<button
  type="button" 
  class="btn buttonAccent" 
  onClick="handle_names(this)"
>
  Submit
</button>

Step 6) Define the handleNames() function in JavaScript

Lastly we must combine both the fields by adding some Java Script below all of our form fields. This will run the user clicks the "Submit" button, it combines the firstName and lastName fields before submitting the form!

<script>
  function handle_names(element) {
    //Store a variable for each field's value
    var firstName = document.querySelector("#firstName").value;
    var lastName = document.querySelector("#lastName").value;
    //The full name must go in this element
    var fullNameElement = document.querySelector("#s_name");
    //Build the full name by adding both names- with a space between
    var fullName = firstName+" "+lastName;
    //Place the full name in the correct field.
    fullNameElement.value = fullName;
    //Now submit the form.
    var contact_form_submit_element = document.querySelector("#contactFormSubmit");
    s_form_submit_v2(element,'form_1');
  }
</script>

That's everything!

Your form will store the first name and last name within the appropriate fields, but it will also store full name in the required system field.