com_connect - form and contact mailer

Joey · 2022-03-01 17:36:10

Hi all, quite some time back that I visit the forum again. We have some complaints about spam received through our web forms. Having a bit of trouble to find answer to my question if there are currently any up-to-date plugins that should be used together with com_connect to prevent spam, like implementing reCAPTCHA or askimet. Thanks a lot for your advice.

jakob · 2022-03-01 18:19:21

Hi Joey,

If you’re interested in implementing reCAPTCHA, and are not averse to the tracking implications it entails, there’s ext_captcha – see this post for more details.

Otherwise, you can ban by spam patterns using ext_com_connect_verify as shown in this post. Yiannis has packaged that up in a plugin here and has a corresponding email spam pattern list here. His version focuses on the email field.

If it’s not emails you want to filter out, you can easily change $emailField in that plugin to be another of your inputs (it should match your input/textarea’s name attribute). I’ve done this to create a spam pattern list of keyword filters for the message and it was quite effective. Of course, you have to keep updating it when new kinds of spam arrives but it’s fairly straightforward. It helps if you know a little regex, and regex101.com is a great help for that.

Otherwise, this was something I was talking to bloke about, specifically bringing in some filters from rah_comment_spam like minimum post time. Maybe there are other people interested in co-funding it?

Dragondz · 2022-03-01 20:35:02

Hi joey

Have you tryed pap_contact_cleaner ?

Cheers.

Kjeld · 2022-03-02 07:40:14

jakob wrote #332861:

Hi Joey,

If you’re interested in implementing reCAPTCHA, and are not averse to the tracking implications it entails, there’s ext_captcha – see this post for more details.

Otherwise, you can ban by spam patterns using ext_com_connect_verify as shown in this post. Yiannis has packaged that up in a plugin here and has a corresponding email spam pattern list here. His version focuses on the email field.

If it’s not emails you want to filter out, you can easily change $emailField in that plugin to be another of your inputs (it should match your input/textarea’s name attribute). I’ve done this to create a spam pattern list of keyword filters for the message and it was quite effective. Of course, you have to keep updating it when new kinds of spam arrives but it’s fairly straightforward. It helps if you know a little regex, and regex101.com is a great help for that.

Otherwise, this was something I was talking to bloke about, specifically bringing in some filters from rah_comment_spam like minimum post time. Maybe there are other people interested in co-funding it?

Julian, concerning minimum post time and other strategies, are you familiar with this?

jakob · 2022-03-02 09:01:10

Dragondz wrote #332862:

Have you tryed pap_contact_cleaner ?

Of course I neglected to mention the most obvious one 🙄. Thanks for adding that.

There’s an updated version of that for use with com_connect called pap_comconnect (plugin version here courtesy of Yiannis). It worked for me well for a while but recently it has failed to stop a lot of spam.

Kjeld wrote #332863:

Julian, concerning minimum post time and other strategies, are you familiar with this?

An interesting link with a promising-sounding technique. Thanks for posting that.

rah_comment_spam basically discards any form that has been filled out too quickly, so is simpler in comparison. I’m not sure how wise spam bots are to this but maybe that on its own helps a lot.

The method described in the link provides a false form destination in the source and omits a required form component, only correcting the destination and adding the required element via javascript after a user actively interacts with the form (plus a time delay). Sounds clever and certainly more effective than the honeypot fields in pap_comconnect.

I’d love to hear how well this can be integrated with com_connect because it looks to me as if one would have to misconfigure the com_connect form deliberately and then reconfigure it afterwards. Not sure if that interferes with com_connects own validation routines.

phiw13 · 2022-03-02 09:55:40

jakob wrote #332864:

An interesting link with a promising-sounding technique. Thanks for posting that.

The method described in the link provides a false form destination in the source and omits a required form component, only correcting the destination and adding the required element via javascript after a user actively interacts with the form (plus a time delay). Sounds clever and certainly more effective than the honeypot fields in pap_comconnect.

“Sound clever”… does some work here.

How well would this work for people using Jaws, VoiceOver, or any kind of assistive technology, etc? Reading your description and speed reading the link provided by Kjeld, I am not sure it is all that inclusive.

