SharePoint Lists and Forms

Question

For those using SharePoint or MOSS 2007 specifically. How do you handle forms? Like say you want a form that submits contact information. I don't have this in production yet but I'm currently creating a list for the form that I need and then modifying the list add item form as needed. I'm not sure how this will translate to a public anonymous user environment. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Curtis Shirley

Answer 1

Forms can be anything from custom lists (lists with your own fields added), custom ASPX pages (ASP.NET development), to InfoPath Forms Services (MOSS Enterprise only).

With lists you can also create your own new and edit forms if you don't like the out-of-the-box look/feel (SharePoint Designer can help you with this).

If you want to prevent spam with anonymous users, I recommend a CAPTCHA approach. Here are 3 to look at (we have implemented the first one recently):

• http://nanddeepnachan.blogspot.com/2008/06/captcha-for-sharepoint-blog.html
• http://blogs.msdn.com/pranab/archive/2008/12/09/sharepoint-2007-moos-wss-custom-captcha-antispam-field.aspx
• http://captcha.biz/doc/asp.net/2.0/asp.net-captcha-sharepoint.html

Answer 2

The issue is really tricky. For a public facing site that must handle spam and usability, it may be best to code a custom form. It is not a major to host a custom form in SharePoint and there is information on getting code behind to work nicely.

Now that I think about it, the Community Kit for SharePoint has had to solve some of the issues for comments on blog posts.