Joey · 2022-03-02 19:55:49

Hi all, thanks a lot for your quick replies! :)

Indeed, pap_comconnect I had installed before but was missing now. Reinstalled it and works like a charm.

Also tried to install ext_captcha with hCaptcha. It shows correctly on the form but if I submit without filling it in I just got the page returned without the form or any warning. If I do fill in the hCaptcha, it removes the contact form from the page and only shows “Array”. Any idea how to debug?

Gallex · 2022-03-27 07:51:50

hi!
doesn’t show comma in a textarea label, is it normal?
in a form – meeldis, mida on a page – meeldismida
here

phiw13 · 2022-03-28 04:11:57

Gallex wrote #333015:

doesn’t show comma in a textarea label, is it normal?
in a form – meeldis, mida on a page – meeldismida

That seems to work fine here. Textpattern 4.8.8, PHP 8.1 and com_connect 4.7.0.

<txp:com_connect_textarea label="Leave your message here, thank you"  class=""  name="message" break=""  />

Gallex · 2022-03-28 06:48:10

phiw13 wrote #333016:

That seems to work fine here. Textpattern 4.8.8, PHP 8.1 and com_connect 4.7.0.

<txp:com_connect_textarea label="Leave your message here, thank you" class="" name="message" break="" />...

inserted your line into code and same happens

what could be wrong here?

<txp:com_connect to="milla@kylavilla.ee" from="milla@kylavilla.ee" label="Tagasiside" subject="Tagasiside Küla Villa kodulehelt" thanks="Teie sõnum on edastatud, aitäh! Your message has been sent, thank You!" redirect="various/taname" lang="en-gb">
<txp:com_connect_text label="Kuidas hindaksite meie teenuse kvaliteeti? (1-5)" required="1" break="" />
<txp:com_connect_textarea cols="25" rows="5" required="0" label="Mis meeldis, mida saame paremini teha?" break="" />
<txp:com_connect_textarea label="Leave your message here, thank you"  class=""  name="message" break=""  />
<txp:com_connect_submit label="Saada" />
</txp:com_connect>

inserted comma into other form i have on that site and same problem – doesn’t like commas

Textpattern 4.8.8, PHP 7.4.28 and com_connect 4.6.0

EDIT: updated plugin to 4.7 and problem is gone! ;)

Last edited by Gallex (2022-03-28 06:53:02)

phiw13 · 2022-03-28 06:53:18

Gallex wrote #333017:

what could be wrong here?

Textpattern 4.8.8, PHP 7.4.28 and com_connect 4.6.0

Guesswork. The com_connect version maybe? I use 4.7.0, you have 4.6.0. Or else the PHP version? (com_connect 4.7.0 is available here)

hidalgo · 2022-05-22 02:47:41

Hello, I’m still running into the ‘From’ PHP 8 header encoding issue as reported here, but this time with com_connect.

The email received in Apple Mail has a broken from name and address as follows:

com_connect <from@example.com Reply-To: to@example.com X-Mailer: Textpattern X-Originating-IP: ###.###.###.### via ###.###.###.### Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“UTF-8”>

(Textpattern version: 4.8.8, PHP version: 8.0.19, com_connect-4.7.0)

Switching PHP back to 7.4 results in the correct from name and address:

From Name <from@example.com>

Also, ext_file_attach arrives as a multipart message in PHP 8, I’m not sure if these are all related.

Thanks for taking a look.

Last edited by hidalgo (2022-05-22 02:50:06)

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#349 2022-03-01 17:36:10

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#350 2022-03-01 18:19:21

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#351 2022-03-01 20:35:02

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#352 2022-03-02 07:40:14

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

jakob wrote #332861:

#353 2022-03-02 09:01:10

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Dragondz wrote #332862:

Kjeld wrote #332863:

#354 2022-03-02 09:55:40

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

jakob wrote #332864:

#355 2022-03-02 19:55:49

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#356 2022-03-27 07:51:50

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#357 2022-03-28 04:11:57

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Gallex wrote #333015:

#358 2022-03-28 06:48:10

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

phiw13 wrote #333016:

#359 2022-03-28 06:53:18

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Gallex wrote #333017:

#360 2022-05-22 02:47:41

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

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